Spiritual Guidance: 4 common myths about Discipline Priests

Even though I'm still a Holy Priest at heart, I wanted to raise more awareness for Discipline Priests. This week's post in particular is aimed at raid leaders or players who don't think Discipline can't cut it.

There are a few common misconceptions about Disc Priests out there that I wanted to help clear up. I've received emails and read forum posts from Disc Priests with their own horror stories about how they're not understood or that they feel shunned and all that. I had one case where a Disc Priest was made to respec or else he wouldn't be allowed to raid.

So let's start with the first one. Priests themselves know what they can and can't do.

Myth: Disc Priests can't solo heal

False

The abilities of a Priest revolve around their Power Word: Shield and Divine Aegis procs. I can't emphasize this enough. It's all about the damage prevention with healers littered in between.

They can hold their own in a raid environment provided they are used correctly.

Raid leaders and analysts need to remember that prevented damage may not always show up correctly. Even though it looks like a Disc Priest may not be healing as much as Joe Paladin, you have to factor shielding in there somehow. A good rule of thumb I like to use is to take the Priest's overall healing and add 30% to see how much damage has been mitigated or healed.

I'm probably way off on that though.

Myth: Disc Priests can't raid heal

False

While it is true that a Disc Priest cannot match the throughput of a deep Holy, Circle of Healing Priest, that does not mean they can't raid heal. They're just not the best for the job. Think about it this way. A Paladin can raid heal. They're just not optimized for it.

Prayer of Healing and Holy Nova are there to help. Don't write them off entirely. They can still do it.

Myth: Disc Priests run out of mana quickly

False

After inspecting various Priests that I've pugged stuff with, I've come to the conclusion that there are a few... shall we say, misguided players out there.

I beg you.

Please do not use some sort of hybrid 35/35/0 talent selection and then promptly complain about running out of mana. A Disc Priest is not a player who goes down the Disc tree to pick up Improved Divine Spirit and then invests the rest into Holy.

It doesn't work that way.

A Disc Priest is one that actually goes deep down the Disc tree. We're talking like at least 45 points. Give or take.

All the good stuff and mana regen stuff? You pick that up deep in the Discipline or Holy trees. It's virtually impossible to pick both of them up unless you can somehow hack yourself into getting 120 talent points.

In Discipline, mana regen talents revolve around Rapture. I guess you could factor in Enlightenment, Power Infusion, and Mental Agility as well.

Under Holy, it's all about Surge of Light, Serendipity, and Holy Concentration.

(On a side note, do other Priests get annoyed when Surge of Light or Holy Concentration procs and no one has taken any damage? I suppose you could Surge off a free Smite.)

Myth: Disc Priests are useless

False

Okay, so I might have made that last myth up. But seriously, if I had to give an opinion on this, I think the reason Disc Priests are discriminated against is because they're still relatively new. The game's only been out for a little over a month and Disc Priests have had a reputation as being all stars in PvP action and not so much in the PvE area.

So to raid leaders, the next time you think about turning down a Disc Priest, please make sure you're doing it for the right reasons. Turn them down because you're full on healers. Turn them down because you don't have enough raid healers. Or if they're not geared enough for the content you're doing.

Give them a chance to change your mind.

Remember when Protection Paladins used to be scoffed at? Then they started to main tank Karazhan without shackles or CCs. Pretty soon, doing Hyjal practically required a Prot Paladin (because it was easier to, not because it was absolutely necessary).

AchievementTracker tracks achievements across the realms

Reader Jeffrey R. was kind enough to send us his achievement tracking site, named (conveniently) AchievementTracker.com. We've seen quite a few sites for tracking achievements on your own character out there already (especially since the Armory opened up the information to the web), but unlike the others, AchievementTracker seems to be focusing on ranking only -- instead of browsing over your own information, all the site really presents is a list of the top players in the world, US, EU, or by the various realms.

