Scourge invasion in Stormwind and Undercity

While it's not something new exactly, it seems a lot of people haven't quite seen it happen yet. Along with the Scourge Invasion in places like the Burning Steppes, Azshara, and other points around the world, the invasion has hit some of the capital cities. Every now and then a strike team of Scourge, a Pallid Horror and Flameshockers, will spawn in a capital city and start attacking nearby guards and NPCs. When defeated, they'll leave behind a broken Necrotic Crystal which will have a quest for you.

This is something exclusive to the invasion, but it's not something that just started happening today, and not the next step/phase of the event. A lot of people are under the impression that it is simply because it happens so infrequently. It really is rather cool when it happens, though. The first time I saw it was back in 2006 when this event happened the first time. Since I roleplay when I'm not raiding, I was sitting in the Cathedral of Light in Stormwind just yapping away with some people. The Scourge actually spawn in the 'basement' of the Cathedral, so my first experience with them was seeing them rise up out of the catacombs. Freaky? I think so!

Zombies are bad for the economy

It's a good thing the zombies are going away now, isn't it? For the past few days, I noticed -- or rather my money-making wife noticed -- that the undead throng was badly tanking Azerothian commerce. The reason is that a lot of players' bankers and Auction House entrepreneurs are low-level alts that succumbed easily to the plague and random zombie attacks. When a Level 65 city guard turned into a zombie, it would naturally aggro the low-level bank mules and auction house regulars, killing them instantly. It didn't help that most players-turned-minions-of-the-Scourge usually targeted the Banks and Auction Houses for infection. Actually, we even recommended it as the best course of action as a (not so) mindless ghoul.

When the disease grew potent enough to transform anyone it infected within a minute, it became practically impossible to accomplish anything. Especially not with Argent Healers calling for a hasty retreat. Entire cities -- or key areas of cities -- were quickly transformed into ghoulish carnivals and it was simply too bothersome to do any business. As a result, players couldn't put anything up on the Auction House nor could anyone buy anything, either, slowing commerce to a crawl. My wife's daily Auction House profits of upwards 500 Gold dwindled down to nary a copper with her alt being unable to collect from the mailbox, move stuff from the bank, or scan the Auction House, as she died istantly to roving zombies.

What's next in store for us? Did Blizzard really cave in to the demands of players who felt that the World Event disrupted their normal routine too much? Or is there something more devious waiting in the wings? I know my wife was so upset by being unable to conduct her business that she decided to hold off from logging in at least until the event died down. Now that the zombie infestation seems to be under control, perhaps business will pick up again. Or maybe not, depending on what Blizzard has prepared for Azeroth. One thing's for sure, these Dawn of the Dead-type events certainly take a bite out of the economy.

Zombie infection down to 1 minute

After you kill a zombie infect player, creature, or NPC you'll become infected the plague that turns you into zombie. This plague now only takes one minute to increase your brain eating needs to epic levels.

Does this mean phase five is about to being? Update: Yes, it appears phase 5 is beginning.

We can't tell just yet, but we're all on the lookout for it. Phase 4 has brought lots of new rewards, events, and other fun things. Keep your eyes peeled, and if you see anything drop us a tip on our tip line!

WotLK Beta Build 9138 Profession changes

First in the Fishing department, casting times of items which attach to your fishing pole have been lowered from 5 seconds to 2 seconds. While this might not seem like a big deal, people who fish for a few hours a week for farming materials will now have a few minutes shaved off their daily grinding.

In the Alchemy department the Elixir of Shadow power, Elixir of Fire Power, and the Arcane Elixir all now last 1 hour, instead of 30 minutes.

Finally, the enchantments of Massacre (increase AP by 110), Greater Savagery (increase AP by 85), and Scouragebane (increase AP by 140 against Undead) have all been changed to apply to 2H weapons only. There have been some previous times in the beta where I've seen some folks running around with Massacre on both 1H weapons. Looks like that won't be an option anymore.

For those interested, the images are of potions from a Manaprincess giveaway we ran earlier this year.

Wotlk:Zombie Explosion

By now you must know that it is inevitable. The zombies are here and they are growing in number. In time, you too shall become one of the Scourge, and Azeroth shall feel the icy tendrils of the Lich King's will. There are quite a number of ways to serve the Lich King, but by far the most insidious and shows the most loyalty is the self-sacrifice of a minion to Zombie Explosion!. If you are but to do one thing for the Lord Arthas, it is this. Explode and infect the world around you.

It's important to know that You're Infected!, the disease that turns unwitting players into subservient members of the Scourge, now has a 2 1 minute duration. This is a mere fifth tenth of the original duration and gives players very little time to rid themselves of the infection. The radius of Zombie Explosion! has also been increased greatly, allowing you, for example, to explode inside Orgrimmar's Auction House and infecting everyone inside it. Use this spell in Auction Houses, Banks, and in front of heavily crowded Mailboxes for optimum effect.

The best way to wreak as much havoc is to quietly get infected (you can kill a Plagued Roach or click on a Conspicuous Crate), and situate yourself in a densely populated area. Some players will try to rid you of the disease, so be wary of Priests, Paladins, and Shamans. The moment you turn, start casting Zombie Explosion!. Don't bother with anything else. It is a four second cast spell, with pushback extending that to five, so you must try to get it off as quickly as possible. There is nothing subtle about this ability... it is simple, it is devious, and best of all, you explode in a symphony of rotting body parts and noxious green gas. All hail the Lich King!

Wotlk:Something's gone terribly wrong

So, having fun yet? I know I am. The changes to the class are great and I don't think I've had a more enjoyable time playing the game. Of course, it has a lot to do with the new, cool stuff brought about by Patch 3.0.2, most notably the Achievements system. I know I complained about them, but I'm really enjoying them, particularly the PvP ones. It's a good time to be a Paladin. Actually, it's a little too good.

The truth is, something's wrong with Retribution. There, I said it. I'm embarrassed to say it because I'm supposed to be celebrating it. I've waited for Retribution to be viable for so long that when the time finally arrives, I'm disgusted at myself for not being happy about it. Well, I'm really happy. But not happy about the fact that very nearly every Paladin is now specced Retribution. I'm certainly not happy about the fact that even undergeared Retribution Paladins are blowing things up in the Battlegrounds left and right. When a Retribution Paladin in blues can burst down a player with over 400 Resilience with some RNG -- and I've seen this happen -- there's something terribly wrong.

The problem
I hate to break it to you Retribution Paladins who suddenly find themselves dominating the Battlegrounds and getting Damage Control within the first five minutes -- you didn't just become good at PvP overnight. Really. When you crush that Season 4 Warrior with your Season 2 mace, it's not (necessarily) because you're awesome. If you suddenly find that other players -- well, other players who aren't Retadins, that is -- turn and run at the sight of you, trust me when I say it's not because of your Crusader's Scaled Shoulders, and certainly isn't your Oathkeeper.

Divine Storm being nerfed to deal Physical damage is a band-aid solution to a bigger issue. I'd prefer that it be Holy damage, but right now Retribution burst is being tuned down for PvP. At least Battleground PvP. In Arenas, a Retribution Paladin is still going to get kited because it's a coordinated PvP environment. And Paladins are still an incredibly kite-susceptible class. In the Battlegrounds, where chaos is the order of the day, a Retadin can wreak havoc because of unmitigated, imbalanced burst. I'm upset because it feels like it doesn't take any skill to play anymore.

