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Filed under: Druid, Hunter, Mage, Shaman, Herbalism, Alchemy, Engineering, Tailoring, Enchanting, First Aid, Analysis / Opinion, Tips, Economy, Expansions, Features, Classes, Making money, Enchants, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King, Inscription, Achievements

We have a lot of profession questions today, but also a few about Achievements, the Beast Mastery 51-point talent, and what happens when you push Death Knights off a cliff:

Riley asks…

How is the Shaman Hex ability working? Does the target still have control of movement and does the PvP trinket work against it?

Hex is a the crowd-control spell for Shamans referenced by the devs at the class panel here, and it’s been tinkered with a lot since we first heard about it. It was originally meant to be more of an emergency-only, short-duration CC. In its present form, Hex’s duration has been increased to 30 seconds and it doesn’t necessarily break on damage. However, in PvP the target can control where they go, the PvP trinket does work (you can also shapeshift out of it as a Druid), and it’s considered a curse and can be dispelled by Mages, Druids, and restoration Shamans (who will have the ability do dispel curses with a 31-point talent Cleanse Spirit). Think of it as a somewhat odd combination of Counterspell, Fear, and Polymorph.

Continue reading Ask a Beta Tester: It’s all about the money

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Filed under: Talents, BlizzCon, Rumors

In the midst of a mostly unrelated post about the Druid Balance tree, Ghostcrawler let slip the following: “The dual-spec feature will shine more light on talent design (more on that at Blizzcon) and we’ll have a better idea of what we want to do with trees when that goes live.” Now I don’t know about you all, but as someone who plays a healing class for a main, I am very interested in the dual spec idea. Knowing that we’ll get more information on it at Blizzcon, just a few days away, makes me a happy priest indeed.

But what could she mean by the dual-spec feature shining more light on talent design? It’s a slightly mysterious statement, but my interpretation is that when everybody can have two specs and switch between them either freely or at least cheaply, the load each spec needs to carry lessens. It’s OK if Holy can’t solo, because you can just switch to your Shadow spec for that. It’s not such a big deal if Combat isn’t as strong in PvP; just swap out to Assassination for the BG weekend, and swap back in time to raid. The trees no longer have to be strong in all areas of the game. But that’s just guesswork on my part; GC may well have meant something else entirely.

Either way, we’ll see in Anaheim this weekend, and WoW Insider will keep you posted with live reports.

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Filed under: Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King

38 days from now, Wrath of the Lich King will be released, and hundreds of thousands of people will be chomping at the bit to roll Death Knights, WoW‘s first new class. Blizzard knows this as well as anyone, so they’ve posted a FAQ on DK character creation. If you’ve been following the news for months, there is little new here, but it’s good as a recap, because these questions are, indeed, very frequently asked. So go on and brush up if you have questions about what races can be DKs (all of them), or whether you can make it the opposite faction of your existing characters (yes, unless you’re on a PvP server).

There is, though, one bit of news in this post. When Wrath launches, you will only be able to create a DK on a realm on which you have an existing character of level 55 or higher. Wryxian, that maverick crocolisk CM, promises that in the future, the option will be opened up to create a DK on any realm, provided you have at least one 55-or-higher character somewhere. The previous plan was to make this the rule at launch (55+ = DK on any realm).

The only reason I can think of that they would make this change is that they were having difficulties from a technical standpoint; maybe it’s non-trivial when trying to create a character on one realm to check that account’s characters on other realms. Anyway, I doubt this will affect anyone too much. I for one am certainly going to make a DK on my main realm before I branch out to realms that I don’t have any high-level characters on.

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Filed under: Mage, Analysis / Opinion, Tips, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Expansions, Buffs, Wrath of the Lich King

I don’t know how new this is but it’s news to me, and great news to Mages looking for more Polymorphing fun — reader Alassiel on Uldaman (thanks!) was poking around Dalaran in the beta, and in the Sisters Sorcerous shop, he found a new Polymorph spell, Black Cat, for… wait for it… 2500g. Yes, it’ll cost you more than twice a Gigantique bag, but if you’re looking for a new Poly spell and don’t want to muck around in the waters of ZG, there you go. And apparently Polymorph: Serpent is also occasionally sold by the same character for the same price.

Both spells seem to be level 60 spells, strangely enough (Update: Because, I learned in the comments, the highest rank of Polymorph is obtained at level 60), so if your 60 Mage has 5000g just sitting around or has a rich alt willing to pay the price, you could be using them then. WoWWiki also says the prices are rep-related, so if you do a little grinding for the Kirin Tor, you might be able to pick them up for cheaper. And don’t forget that this is Wrath — 2500g is likely only a few days of dailies anyway. Polymorph on!