There are a few caveats, the first being that they're only tracking characters above level 70, and the second being that they're not tracking everyone -- I had to put my own character into the system (though that won't matter if you're just looking for the top players, since I would never even rank on any lists anyone was watching). And while WoW-Achievements has Beelsebub of EU Darksorrow at number one and Minipuff of EU Stormscale in second place so far, AchievementTracker has them backwards (and their point totals are lower -- maybe Armory lag?).

And of course we don't know for sure if there's someone on the realms that neither of these sites are tracking with more achievement points (it may be worth noting, too, that beyond Armory links, neither site tells us much about the characters -- is there a class or spec that's better for achievement point earning?). It'll probably take a little while until we can get a standard for tracking these, but until then, looks like we'll have a few different lists to watch.

The best and worst of 2008

A lot of things happened this year, right? Crazy.

We here at Arcane Brilliance thought that since next week's column will be posted in 2009, we should take a moment this week to remember the year that was, and what it meant to all of us who walk the path of magic. There were some pretty high highs, and some exceptionally low lows, so we figured it would be fun to throw the highs into a ring with the lows and let them fight to the death. Join us after the break to see who wins!

• (Yay!) Frostfire Bolt is the nuke to end all nukes

When this spell was announced in June at the Worldwide Invitational, I'll admit I wasn't very excited about it. It sounded like a lame way to allow Mages to deal decent damage to mobs who were immune to their spec of choice. Then we all realized something: FFB would benefit from both Frost and Fire talents. Suddenly the spell became a whole lot more intriguing. Lo and behold, when Wrath rolled around in November, we all found that with the right talent build, this spell was the single most powerful nuke in a Mage's arsenal. Plus it looks all sparkly and cool.

I almost filed this under (Boo!), if I'm being entirely truthful, simply because I hate that this is now the flavor-of-the-month "best" DPS spec for Mages, and I think it's unequivocally stupid that some guilds are even requiring their Mages to spec this way. Really? Is the end-game content so unforgiving that your guild can't figure out how to beat Kel'Thuzad with a Fire Mage or a Frost Mage in the party? This isn't the freaking Sunwell, guys. These WotLK raids are forgiving enough that a good raid can burn through them, regardless of composition. As long as you have enough tanks, healers and DPS, and you haven't brought along any total jackwads, you're going to be fine. Personally, I'd rather have the Arcane Mage who knows how to play than the Frostfire Mage who can't find his sheep button with a compass and a map.

• (Boo!) Deep Freeze doesn't do any damage

Now, I've been on the wrong end of a well-placed Deep Freeze several times in PvP, and boy does it suck. This is still a highly effective spell in PvP, don't get me wrong. The problem is that it's entirely useless for a raiding Mage. This would be acceptable if it was a trainable spell, or perhaps a 41 point talent or something. But as the cap talent for an entire tree? No. For a good chunk of the Wrath beta, this spell did a very good amount of damage in addition to stunning its targets, and it was actually worth spending a charge of Fingers of Frost on in PvE. Blizzard saw fit to take that damage away, and in doing so made Frost Mages everywhere very sad, and also made me write a very bitter diatribe on the subject.

• (Yay!) The Arcane Tree doesn't suck!

For most of 2008, the Arcane tree was the red-headed stepchild of the three schools of magic. There were some good talents in there, and they provided some very nice support to a Fire or Frost spec, but the tree simply wasn't cohesive enough to stand on its own as a viable spec. Patch 3.0.2 changed all of that.

Suddenly Arcane Mages had high DPS, decent survivability, and a sense of mobility and slipperiness that Mages had never known before. Arcane Barrage, instant Invisibility, Missile Barrage...the list of significant, game-changing newness was long and varied. The Arcane tree suddenly provided a unique sense of fun that Mages had been missing for a very long time. Arcane Mages could run around, Slowing their targets and then playing a game of long-distance tag with them until they dropped dead. Perhaps no other change this year was as significant or as successful--at least as far as Mages were concerned--as the revamp of the Arcane tree.

And the best part? Patch 3.0.8 promises to make it even better.