Nowadays, when a Retadin tops the Battleground chart for Killing Blows or Damage Done, it's no longer something remarkable. In fact, it's kind of expected and boring. When I file screenshots of good games now, I have to put it in a folder with the asterisk *post Patch 3.0.2 just to remind me that it might not be because I played well but because the spec is simply too good at Level 70. That's the thing -- everything is tuned for Level 80 right now. All the 51-point abilities, in particular, are envisioned for a Level 80 environment.

The same goes for my damage in raids. Before Echoes of Doom, whenever I'd get into the Top 5 it was because I knew I was paying attention to my rotations. The only way I would do well was with a lot of hard work. I would throw Seal of Blood up exactly between my melee swing timer. I took my Haste Potions exactly when Avenging Wrath and Bloodlust Brooch were both up. It felt good because I knew I was working hard and making a point. Now, I'm not so sure. I work just as hard, but I don't know if I'm doing well or it's the spec.

It's like when Michael Schumacher used to win in Formula 1, critics used to accuse him of driving the best car. Or MotoGP's Valentino Rossi when he used to race and win on Honda, prompting him to switch to the unproven Yamaha just to shut his detractors up. I know motor sports probably aren't the best analogy for this, but you know what I mean. I just don't want people to think we're dominating Battlegrounds and topping Recount just because our spec is godly. As Blizzard says -- bring the player not the class, or in this case, spec.

The problematic solution
Of course, Blizzard will bring out the nerf bat. I know it feels like a kneejerk reaction, specially when players run to the forums crying with their tails between their legs. And many of them don't bother to mention that they got wtfpwned while wearing scrub gear. I trust in Blizzard to check their numbers, but the response frightens me. In Beta build 9138, Paladins got nerfed to the ground. And when I say 'to the ground', I mean insanely, ridiculously, soul-crushingly nerfed. The sad thing is, I'm not sure it actually solves the problem.

For one thing, the nerfs are applied across the board, reducing the damage done by all Seals, not just Seal of Command or Blood / of the Martyr. This means that all Paladins of every spec will be affected by the change. Holy Paladins are already hurting on the damage end, and this nerf reduces their damage output even more. Blizzard has been tuning Seal damage downwards for several Beta builds now, and Holy Paladins keep hurting because of it. The Holy spec has been crying out for a bone to be thrown its way with respect to this.

Another problem about reducing Retribution burst is that it doesn't address our old issues in PvP. The only way Retribution kills healers these days is because of sudden burst. In Arenas, this doesn't work as well because there's coordinated mitigation and healing. Reducing Retribution DPS brings damage output to manageable levels but will bring kitability and spell interruption back into question. Hand of Freedom hasn't been un-nerfed ever since the kneejerk reaction from Season 1. I don't care what Blizzard says about this one. The nerf to Blessing of Freedom was as kneejerk as they come, with Paladin representation in Arenas declining sharply in the following three Seasons.

Paladins still don't have a reliable interrupt on an acceptable cooldown. With damage scaled back down, Paladins will again be unable to kill healers just like in The Burning Crusade. While I don't believe that the ability to instagib healers was the solution, nerfing Retribution damage only reveals that Blizzard still hasn't addressed core issues of the class or spec. We're extremely kitable and without any offensive dispels, we have problems with spell interrupts. The best solution is to take 18 points in Protection for Improved Hammer of Justice and the 4-piece bonus from PvP sets. And that's just a band-aid.

Judgements of the Wise was nerfed to a 15% return of base mana from 33%. The good news is, Judgements cost only 5% of base mana. This means that Retribution Paladins will run out of mana at some point, but judicious (pardon the pun) use of Judgements will allow us to stretch our resources. In PvE, this will work out just fine, combined with Replenishment and the occasional potion. In PvP, it becomes a problem against drain mechanics -- another key weakness of the spec that will rear its ugly head once more. We'll see. I have to see it at work in Arenas (where it used to be a problem) before I can actually say whether or not this breaks the talent for PvP.

The only change I really like is the change to Righteous Vengeance, which will apply periodic damage with every Judgement or Divine Storm crit instead of bigger damage up front. The effective DPS is the same, just no longer as bursty. I like it because we get a DoT without being forced to use Seal of Vengance / Corruption. This will be more useful to us in PvP than the burst.

Bust up burst, but address the rest
I actually support Blizzard in their effort to scale down the class. I don't believe it's some conspiracy theory to make Retadins the laughing stocks of the game once again. At this point, I just want the issues that have always plagued the spec -- particularly in PvP, which Blizzard seems to want to fix -- eventually addressed, as well. With no healing debuff or spell interrupt, a Druid's HoT ticking for crazy amounts will render Retribution DPS negligible.

We'll still be kited to hell, with no means to close the gap like an Intercept or Sprint. We're the one melee class without a real snare, and we're the ones with no ranged abilities. Toughness and Pursuit of Justice are not the solutions, either. In Wrath of the Lich King, Death Knights will be pulling things left and right while we will be panting across the Arena floor trying to catch up with our targets. It happened in Arenas during The Burning Crusade, and it'll happen again in Wrath.

Lastly, I wish Blizzard would take a look at Holy DPS. If they're wondering why everybody and his uncle is now a Retribution Paladin, it isn't because players hate healing. It's because Holy is extremely unsatisfying to play offensively. With the nerf to Seals across the board, this frustration will grow even further. Protection Paladins are delirious with their damage now, it shouldn't be a surprise to them that Holy Paladins sometimes want to kill things, too.

Overall, I'm happy with the class. I think Blizzard's done a great job listening to the community so far. Obviously, there's just some more work that needs to be done. As terrible as these nerfs may sound, I don't think these were done without deliberation. If the nerfs actually make it live, we'll all just have to grin and bear it, and always keep our fingers crossed.

Tenris Mirkblood strategy guide

With phase 4 of the zombie invasion going on we've now got a new boss in Karazhan to deal with: Tenris Mirkblood. He's tuned towards a 10-man group of Karazhan geared players, and can be pretty easily brute forced by a group of folks in Sunwell gear. We first heard about the possibility of Tenris earlier this week.

Let's take a look at how to get to him, his abilities, and some simple strategy to defeat him.

Before You Go

Get the quest "Chamber of Secrets" from an Argent Dawn Emissary. There's one in Light's Hope Chapel in Eastern Plague Lands, and there are a couple in the capital cities. This quest can be shared with other raid members. After you've defeated Tenris you can pick up the quest item from his room to complete quest. Return the quest to either Light's Hope Chapel or the NPC you picked it up from.

How To Reach Tenris Mirkblood

Go into Karazhan and clear up to Attumen. Go up the stairs in the back of Attumen's room, right around where the repair guy is. You'll have to clear several sets of mobs. If you are in T5 gear or below, take your time. Most mobs are grouped up in packs of three to five. There are also a few roaming packs that you'll need to watch out for.

At the top of the stairs you can go right or left. While both will eventually take you to Tenris, going right is the quickest. Clear the rest of the mobs until you come to Mirkblood's door. Be sure to clear any mobs around the area that might be patting back and forth.

Do not open it until you are buffed up and ready to face him.

Tenris Mirkblood's Abilities

Blood Mirror – Damage suffered is shared with whomever is mirrored.
Sanguine Spirits – Evil red spirits that explode for around 6.5k to 10k damage, depending on gear.
He hits no harder than Attumen.

How To Kill Tenris Mirkblood

Have your tank open the door and engage Tenris. Drag him out into the hallway as far away from the raid group as you can. At this point let the tank get some good threat and start to DPS Tenris down. Two things are going to happen during the fight.