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While my main character is an undead Holy Priest that is mostly a battleground healer, I did like having Fear Ward added along with Will of the Forsaken and a Trinket. While most battlegrounds are relatively quick, being immune to fear while healing a flag carrier or defender has been handy at times.

While I am not going to reroll to choose another race, and my devouring plague is being given to the unwashed masses and nerfed, it was refreshing to read another viewpoint on the issue.

Vonya at The Egotistical Priest talks about Priest Racials and raises some good points.

Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Events, Blizzard, Wrath of the Lich King

From the North, a cold wind blows, and brings with it Echoes of Doom. A king is ready, after all these years, to return to his people…

Blizzard has named the last content patch before Wrath of the Lich King — it’s “Echoes of Doom.” They’ve created a page for patch 3.0.2 in their Under Development section, and all of the features we’ve become familiar with over the past few months — from Inscription to two new Arenas (no mention yet of the new battleground, unless they just meant Wintergrasp) and lots of UI modifications — are listed right there as ready to go in with the new patch.

The page still seems like a placeholder, though, so expect to see it changed over the next two weeks or so — we’ll see more detailed patch notes, of course, near release, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see some information about the World Event that will likely kick off Wrath. “Echoes of Doom” — are you excited?

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While working on Qwaitxfive’s skinning, he was charged by a Raptor which stunned him. The animation on my machine left him in the stunned position as he slid along the ground. Until he went out of range and came back, his animation was stuck for a number of kills which was quite funny. This was just before he dinged level 26.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Realm Status, Blizzard, Expansions, Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Hardware

The Launcher “and its related tools” have gotten another upgrade today, even though the realms haven’t come up yet, which tells us that the Background Downloader probably has more work to do, which itself means that we probably won’t see 3.0.2 today. Not really a surprise — it’s early by anyone’s predictions for sure — but the Downloader has had a full patch out for a while, so the update is primed and almost ready.

Today’s downtime is all about hardware upgrades, apparently, so Blizzard is definitely gearing up for Wrath. We saw lots of hardware upgrades in the months before the Burning Crusade launch (people who were playing back then will remember all of the horrible queues and population issues before servers got expanded), and while Wrath probably won’t be as big a jump, Blizzard is still getting ready.

Which just leaves the question of when we’ll see patch 3.0.2. Considering the BC content patch came just about a month before release, we’re still looking for it in mid-October (likely after all the ruckus of BlizzCon has died down).

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What does it take to farm [item]7682[/item], [item]34227[/item], [item]6681[/item], the [item]3078[/item], the [item]6688[/item], the [item]9492[/item] and the [item]9449[/item].

Shaman:
* 27 runs for Torturing Poker, have not obtained Deadman’s hand after 8 runs.
* 24 instance resets, 5 runs for Whisperwind Headdress

Druid:
* 15 instance resets, 3 runs for Whisperwind Headdress
* 22 runs for Deadman’s Hand

Rogue:
* 1 run for Deadman’s Hand, 2 runs for Torturing Poker, 1 run for Naga’s Heartpiercer

Rogue:
* 12 runs for Naga’s Heartpiercer, 13 runs for Deadman’s Hand, 6 runs for Torturing Poker, 1 run for Thornspike

Farming SM as a Beast Mastery Hunter isn’t too bad. To minimize experience gains, we don’t do a full clear. Since we were doing these runs prior to 29, we didn’t have to do the master loot/corpse solution, resulting in most runs giving 300-600 exp. If you are farming items, do it early on. Do all of your discovery for any required quests as early as possible as well. One quest chain gave over 9100 exp in discovery experience.

To farm Scarlet Monastery Library as a non-AOE farmer, the tactic I use is to clear the first hall and let the twink enter the instance at that point. I then clear out the two humans to the left in the Cloister. Kill the guy across the hall, the two in the middle, the roaming pat, the person on the left, the two on the right. There’s a pat in the next hallway which I kill, the two in the middle, then, make that right turn, kill the one at the podium, the two in the center of the hallway and another pat. Kill the two healers before Doan’s room and you’re ready. I put my pet on passive, hit Doan with a shot and run to the beginning of the instance staying close to the walls and away from the other mobs. As you enter the Cloister (with the hound masters), stop in that corner and make sure he hits you once. You want to do this to either clear anyone following — the twink won’t get experience if they are standing right inside the instance, and, to make sure you don’t drag a houndmaster or two down the hall as Doan will run straight through the Cloister to get to you. Pull him down the hallway, drop a trap, put my pet on aggressive and kill Doan. Once Doan dies, there are two pats that spawn right at the entrance. To keep minimal experience, you can command your pet to kill them which will result in 0 exp to the twink, or, dps them slowly enough to allow the twink to exit before they die. Without rest xp, each run results in about 600 exp for the twink. Since you can get into SM at level 20, you have plenty of time to farm Torturing Poker and Deadman’s hand before you get to a point where you need to worry about experience. To make waiting easier, do one full clear to allow the twink to get the Scarlet Key which allows them to camp in the SM Armory door safe from the mobs outside.