• (Boo!) Homogenization of Itemization, or "why is that Priest rolling on my staff?"

I think almost every class will probably agree that this is the single worst trend introduced by Wrath of the Lich King. We don't have it as bad as, say, Elemental Shaman (seriously? No PvP sets for an entire spec?), but it's pretty bad. I'm not saying we need to go back to the days of having 72 different stats to worry about. In fact, I think consolidating spellpower, crit, hit, and haste was a good thing. But forcing Mages to wear things with names like "Purely Sanctified Robes of the Healerific Medicant Arch-Priest" is just wrong. We don't want to have to wear the same dress as the Warlock. We don't want to slip our feet into a new pair of slippers only to discover somebody left a steaming pile of spirit in there.

I'm not sure how the problem can be fixed, but I am sure that when an item drops, I want to be able to say "ah, now that's a Mage item," instead of having to outroll the Priest, the Warlock, the Holy Pally, the Boomkin, and the freaking Resto Shammy for everything that drops. I can understand Blizzard's desire to avoid a glut of items in the game. It must be a giant pain to design and program all of that gear. But surely you could just tweak some stats, do a palette swap on some existing gear and call it good? Jeez, leveling through Northrend, it looked to me like you guys only designed like 5 different gear models anyway, and then gave them varying shades of brown and gray and called it a day.

• (Yay!) Sunwell Isle was a lot of fun

Looking back, patch 2.4 was pretty great. We got what may end up being the last truly challenging raid in the game (Sunwell Plateau), we got some really sweet looking gear, and we got a lot of fun things to do while we waited for the expansion to come out. Perhaps the most important part of the Sunwell patch, in hindsight, was that it gave us a glimpse into the future of faction-grinding. Instead of farming mobs, or having to turn in endless reputation items, we saw how much fun it could be to do short, fun daily quests and run instances instead. We've seen the further evolution of this in Wrath, with the new championing mechanic, allowing us to choose which faction we'd like to gain rep with, regardless of the instance we're running.

Like everyone else, Mages flocked here in droves, worked our way to exalted with the Shattered Sun Offensive, and then lamented our low spots on the damage meters in the Brutallus fight. Good times were had by all, until everyone got their raid-spots taken by a Shaman.

• (Boo!) R.I.P. Arcane Blast

As an Arcane Mage, I loved most of the new toys I woke up to on October 14th. I took my new Arcane Barrage out for a little spin, rocked some faces with it, gave it a hug and told it how much I loved it. But when I saw what had happened to my beloved Arcane Blast, all the joy fled from the day. This spell used to be so good. You could cast it on things, and do decent damage, and then cast it again and do more damage while using more mana, and then cast it again...it was splendid. Now the only thing it's good for is passing the time between Arcane Barrages.

The good news is that all signs point to this changing, and soon. Patch 3.0.8 promises to make this spell worthwhile again, and in a way that pleases both Blizzard and Mages, two parties that seldom see eye to eye. Everyone cross your collective fingers that this particular buff makes it live.

• (Yay!) Mirror Image is delicious

I know, I know...it isn't the I-Win button that it was in the beta. It doesn't scale with gear, and has problems fitting into a PvE spell-rotation. Still, I love it. I love it so much. The first time I used it after hitting 80 on the live servers...it was in Grizzly Hills, and it was on a Death Knight, and it was so much fun I never wanted it to stop. Unfortunately it did stop, about 30 seconds later, right about the time when the Death Knight's guildies were swooping in to kill me and then camp my corpse for about 15 minutes. Curse my server and its 5-1 Alliance to Horde ratio!

Still, it's like I always say: the only thing better than one of me is four of me. I enjoy being able to conjure my own posse at the push of a button. This is a very cool spell, and very nice prize for hitting level 80. It definitely has room to improve, and I look forward to seeing if and how Blizzard lets it evolve.

So there's my short list of the good and bad 2008 had to offer Mages. Now that the dust has settled, it looks like the Yays have won out over the Boos. Based on that unscientific and completely arbitrary result, I hereby declare 2008 a success. Bring on 2009!