First, red spirits will appear. If you get close to one it will explode for around 6.5k damage. You'll want to avoid these. People are reporting that these spirits will grow in size and move towards people.

Second, Tenris will cast Blood Mirror. This spell will look like a gigantic red stream of blood flowing between Tenris and the person he casts it on. This person will take a large percentage of the damage done to Tenris as long as the spell is active, which is around 10 seconds. There are two things you can do to get around this. You can either heal the living daylights out of the person under the influence of the spell, or you can stop all DPS on Tenris. If you don't outgear the instance, stop all DPS while Blood Mirror is active. If you are special and have the abilities Feign Death, Vanish, Shadowmeld, Ice Block, or Bubble you can get of out Blood Mirror early.

After Blood Mirror is done you'll have a little bit of time to just do straight DPS on Tenris. The red spirits will continue to stack up, and most groups will find that you have to kite Tenris around a little bit to avoid getting swamped in the spirits.

Eventually he'll die, and you'll get some new loot!

Drops

• Arcanite Ripper – 2H Axe that also acts as a guitar. See the video above.
• Vampiric Batling – A bat pet, one drops for each member of the raid.
• Badge of Justice x2
  

That's it for this new world event boss. Be sure to check back on WoW Insider throughout the next few days and see all the latest info we have on the continuing world events leading up to the release of Wrath of the Lich King!

Disclaimer: This is a new boss and while we're pretty darn sure of the information contained in this post, we will update it with any new information we come across.

Arcanite Ripper ushers in World of Warcraft: Guitar Hero

You'll want to watch the video above. It's of the Arcanite Ripper, a new drop from the boss Tenris Mirkblood in Karazhan. Tenris has appeared as part of the world event leading up to the release of Wrath of the Lich King. The Arcanite Ripper is a throw back to the old Arcanite Reaper. Except this one has a cool new ability.

Right click on the Ripper, and you'll become a rocking out skeleton. You're a one man LVL70 Eelite Tauren Chieftain. With this little axe, World of Warcraft now becomes Guitar Hero.

The video above is a quick fraps I put together with my long time WoW friend Telanis. He's hanging out in Ironforge, getting his rock on.

And you better believe it baby, he's rockin' your socks off.

Prince Menethil's steed and the empty grave

The chaos of the plague has most everyone's attention right now, but the world event potentially brought something a little less easily noticed as well. Just off the road to the Scarlet Monastery, there's an old grave that appears to have recently been dug up. As far as I can tell, it has appeared on servers on either the 19th or 20th or October. It's possible it went in with patch 3.0.2, but if that's the case then nobody noticed it until a couple of days ago. I find that unlikely. Either way, if it did crop up on the 20th, that means it predates the plague by a few days, and may have actually been the kickoff of the whole thing.

So what is this grave? According to the gravestone, Prince Arthas Menethil's steed was buried here. The horse, named Invincible (which was apparently a lie), seems to have been dug up recently. By the Scourge, or by someone else? Probably the Scourge, but anything can happen. It's fantasy after all. Drunken Dwarves might have dug it up on accident thinking it was the skeletal remains of a Titan or some nonsense.

I look forward to seeing what comes out of this, because the words on the gravestone don't give much away. It's very short and sweet, telling you what's there and little more. I guess that makes sense, It's a gravestone/memorial and I doubt the Scourge would spraypaint "ARTHUS WUZ HERR" across the stone. If you want to see what's engraved upon it, just take a look behind the link below.

The Discipline raiding spec thoughts and review

Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of PlusHeal, a new healing community for all restorative classes. This week Matticus is going to try to shed some light on the Discipline spec in a raiding environment!

I'll admit it. I've been Holy my entire life. I'd only go Discipline just to have some fun in PvP on the weekends in order to grab myself some extra Arena points for PvP gear and what not. In the past, I did try to go all out Discipline because we had some many Priests. Variety is the spice of life right? As time went on, my Guild slowly started losing to Priests to real life until I was the only one remaining. The guild could not afford me to experiment any longer and I switched back to the comfort of Holy.

Over the past weekend, I had a chance to try out Discipline in full with the new spells and expanded tree on both live and beta servers. How did it go?

Black Temple is slowly being rotated out of schedule. We've started to devote our main raiding days to Sunwell (and I'm happy to say that we took down Kalecgos, Brutallus, and Felmyst over the past week since the nerf hit). Black Temple would now be held on off nights allowing social players and alts to have a crack at it. This meant I could switch out to an experimental spec. I opted for the 56/5/0 build which I suggested a few days ago.

Key Glyphs

I had to make sure I picked out the right Glyphs that would benefit me the most under this spec. The various Scribers in my guild were hard at work power leveling and several of them were at the point of almost maxing out.

Glyph of Power Word: Shield: Without a doubt, this Glyph was my first pick overall. The amount of emphasis that Discipline placed on casting Shields, it wouldn't hurt at all to snap this one up.

Glyph of Flash Heal: I figured this would be the next best Glyph to use to help ease up on mana issues. The main issue here is lack of selection on Major Glyphs. I could've gone for the Glyph of Renew, but I realized that Renew would immediately get overwritten by the colossal amount of healing done by the other players. I would gain more from Flash Heal than Renew. This will be a different story at level 80. I'll definitely pick up the Renew glyph then (when the 3rd slot unlocks).

The Theory

From the talents and the spells now at my disposal, I quickly determined that I'm nothing more than a super single target healer. One lucky mage gets a Power Infusion (which is up every 1.6 minutes) as often as possible. The main key spells I would use most often is Flash Heal, Power Word: Shield, and Penance. I deliberately laid off the Renew (same reasons as I alluded to earlier) unless I felt it was absolutely necessary.

The Trial Run

So to make it interesting (and fast), we ran Black Temple on Saturday with 5 healers. Technically, we ran it with 4 healers since one of them was the master looter. I'm not trying to show off or anything. I just wanted to emphasize that I'm trying to stress myself and the other healers as much as possible. The side effect of having this many healers is that mobs simply died too fast. In the race between DPS and healer mana, DPS won by a wide margin.

I found that I ended up using Penance every possible chance I could (partially because it looks cool). Greater Heal was hardly ever used because Penance felt quicker. I noticed I did have to work with the cooldown of Penance and it's something I'm not used to. Otherwise I resorted to Flash Heal (because it's the cheapest heal I have). Mana didn't feel like an issue at all but that's most likely due to the fact that we blitzed these mobs down.

Here's the last question. I can just about hear it from everyone who wants to know.

Which is the better raid healing spec?

Honestly, the jury's still out on this one. I'm inconclusive at this point. I can see how well Discipline can work. The potential is there. There's a few things holding me back from providing a solid opinion.

1. Level 70 raiding is not an accurate measure. It's not. With all the instance nerfs, I can't tell false positives from positives (wait, does that even make sense?). At level 80, the raids didn't last long enough for me to get a feel for it. Most of the raids I participated in had leaders who requested me to respec to Holy. When I went Discipline, raids started to randomly fall apart. Sigh.
2. Gear is not optimal yet. A big difference between the gear we have now at level 70 compared to the gear at level 80 is the lack of crit. Yes, I know, level 80 gear is way different. On beta, my Priest has a whopping ~24% crit (which is pretty high for a Priest). Right now I'm barely pushing 12%. In other words, I'm testing level 80 specs in level 70 raiding situations without level 80 gear. I need to be at 80, actually in Naxx with the appropriate amount of gear. You'd be surprised. A lot of the cloth gear at that level has crit stuff littered all over the place.
With the way buffs are now (raid wide) and among some of the other various changes since the patch, Blizzard appears to be trying to provide the player with the choice of what they want to bring to the encounter instead of what the encounter requires the player to bring.