I generally do not loot mobs when doing these runs and they take about 5-7 minutes each time.

To farm for the Torturing Poker in SM Graveyard, this one is more a test of patience than anything else. There are 2 mobs in the hallway and you can pull Interrogator Vishas with one mob. Kill him, loot him, and pray. It is one of the more frustrating drops in the game because it takes less than two minutes to get to him and you will run into the instance reset limit very quickly.

The Whisperwind Headdress was an interesting one to farm. The quick way to do it with any class is to have the main go in, and clear the two mobs and the pat, clear to the left and stand right in front of the vine bridge and type /target earth in the chat area. If Earthcaller Halmgar is targeted, you need to go back near the entrance, and clear a path to the rare. Earthcaller Halmgar showed up about once in every four resets for me. Once you have the spawn, clear the first open room completely, your twink will aggro everything there. Clear the hallway, pass the two guards, clear the path, avoid Overlord Ramtusk unless you want the Tusken Helm. Clear the next mobs, get to the bridge, and, if you are a 70, you can have your twink come into that open room. With some Line of Sight manipulation around those pillars, you can pull Earthcaller and only 1 mob, drag them back to the open room and kill. Since the minimum level requirement is 15, some early planning can save a lot of hassle with the master loot/twink corpse run.

If you are after Thornspike, its a matter of clearing that lefthand path after the first hallway and killing Aggem Thorncurse. It has a very high drop rate and I’ve gotten it on every attempt.

If you are Horde, make sure you clear all the way through to Charlga Razorflank and kill him to get the ‘Small Scroll’ which allows you to start ‘An Unholy Alliance’. If you can use a mace, it is one of the few BC enchantable items you can get for the 29 bracket.

To run Gnomeregan, make sure you have the workshop key which drops off the Electrocutioner 6000. Take the twink in the back way which is a short clear to the Crowd Pummeler 9-60. Take the elevator down, clear the few mobs there, follow the path to the left and clear through to Mekgineer Thermaplug.

The Naga Heartpiercer drops in Blackrock Depths. This instance provides a bit of challenge as the twink will aggro quite a few mobs that patrol. Its a quick run to the turtle room, clearing out the Nagas on the path to the room. Clearing out the two Nagas on the beach will allow your twink to come into the room. Lady Sarevess does get separated from her guard, so, its possible to pull just her. Line of sight her around the wall to pull her into the room. She does a chain lightning which will hit your twink, so, be prepared for that.

All in all, farming the Instance Drops can be quite frustrating and requires quite a bit of patience. After the 20th run and 4 one hour delays between farming runs, having your main camped in an area that is someone inconvenient to do anything but wait, it gets frustrating. But, that first battleground you run where Deadman’s Hand procs is well worth it.

On Cho’gall, there are people that don’t have guildmates to run this for them and they charge 10G a run whether the item drops or not. Farming for Deadman’s hand used to run 100G or more on our realm until people started having to pay for runs, whether the item was received or not. Twinking can be quite expensive, but, in the end, it would be great to see the look on your rival’s face when be gets frozen in place after hitting you.

Short of questing all the way to 19 or 29, after making several twinks and helping friends make twinks, unless you need particular gear from a quest, boosting through an instance is the quickest way to level a twink. While I enjoy the questlines and gameplay, in terms of actual time spent, once you can pull a twink through instances, its faster to have a higher level toon boost you through an instance.

Your twink’s aggro radius will be substantial, but, you really only need to be close enough to see the person on the minimap to get the experience. Pay attention to your combat log and screen to ensure you are getting the experience, but, stay far enough from the higher level player pulling you through that you don’t aggro mobs and die accidentally.

Another trick if you’re leveling a number of toons is to make a pair of [item]6835[/item] and put [item]29534[/item] or [item]29536[/item] on them. Even with the armor kit, the Tuxedo Pants don’t become soulbound, so, you can trade it among your alts or guildmates for leveling alts a little more quickly.