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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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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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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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King

Welcome back to Ask a Beta Tester, where we answer your questions about the Wrath of the Lich King beta! We had quite a few questions regarding the multi-passenger mounts coming in Wrath, so we’ll mostly focus on those. That’s not all we have today, but most of it. Our first question is from JPN…

What does the tooltip mean for the Traveler’s Tundra Mammoth where it says it carries vendors?

It means just that! It comes with two vendors. One sells reagents (including poisons) and the other sell trade supplies, like thread and parchment. The trade supplies vendor also sells some statless fashion clothing.

If you’re not using the vendors and want to let your buddies hop on, there will be an Eject button to throw the vendors off and make room for your friends. And yes, only people in your party or raid can get on your vehicles. No random strangers will be jumping on your mammoth or motorcycle.

Continue reading Ask a Beta Tester: Multi-passenger mounts and Enchanting

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Tips, Tricks, How-tos, AddOns, Features, AddOn Spotlight, Guides

The new Recruit-A-Friend program has taken the World of Warcraft community by storm, perhaps more so in the dual- and multi-boxing circles. I’ll admit that while I advocate enjoying the leveling process and experiencing the lore through quests and in-game events, once you’ve hit 70 a couple of times, the magic tends to wane. With the coming of Wrath of the Lich King, we’ve had some time to re-evaluate our WoW experience. For many of us, finishing up some alts has become a way to prepare for the expansion. I’ve had a number of alts since I started playing, but have only managed to ding two paladins and a rogue. Each time I play in a battleground I see a member of another class do something crazy cool and ponder rolling whatever class it is.

With the RAF program in full effect, I decided that dual-boxing with the 300% XP and Summon Friend ability would be the most efficient way to get my alts Wrath-ready. This How-To is specifically for players using Macs, but in essence many of the principles remain true for PC users.

Continue reading Addon Spotlight: Mac Dual-boxing

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Filed under: Wrath of the Lich King, Achievements

Like most Wrath beta patches, build 8962 comes packing new achievements. This patch doesn’t have a massive list like some previous builds, but what it does have is pretty cool:

• Leading the Cavalry – Obtain 75 mounts, be rewarded with an Albino Drake.
• For the Alliance! – Slay the leaders of the Horde, be rewarded with a Black War Bear.
• For the Horde! – Slay the leaders of the Alliance, be rewarded with a Black War Bear.
• Glory of the Hero – Complete all of the Heroic Dungeon achievements, be rewarded with a Red Proto-Drake.
• Glory of the Raider – Complete the Normal Difficulty raid achievements, be rewarded with a Plagued Proto-Drake.
• Heroic: Glory of the Raider – Complete the Heroic Difficulty raid achievements, be rewarded wtih a Black Proto-Drake.
• What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been – Complete the World Event achievements, be rewarded with a Violet Proto-Drake. (Note: World events means holidays here, like Brewfest, not things like the Ahn’qiraj gate event.)

The rewards are definitely the most noteworthy part of this. Wrath of the Lich King is introducing a ton of new mounts, so it won’t surprise me to see massive diversity in what people are using after the expansion has been out for awhile. There are plenty that come from things other than Achievements as well, but we’ll get to those later.

[ via MMO-Champion ]

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Filed under: News items, Expansions, Wrath of the Lich King

As much as some Blizzard reps might have wanted to play coy on the official forums, the official World of Warcraft site leaked a link to Pre-order Wrath of the Lich King which will — according to the page — indeed come out on November 13, 2008. So while there has mysteriously been no big announcement on the Blizzard websites, this Pre-order page pretty much confirms what Wowhead and Thottbot unveiled earlier today.

Participating retailers include Amazon, Best Buy, Circuit City, and GameStop. Interestingly enough, all the official links except for Best Buy peg the official release at November 3, a date leaked out in earlier reports. GameStop words it as “ships in 11/03/08” which could mean that the games will reach retailers over a week before the official release date. [EDIT: Or yeah, it could be that they haven’t updated their sites yet. Good morning!] The details include both normal and Collector’s Edition versions of the game. The official Blizzard site has, as of this writing, now been updated to reflect the official release date with a splash page.

[UPDATE: GameStop has revised their release date to match the announced date of 11/13/08]

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