The Headless Horseman burned down my server

Happy Hallow's End, everyone! So it's been one week since the Echoes of Doom patch hit live servers. It's been a lot of fun playing around with all the news toys, if you can actually log on. Servers have been unstable across the world, and even those that allow people on have been having tons of problems. My own server has been hitting the instance limit, disallowing the creation of new dungeons, thus preventing people from holding raids. Some people are unable to log on to certain characters on their account. It's a bit of a mess in some quarters.

With the downtime from 5 AM - 11 AM PDT this morning, we can hope that a solution is forthcoming. It's not quite enough to apply a new patch, but hopefully Blizzard is using this downtime as an opportunity to kick start the servers a little bit.

Still, once you get past the server problems, this patch has been pretty enjoyable for the most part, although some people are starting to think it may be a bit too easy. If you're still getting into the swing of the patch, this is the perfect time to browse WoW Insider and check out all of our guides and information about the new features in the 3.0.2 patch. Here's some highlights of the past week's news from the patch and beyond:
The Basics of 3.0.2

• Still trying to get your addons up to date for 3.0.2? Check our guide to find some of the most essential ones.
• If you're still not completely sure about the new stat consolidation, check out our primer on unified spellpower.
• If you're still not completely sure what exactly glyphs are for or how to use them, check out our quick guide to glyphs.
• If you're wondering where something went in game, it may have been taken out in 3.0.2.
• Are you a casual player? We discuss what the patch means to you, too.
• If you still have questions after all this, try our 3.0.2 FAQ.
• And just because BlizzCon is and always will be awesome, let's bid it one final fond farewell.


• While this isn't directly 3.0.2 related, you might also remember, as mentioned earlier, that it's Hallow's End time. We have guides to getting the most out of the holiday, including getting the new achievement-based "The Hallowed" title.
  
  3.0.2 Class guides
  


• Feral Druids, here's your guide.
• Restoration Druids, we have some tips for you too.
• Yeah, we even found someone to play a Moonkin long enough to figure out what it is they're good for. I kid, I kid. Love you, battlechicken dudes.
• We have a guide for Shadow Priests, as well as a talent build to try out.
• If you're more into priestly healing, we have a few builds for you to try out as well.
• For Warlocks, we have guides to all three talent trees.
• Holy Paladins, we give you tips on how to heal in 3.0.2. Tanking Paladins also have some nice new toys for us to discuss.
• Despite that whole "To the ground, baby" thing, Ret Paladins still have a lot to celebrate in 3.0.2.
• For Hunters, we have the new Beast Mastery pet series, as well as a guide on getting started as a Beastmastery Hunter, a guide on capturing and using exotic pets, and a guide to catching a moth as a lowbie Horde Hunter. Oh, and we have some nice buffs incoming from Wrath, too.
• For Shamans, we have a review of the new Enhancement tree, as well as some discussion on the Elemental tree.
• If you don't see your class or spec here, don't despair. Check your class category or the Echoes of Doom permapage. Chances are it was written last week or will be written soon.
  
  
  3.0.2 Achievement and Miscellaneous Guides
  


• Looking to start your achievement gaining quick and easy-like? See if you've gained all of these easy goals yet.
• If you're an in-game angler, there's a few easy achievements you can start on today, as soon as the servers come up, if they're stable.
• Even if you haven't fished too much, you can still go after Old Ironjaw.
• Check out some of the other tradeskill-based achievements as well.
• If you're more into the PvP side of achievements, check out our guide to getting some quick Warsong Gulch achievements.
• If you're a gatherer, you may have something extra to show for all that skinning or digging around in the dirt.
• If you're looking to start up Inscription, let's discuss the basics.
• With Wrath raising the bar on hardware, will your computer be ready?
  
  
  Odds and Ends


• Paid Character Customization could be on the horizon for WoW.
• What's coming in the next few patches? We have a few ideas.
• The BlizzCon bear also showed up game in patch 3.0.2.
• Here's a fun bug if you were cool enough to play a Gnome Rogue: Gnome Rogues on the Shadow Council spontaneously gained the ability to speak Draconic.
• Retribution Paladins are getting quite a few small tweaks. Unfortunately, not all of them are awesome.
• Are you planning to play a Death Knight right out the gate in Wrath? We look at if it's worth it to stop and grind the reputations along the way.
  

WotLK: Achievement System

Bornakk has posted an FAQ on the new Achievement system that players who have downloaded the new Patch 3.0.2 will now be testing out on the live realms!

Q: What is the achievement system?
A: The achievement system is a new feature in World of Warcraft (introduced in the Echoes of Doom patch) that allows players to track accomplishments and statistics of characters in all aspects of the game.

Q: How does the achievement system work?
A: You can browse all of the available achievements when you open the achievement window (the default key to do so is ‘Y’). Aside from Feats of Strength (see below), all achievements are visible, whether you have completed them or not. When you select an individual achievement, you will receive additional information on how to complete each one and how close you are to completing it. When you complete an achievement, a message will pop up on your screen specifying which achievement you earned. Players in the immediate vicinity and in your guild’s chat will also receive a message indicating what you’ve accomplished.

Q: Can I track how close I am to completing an achievement?
A: Yes. When you select an achievement, you will see a check box with the word “Track” in the lower left corner of the achievement description area. Check this box to display your progress in the quest tracker area.

Q: What are achievement points used for?
A: Achievement points are used to indicate how far a character has progressed into the achievement system.

Q: What are Feats of Strength? Why can’t I see a list of them?
A: Feats of Strength are special accomplishments that are either very challenging or no longer possible to complete in World of Warcraft. Some of these include old-world player-vs.-player ranks, certain rare mounts, and special titles. As such, we do not expect players to try to earn them, and they do not provide players with any achievement points.

Q: Why are certain dungeons not showing up as completed achievements when I know I did them but others are?
A: World of Warcraft was not originally designed with the achievement system in mind. While we were able to use specific items in a player’s inventory or completed quests to track and award some dungeon achievements retroactively, this was not always possible. As a result, some dungeons must be completed again to get the achievement.

Q: I play a lot of characters, so are there any achievements that will look at my whole account?
A: Not at this time, but we hope to add account-wide achievements in the future.

Q: Can I see my achievements on the Armory?
A: Not at this time, but we have plans to add these to the Armory in the future. We will provide more details when they become available.

Q: Will more achievements be added in the future?
A: Yes. We plan to build on this new feature and add more achievements in the future.

Q: What is the statistics tab in the achievements interface?
A: The statistics tab (located at the bottom of the achievement window) contains a wide variety of data on a character to help show the journey he or she has gone through in the game so far.

Wrath manual hidden in latest WoW files

If you just can't wait to read the Wrath of the Lich King manual, Maeglin of Khadgar made an interesting discovery -- it's already on your computer. Inside your World of Warcraft folder, if you go to the Data folder, and then "enUS" and Documentation, you'll see a PDF file called Manual_WLK. It's the Wrath manual in black and white -- there are good writeups in there (spoiler-free, as far as I could tell) on the story so far and Northrend, and some cool concept art for weapons and other sights of the next expansion. The credits are in there, too, and make sure to go to the very end to read all the thanks from Blizzard -- some of them are pretty funny.

This likely isn't the final manual -- there's something in the Death Knight description that still says runes can be customized, and while we heard that earlier in development, it's since been removed from the class. And it's in black and white, while we'd expect the full manual to have color when it's finally printed. But it's a cool find, and something to tide you over until you can get the real thing on release day (which, as you can see from our countdown, is growing ever closer).

WoW Patch 3.0.2 guide to Exotic Pets

If you're a hunter, you're probably pretty excited about the new talents we're getting in Patch 3.0.2, not the least of which is the new Beast Mastery talent, appropriately enough called Beast Mastery. It gives you 4 extra talent points, and enables you to tame "exotic" pets that would otherwise be beyond your reach. But which exotic pet is right for you? Where can they be tamed? Are they really better than the regular pets?

There are seven exotic pets in all, but only five of them are available to us now:

Chimaera

Core Hound

Devilsaur

Silithid

Worm

The Rhino and the Spirit Beast will only be available in Northrend once the expansion actually arrives next month. For now, we have the selection of exotic beasts that would become available to a level 60 hunter upon first clicking that 51st talent point, and reaching the pinnacle of his or her mastery of beasts. These pets are not necessarily set in stone, of course, and they will change a bit over the next month or so, though how much is still anyone's guess.

So what makes each of these pets special? Let's have a look.

Exotic Pets: Chimaera

Pronounced "kai-meh-ra," this mythical mish-mash of different animals has a Froststorm Breath ability, which does a bit of damage slows down your enemy by 50% for 5 seconds. Normally the cooldown is 10 seconds, which in itself isn't that bad, but with the Beast Mastery talent Longevity, you can shorten this to 7 seconds. Combined with well timed Concussive Shots, you could keep an enemy slowed to 50% speed for 12 out of every 14 seconds. That makes this pet one of your best bets kiting, and excellent for PvP: if melee types like rogues and warriors keep slowing you down with their hamstrings and crippling poisons, this beast is your revenge. It won't free you if you're snared, but it will snare them and give you some hope of escape. It's a Cunning pet, so it's extra mobile, and it can also help you recharge your mana in a fix, but it may not have some of the extra damage capabilities or survivability of Ferocity and Tenacity pets.

Check out BRK's video of a chimaera pet, have a look at Wowhead's chimaera gallery to see whether you prefer the Azerothian or Outland breeds, and then scan their list of tamable chimaeras to find the one nearest you, in many places, such as from Winterspring to Shadowmoon Valley.

If you're wondering what sort of normal pets have similar functionality, the next closest pet to the chimaera is the hyena, with Tendon Rip, which lasts 1 second more than the chimaera's ability, but has a 10-second longer cooldown.

Exotic Pets: Core hound

If casters are giving you trouble, then the core hound is the exotic pet for you. Their Lava Breath ability slows down the enemy's casting speed by 50% for 10 seconds. The cooldown is also ten seconds, so you don't even need the Longevity talent to keep this up all the time, which is especially nice for PvP also. Their Ferocity talents give them lots of extra damage and self-healing options as well.

The core hound is the pet with the loudest footsteps in the game -- their feet pound the earth so hard it even makes everyone's screens shake if they happen to be nearby. So if you're the kind of hunter who likes to announce to the entire world, "Here I am! Look at me! Right here!" then this is the pet for you; but if you want to be sneaky and avoid attention, then you ought to look elsewhere.

BRK loves core hounds lots. There are three types to choose from: red hot, green hot, and white wolf; found in Blackrock Mountain, Shadowmoon Valley, and Azuremyst Isle respectively.

If you want a non-exotic alternative to core hounds, you could consider the serpents and their Poison Spit ability, which is almost just as good as the core hound ability, and ranged too! You won't deafen people and shake their screens with a serpent, but you'll do the trick just as well, more or less, especially if you have Longevity. Serpents are Cunning pets though, so you it also depends on which talents you prefer.

Exotic Pets: Devilsaur

This big red dino is a great Ferocity pet with a specialty in sustainable damage over time. Its Monstrous Bite builds up over a period of 30 seconds to an additional 9% damage on all the devilsaur's attacks. If your battle is going to last 30 seconds or less, though, you're not going to get the full benefit of that, especially if, as in PvP, there may be breaks of a few seconds in which the Monstrous Bite buff is not being reapplied, then your devilsaur will have to start over again. This makes me think that the best utility for a devilsaur is in instances, particularly on long boss fights where it can just wail on a target from start to finish. Just be sure that your tank doesn't mind the footsteps -- they're not as loud as the core hound, and they don't shake your friends' screens, but they could definitely get annoying sooner rather than later.

This was the first exotic pet that BRK caught on film, and it comes in shades of red, white and black. You'll find them all in Un'Goro Crater, except for one more in the northernmost Netherstorm biodome as well.

The closest non-exotic pet is the raptor, with a Savage Rend ability that does some bleed damage and boosts attack power if it critically hits. It has a nasty 1 minute cooldown though, which really limits its usefulness.

Exotic Pets: Silithid

The silithid is your choice if you want to keep an enemy stuck in place. It has a ranged Venom Web Spray ability which can do some damage and trap your enemy for 4 seconds every 40 seconds or so. Longevity helps with that, but to me at least it still doesn't seem as nice as the chimaera's Froststorm Breath. But it all depends on how you use it, I guess, as well as what other sorts of talents you choose for yourself. This is a Cunning pet, just the same as the chimaera.

BRK had a look at this a while back, which showed off the pets abilities and looks. There are four different colors, and for the most part, they can be tamed in Tanaris, Un'Goro, and Silithus.

The spider is your closest non-exotic alternative, with Webs that do the same thing as the Silithid but without the extra bit of damage.

Exotic Pets: Worm

The worm is your exotic Tenacity option if you need a really hard-core single-target tanking pet. It doesn't have the gorilladin's ability to tank multiple targets at the same time, but you can't do much better than Acid Spit for single target debuffing over time. The more physical damage-dealers you have attacking that target over the longest period of time possible, the more you'll see its effect stack up. It looks to me like the best boss-tanking pet you can find in a party made up of mostly physical damage-dealers rather than magical, if you can get your friends to let it tank the boss, of course. In PvP, the effect doesn't wear off as fast as the devilsaur's ability, so you might find it somewhat useful there as well, if you need a pet with more survivability.

BRK showed us worm a while back, and of course Wowhead can show you all its 6 colors (as well as the upcoming Northrend version). In Azeroth, the most likely place to find these is in Silithus, or if you're in the Horde, you can just hop down to Ragefire Chasm and tame one there.

If you need a non-exotic pet with armor reduction, you can try out the wasp and its Sting, though that's a Ferocity pet for damage more than tanking. If you want a good Tenacity pet for PvP before Northrend, then the crab and its Pin ability might be what you're looking for. In Northrend, however, you're going to want a Rhino for all your PvP Tenacity needs, without a doubt.

Paid character customization on the horizon

Hey Azeroth inhabitants, like, do you think you need a makeover? Ever wanted to wrap-up that long, lavish Night Elf hair or put that shiny Troll tusk in another place on your face? In the future, if you're willing to pay a certain price, you may be able to do so.

The upcoming character customization option for World of Warcraft will require a fee to give your character a makeover. The post on WarCry reads:

"When asked to expand upon a button found by sifting through the Lich King beta's data files named "Paid Character Customization," [World of Warcraft production director J. Allen] Brack initially hesitated to give any answer at all. Several questions later, he went back to the matter, saying that he could, in fact, confirm that World of Warcraft would eventually have some form of paid character customization, though they themselves hadn't yet worked out any details."

But don't worry; as soon as Wrath of the Lich King comes out this November 13, you could still get your character's hair did just like those two generous ladies over there...hopefully.

DPS buff for shadow priests in beta: Vampiric Embrace

In the wake of sweeping alterations to shadow priests going live tonight, the inimitable Ghostcrawler has posted about a few more changes that will be making their way into the Wrath of the Lich King beta.

Vampiric Embrace is getting nerfed to bits. Fully talented, it currently heals group (not raid) members for 25%. It's being changed to 5% to the group and 25% to the caster, again fully talented. A bit confused about this given GC's statement that "we don't want it to be terrible for priests in small groups" - 5% is pretty terrible.

Vampiric Touch's coefficient is getting doubled, from 20% to 40%. Cool, though I don't expect this makes up a huge part of your damage at 80.

Big DPS change: "Your Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague and Vampiric Touch do an additional percentage damage equal to your critical strike chance." This is crittable DoTs, basically, with the randomness taken out. Instead of critting (say) 25% of the time for double damage, you just hit for 125% damage all the time. And of course our other damage spells (Mind Flay, Mind Blast, SW:D) can already crit normally.

I can't say I'm pleased by the massive VE nerf, but it's nice to see them picking up on promises of grade-A DPS for us now that we have less utility. Going from a state where two of our damage spells benefit from crit rating to a state where all of them do will be interesting.

Wotlk Video: Prince Arthas Quests in Northrend

More from the WotLK Beta Front! Here are two quests in Dragonblight that ask you to explore Arthas' past in Northrend. Some of you may recognize the interplay from Warcraft 3 Frozen Throne!

The Truth Shall Set Us Free




Frostmourne Cavern

Wrath of the Lich King Scenic Video in Blizzcon 2008

Here is a Wrath of the Lich King video that runs a little over 7 minutes showcasing scenes from Northrend ranging from landscape and town, to boss battles and raids. This video is a part of the press kit being handed out at Blizzcon 2008.

More on daily quests and champions

Sorano asked...

While killing mobs in a dungeon that normally gives rep for a faction, for example: The Wyrmrest Accord, if I am wearing the tabard representing the Warsong Offensive, will I gain reputation for both Wyrmrest Accord and Warsong Offensive at the same time?

Contrary to the original description of the feature, you only get rep with one faction at a time. Personally, I think that's a better design. If you're working on a particular rep, you can still help friends out in random unrelated Wrath dungeons without feeling punished. If you only received half of the rep gains, you would still want to go to Violet Hold for your Kirin Tor rep instead of Utgarde Pinnacle, just for random examples. Going to Utgarde and getting half of the payoff just feels punishing. Feeling punished for helping friends sucks.
If you want to go half and half, you can just take the tabard off halfway through.

To clarify, so we're on the same page: In your example you would only gain Warsong Offensive reputation in dungeons, with the tabard on. If you took it off, you would gain Wyrmrest Accord reputation. Hm, in hindsight, this answer was much easier than my first one.

Locke asked...

Had a question about Old World city guards, will their level be raised from 65 to 75 with he expansion? Or will it remain the same?

Just like with The Burning Crusade, guard levels in capital cities will indeed be going up with the expansion. Capital city guards are level 75, and Goblin guards are level 77.

Vinicius O. E. asked two questions...

Do we have new item suffixes like the ones added in BC like "of the Beast", "of the Invoker", "of the Champion", etc?

I haven't seen any new suffixes, no.

When will the XP needed to level from 60-70 decrease? When patch 3.0.2 is released? WotLK?

Patch 3.0.2 is when that change goes in.

Wroar asked...

Can we get some more information on daily quests? Where are they? How many are there? I believe it was already stated they reward about 30g per quest, but how hard to do are they? And how long do they take?

Yes. Everywhere. A lot. They're easy. They're short. That work?

In all seriousness, there really are a ton of easy ones. Regular daily quests, profession daily quests, PvP daily quests, whatever you want to do. There are a ton of them, and you'll find them all over the place. Icecrown, Storm Peaks, Grizzly Hills, Zul'drak, Dalaran, etc. My personal favorite is the quest where a panther god thing takes over my body and we go wreak havoc on some irritating badgermen.

raya said...

Please tell me there is gonna be a AH in Dalaran!

If you're okay with me being a complete liar, then yes, there will be an auction house in Dalaran. If you'd rather I didn't lie to you, my answer will be different.

Paladin changes in Beta build 9014

I know I'm a bit late posting this, but it took me a while to calm down enough. Alright, some of you might have already read this and most of you might have crouched into a fetal position when you heard of the change to Divine Plea. In it's first appearance, Divine Plea was a phenomenal, channeled return of 50% total mana over 6 seconds. Of course, that was simply too powerful and was subsequently "tuned" in further builds. That tuning has resulted in gutting the ability, with the latest version granting a buff that regenerates 25% of total mana over 15 seconds but reduces healing by 100%.

A moment of silence, please.

It reduces healing by 100%. This means that it makes the one spec that needs it absolutely useless for 15 seconds. I seriously have no idea anymore where Blizzard is going with this. Ghostcrawler issued a quick revision, however, stating that the healing penalty will only be 20%. That's good news, but it's scary that such a massive nerf was even applied to what is a key spell for Holy Paladins considering that their only source of mana regeneration is a crit-based gamble.

Aside from a slight mana deficiency, of course, a Holy Paladin's more immediate problem is mobility. Instant Holy Lights helped towards this, but that was nerfed, too. Infusion of Light now only reduces the cast time of Holy Light by 1 second. Even with the Light's Grace buff, this still means a one second cast time for Holy Light. This means standing still. Again. The one fix to Paladin mobility was gutted and it's a really strange time for healing Paladins. Even the lengthened duration to Judgements of the Pure has lost its luster. Judging once every minute for 10% spell haste isn't so bad, but it's a band-aid solution. I don't mind having to judge every 8 or 10 seconds, really. Just give me enough reason to.

Judgements of the Wise was rebalanced to grant 33% of base mana instead of 25% of total mana, which amounts to roughly the same return without scaling with Intellect gear. This makes it less attractive to Holy builds that have been looking at a hybrid Holy / Retribution build that goes into Retribution for consistent mana regeneration. This makes it all the more important to find a proper mana regeneration mechanic for Holy.

For some reason, while Blizzard has found a great direction for Protection and Retribution, the formerly solid Holy has lost its way. Do I think Blizzard will figure it out? Yes, absolutely. Ghostcrawler has repeatedly said that measuring healing is much harder than estimating DPS and tanking ability, which I believe. She also states that they'll keep a close eye on it throughout the rest of Beta, in Patch 3.0, and when Wrath goes live. That's great. My only fear is that with the current state of the tree, there might not be enough Paladins speccing Holy for them to watch.

Wotlk Tips: New Death Knights from a fellow melee

Love what you've done with the smell, really. The little air freshener attached to the runeblade is a nice touch. Now that I'm in the beta, I've had the opportunity group with -- conservatively -- billions of you. I've healed a lot of Death Knight tanks, and tanked for a lot of Death Knight DPS. Most of you seem like cool people, so I say this with sincere love in my little Druid heart and a touch of worry over what will happen in November:

Most of you are awful.

I don't wish to be needlessly cruel here, mind you, or to overlook that the class is still new. Blizzard endlessly tinkers with you, so it's not like your rotations haven't changed, or your talents and skills are stable. And I know you're not coming to Northrend with a bank full of awesome gear from Burning Crusade. This isn't about your wearing greens or using the wrong attack or tanking rotation; I'm not even going to bother with the theorycraft surrounding the ideal DPS rotation until Wrath actually ships. But I'm seeing an awful lot of you running around playing as if...almost as if...you haven't played a tank or a melee class before. It's uncanny. But when I switched from playing a balance to a feral druid more than a year ago and knew nothing about playing a melee DPS/tank, I made all the mistakes you're making right now. Help me help you!

First things first, Scooter, and most importantly -- please stand behind whatever mob you are DPSing at all times. Where you are relative to the mob doesn't make a jot of difference when you're ranged DPS, but it's everything to melee, for several reasons:

BETTER DAMAGE: You will always do better DPS behind the mob, as they can parry, block, or dodge your attacks while you're in front of them. When you're behind them, they can only dodge. If you stay DPS, you want to stack enough expertise on your gear to overcome this dodge (in current BC raids, this is 26 expertise/102 rating, or enough to overcome the estimated 6.5% dodge chance on the part of a level 73 mob). While you won't have to worry about this too much while you're leveling up, a good number to keep in mind is that each point of expertise is 0.25% less dodge or parry on the part of the mob. If you're religious about staying behind every mob you DPS in a dungeon, you will never lose damage to a parry, and the expertise you manage to get on your gear will be functionally equivalent to +hit until the mob's chance to dodge has been pushed off its avoidance table.

DON'T WTFPWN YOUR TANK: There's an even better reason why you never want your attacks parried; a successful parry usually speeds the next swing of every mob and player in the game. Elitist Jerks has the numbers on it here if you're interested, but as a quick summary, a successful parry will cut the time to your next swing by 20-40% unless you've only just finished hitting them. This is true for every player and mob in the game with the current exception of Mother Shahraz in Black Temple and Brutallus in Sunwell (they're perfectly capable of destroying tanks without this mechanic, thank you very much). Over the course of a trash pull or boss fight this adds up to a number of additional hits and damage taken.

Mobs can parry anybody's incoming attack, but their hastened counterattack will always hit their present target -- your tank. Tanks can't avoid the damage spikes from their own attacks being parried unless they're packing a ton of expertise (which is currently very difficult for most tanks outside of Tier 6 and Sunwell). They can, and should, avoid the counterattacks that result from a melee DPS being parried, because that player should never be in a position to be parried in the first place. Every raider has a nightmare story about the tank who got wrecked while repositioning or rotating a mob that was still being auto-attacked by melee DPS or Hunter pets. Yes, Hunter pets can trigger parries too, but they're much less likely to do this nowadays as they automatically position themselves directly behind a mob when they don't have aggro. As one of the hunters in my guild used to observe, if in doubt about your location as melee DPS, stand on top of a pet.

HERE BE DRAGONS: It is very common for mobs to have a frontal cone attack or cleave. While Blizzard has mercifully removed 360-degree cleaves (though not Whirlwind) from mobs in the game, you risk getting very damaged or very dead if you're in front of the mob. Let the tank take that damage; it's their job. You're already vulnerable enough as melee DPS, which often gets hit by mobs' AoE attacks anyway.

So. Are you safely behind the mob now? Excellent! Stay there. And always tell your tank if they've positioned the mob in such a way that you can't get behind it or you'll pull the next mob pack in doing so.

AGGRO MECHANICS: if you're coming to a Death Knight from a ranged DPS class, what you may notice quickly (especially if you're using a crit-dependent build) is that you pull aggro faster than you did earlier. This is because ranged DPS gets an additional 20% aggro buffer that melee doesn't. In melee range, you will pull aggro at 110% of the tank's threat; ranged will pull at 130%. Unless I've missed something major, you don't presently have an aggro dump, so you're in the same boat as Enhancement Shamans and DPS Warriors. While tanks should have fewer problems holding aggro in Wrath, you are still better off giving the tank a few seconds to establish solid aggro on a large mob pack, especially if you intend to use Pestilence or Blood Boil. Don't take your cue on when to start DPS from a Rogue because Rogues can afford to ride the aggro threshold until it becomes desirable or necessary to Vanish.

SOMETIMES YOU ACTUALLY WANT AGGRO: Death Grip is your friend in the event of a runner (something that seems to happen less in early Northrend dungeons, but I'm sure we'll see it) or a mob that's taken off in search of the healer. It's also your friend if an inexperienced tank hasn't line-of-sighted a caster mob and there's a patrol nearby. Even if you're not specced or geared to tank, you are wearing plate and can lock down a mob or two until the tank can recapture aggro. Most Death Knights I see in the beta right now are leveling Unholy and have access to Bone Shield and the Anti-Magic Zone, but all of the talent trees have mitigation or avoidance talents that you can and should blow in the event of an emergency.

Lifestyle of the Northrend Rogue

Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we explore quality of life changes for Rogues in the upcoming expansion.

After playing The Burning Crusade for nearly two years now, most Rogues have gotten into their level 70 groove. They know where the poison vendors are in Shattrath and where to acquire some good leather gear. They know where to level up their lockpicking and the best way to organize reagents in their bags. However, all that is about to change.

Blizzard is implementing a ton of new simple changes to the Rogue class that are guaranteed to have many of us confused at first. I've tried to make this transition a little bit easier by outlining some of the differences between your time at 70 and the upcoming road to 80. Read on to find out what these changes mean to your daily Rogue lifestyle.

Poisons:
The biggest change for Rogues by far in WotLK is the complete removal of the Poison skill and the drastic alteration of poisons and poison talents. Blizzard seemed to revert to the strategy they use for all other classes: buy your reagents off a reagent vendor. This means you will no longer be creating your own poisons, and that all poison-making materials are soon to be worthless. They still currently drop from lockboxes, but expect that to be changed by the release date of Wrath.

The new method for acquiring poisons is to simply buy them from a Poison Vendor. These vendors now sell finished poisons instead of materials, with every rank of poison available. This makes replenishing your poison supply a quick purchase instead of an algebra-invoking word problem. "If I need four Wound poisons and two Deadly poisons, how many Essence of Agony...."

An important note: Vanish no longer requires Flash Powder, so your visit to the Poison Vendor will be even less frequent and far more enjoyable! Add that to the fact that the new Traveler's Tundra Mammoth has a reagent/poison vendor built in, and you may never be heading back to town again.

Another major change to Poisons comes via the consolidation of ranks Crippling and Mind-Numbing Poisons. These poisons have all been reduced to a single rank, making it impossible to have the "wrong" one in your inventory. This also means that your Crippling Poison is at full potency as soon as you are able to purchase it. In addition, Mind-Numbing has had its potency increased from a 30% increase in cast time to a 60% increase in casting time. This should help counter many of the cast speed and haste increases that casters are seeing in WotLK.

The changes to poisons don't stop there. Blizzard has also increased the application chance of all poisons (save Instant/Deadly) to 50%! Wound, Crippling, Mind-Numbing, and Anesthetic poisons applying at 50% means that we will have much more control over our targets, and our almost co-dependent reliance on Shiv will be lessened greatly. This also frees up talent points, as many Rogues felt it was required to spec into Improved Poisons in order to keep their poisons applied to the target.

Speaking of Anesthetic Poison, you will want to consider carrying a stack or two in your bags in WotLK. Many classes have gained new buffs known as "Enrage" effects; and anesthetic poison can remove those buffs from the target. Think of it like Purge but for physical Enrage effects instead of magic. This gives us a significant edge against Warriors, Death Knights, and Assassination Rogues, and more - always keep a stack handy.

Instant and Deadly (and also Wound) Poisons were not excluded from the love as well: their damage now scales with Attack Power. The final values remain to be seen, as recently the amount of poison damage done by Rogues is significantly imbalanced in the beta. The current modifiers are poison base + ~10% of AP, however we will see how Blizzard decides to scale this in the future.

However, all of these buffs to poisons did not come without a few nerfs and rebalancing. Most notably, Deadly Brew has been hit drastically: it now only applies Crippling Poison when the target is hit with Instant, Wound, or Mind-Numbing Poison. While it still allows a Rogue to use Wound or Mind-numbing on their offhand (as you can still Shiv and get the Crippling effect), it is not nearly as versatile as its previous iterations, and has almost no PVE usage.

Wound Poison was changed as well, as it now does not stack to 5. It applies its full 50% healing debuff on one application. While this is great for getting the healing debuff effect on the target quick, it can also be dispelled in one cast. The hope is that the increased application chance will make up for this change. While a Rogue is on a target, keeping poisons up will be no problem. However, once the target is out of range of the Rogue, all of our poisons can be cleansed easily.

Other Changes:
There have been other changes besides the very sweeping poison skill redesign. One of the coolest is the new smooth energy regeneration. Energy now regenerates in 1 energy increments, so a Rogue gains 1 energy every 0.1 seconds. Before, Rogues gained 20 energy every 2 seconds. This means the end of waiting for "energy ticks" and mods like EnergyWatch will become useless.

The new energy regeneration mechanic also makes our Kick ability much more potent. It has been reduced to a single rank, and no longer deals damage. Blizzard also removed Kick from the Global Cooldown, so it can be used at any time, even when other spells are locked out due to the GCD. This means that no matter what, a Rogue will never be more than 1 second away from Kicking a target (provided that Kick is not on cooldown). Rogues currently dominate casters in TBC, and it looks like WotLK is eminent domain for us as well.

Perhaps to compensate us for Kick not doing any damage, Gouge has also been reduced to a single rank and now does damage based on Attack Power. The current formula is 1 + 21% of the Rogue's AP. An example Rogue in WotLK will have around 2300 AP in decent gear, making Gouge deal around 500 damage. This is significantly more than it dealt previously, and I can see more Rogues integrating this into their PVP rotations.Gouge still adds 1 combo point to the current target (its combo point generation has been in limbo). Great damage, an incapacitate, and a combo point? Combo in the Gouge Glyph I covered last week, and it's looking very good in WotLK.

In less combat-related Rogue news, Rogues will be recovering a significant piece of their bag space. In addition the removal of the Flash Powder requirement for Vanish (mentioned above), our need for Thieves' Tools has also been removed from Disarm Trap and Pick Lock. Tack on the fact that we won't need any poison creation materials as well, Rogues look to be having much more free bag space in the near future.

Blizzard has also improved our pickpocket/lockpicking potency. There are currently two new lockboxes, Froststeel Lockboxes and Titanium Lockboxes. Note that Titanium Lockboxes are blue, and have a significant chance to drop a blue item. In the 4 Titanium boxes I've found, 3 contained good-quality blue items. There are currently no "lockpicking zones" implemented, and Rogue Trainers obviously don't offer any guidance to said zones as they do for lockpicking levels below 350. However, I have had no problem keeping my lockpicking at maximum simply by picking the lockboxes I have pocketed.

We've covered most of the quality of life changes for Rogues here today, and hopefully it will give you some insight as to what life will be like as a Rogue in Northrend. Tune in next Wednesday for more shadowy goodness as we continue our look into Rogues in Wrath.

Model changes for Varimathras and Alexstrasza

We certainly enjoyed the model changes to Varian Wrynn and Sylvanas Windrunner, and now Blizzard's finished the unique models for Alexstrasza (human form, that is; you can see her dragon model update here) and Varimathras, as befits their key roles in the storyline for Wrath. I'm a tiny bit disappointed with Alexstrasza's model; her armor is mostly a red copy of Sylvanas' new threads, which are admittedly all sorts of awesome but makes me wonder if there's some kind of Armor Barn in Azeroth for hipster bosses. Alexstrasza does, however, show even more skin than Sylvanas does, so from some peoples' perspectives this might be a feature rather than a bug.

Varimathras is a nice update although he retains his old animations and emotes (you can't really see it from the perspective of the screenshot above, but I think his legs and hooves are a significant improvement on the shaky anatomy of the current dreadlord model). Both he and Alexstrasza's changes are somewhat less shocking than the complete overhaul to Wrynn and Sylvanas, but we're still pleased to see Blizzard taking an interest in the visual badassery of major faction leaders and NPC's. I would tend to agree with Zach Yonzon's contention that it would be amazing to see an update to all the faction leaders if Blizzard could swing it at some point, although I have the sneaking suspicion, judging from what CM's have said about the difficulty of programming in new Druid forms, that this is a fairly lengthy process. However, after seeing the model changes in the beta, I don't think anyone's going to argue it's not worth it, and a number of people have argued for player model changes as well. The extraordinary design work in Northrend will probably add fuel to that fire.

Priest changes and glyphs in Wrath beta patch 9014

Last night's Wrath beta patch wasn't a very large one, but it did bring a few changes for just about everyone. Priests had some of the more boring changes, but let's take a look regardless.

Holy Nova's mana cost is now 25% of base mana, originally 33% of base mana.

Decent enough change. Holy Nova's mana cost has always been a bit absurd considering how small the numbers it puts out are.

Improved Inner Fire has been moved from Tier 3 to Tier 2.
Improved Power Word: Fortitude has been moved from Tier 2 to Tier 3.

This is another good change, meant to make Imp Inner Fire more accesible to Shadow Priests. Originally, Improved Inner Fire was pitched to swap with Improved Power Word: Shield, but that would cause talent allocation issues for PvP Shadow Priests while fixing it for PvE Shadow Priests. Losing Improved Fortitude in PvE is pretty lame, but probably the better swap in the end.
Guardian Spirit now heals the target of 50% of their maximum health.

Again, a good change. The old version tended to not really prevent a gib at all.

Twisted Faith's typo has been fixed. As stated previously, it will work while Shadow Word: Pain is on the target, not Mind Flay.

Glyphs

Glyph of Fading - Reduces the mana cost of your Fade spell by 30%, instead of the old 50%.

Eh.

Glyph of Spirit of Redemption - All heals cast while Spirit of Redemption is active have a 20% changes to increase the remaining duration of Spirit of Redemption by 5 seconds. Originally 20 seconds.

Wow, that's a big cut. I think everyone in the entire world expected this one, though. Even people who don't play WoW. An extra 20 seconds is huge, even if it could only proc once, and I'm not sure that was the case. 5 seconds will let you get in 2-3 heals you normally couldn't, so that's still pretty decent. 20 seconds was just insane.

Overall, I think this patch's changes were pretty decent. Not amazing, but not bad either. Some tough calls, but good and needed ones. Glad to see Guardian Spirit get a bit of a boost most of all, despite my personal affinity to the Shadow. Holy Priests needed more of a reason to use their GCD for that particular button in a pinch, instead of something else.