WoW, Casually: Loot

Ah the holidays. It's a time for families and friends getting together, children laughing, peace on Azeroth... and loot. Lots and lots of loot. Buying loot. Giving loot. Getting loot. Whether in the real world or in-game, when this time of year comes around, loot is all around us. So it seems as good a time as any to talk about casual players and loot.

I've actually wanted to tackle this topic ever since a comment in the leveling before Wrath column. Commenter Rob said that for speedy leveling, you should never loot unless you need to -- implying only for collection quests. So I want to spend a little time explaining my position on looting.

Loot. Or, to be more clear... Loot!

Loot all the time. Loot everything. Loot, loot, loot.

The argument against looting is that it takes up too much time and you can always get everything you need from your high level main or the AH.

Now, this is a column by a casual player for casual players. This is often lost on some readers, even though the word Casually is in the title and I often throw in an extra casual in there, just to emphasize the subject matter (see the Winter Veil guide and the Patch 3.0.8 guide for examples). Casual players don't necessarily have a stable of level 80s from whom to take cash and twink items. We often have a lot of alts, each with their own professions. And we tend to solo a lot because getting into groups takes time that we often don't have -- which means our instance gear is sorely lacking. So getting bankrolled by a main and shopping heavily at the Auction House are not assumptions that can be made about the casual player.

The Spousal Unit is a hardcore raider. He plays every free moment and many moments that are arguably not free. As I write this, he is tanking 10 man Naxx. And he completely agrees with me. Loot, loot, loot. How else are you going to save up for a cool ride? (Oh no, now I have this song running through my head).

Here are some tips for maximizing your loot and minimizing the time it takes to do it:

• Autoloot: Go to Game Menu, Interface, Controls and check the Autoloot box. It not only saves a lot of time, but it makes it much easier and more efficient to Herb, Mine, Skin and Fish.


• Get the biggest bags you can afford: Netherweave bags are 16 slots and tend to be cheaper than Traveler's Backpacks and Mooncloth Bags because they are BoE. You can usually get them for 10 to 15 gold. Running back to sell is time consuming and destroying things is inefficient when you are short on cash.


• Make a Bank Alt: Bank alts are good for two things: holding things you don't have room for in your bank and selling things on the AH. Any time you head back to town, mail anything you want to save or sell to your bank alt to free up bank space.
  


• Use Auctioneer: But only put it on your Bank Alt. Auctioneer is very heavy on the memory usage. The data in Auctioneer is only as good as how often you scan, so do it once a day. Also, you need to use it intelligently. Auctioneer doesn't know that Inscription requires low end herbs for research and that Peacebloom should be sold for 5g a stack, not 20s like back in the old days.


• Vendor Grays: You've probably seen this on the loading screen tips as well. Grays aren't used for quests or crafting so you can safely sell them to a vendor. If you are short on bagspace, then destroy grays except for weapons. Starting from around level 40, gray weapons will vendor for gold.


• AH Whites: If you don't need it for crafting or questing, then someone else probably does. Some things are faction specific or far too common, so make sure you're not selling them for less on the AH than what a vendor will give you. I find that the market for Wicked Claws, for example, is not too strong on my server, so I just vendor those.


• Disenchant and/or AH Greens/Blues/Purples you can't use: Sometimes the disenchanted value of an item is greater than what someone is willing to buy it for. Anything of the Boar, for example, is not going to sell -- who needs the combination of Strength and Spirit? And while getting a world drop of an BoE Epic Item can get your heart pumping, when you find out it's just another Icemail Jerkin, you may be disappointed.


• Keep AH spending to a minimum: Some classes are very gear dependent and you need to fill in the gaps by keeping an eye out for bargains on the AH, but any gear you get after level 50 will be replaced with something uber within a couple levels after reaching Outland. Unless you think AH shopping is a whole lot of fun, your time will be better spent questing and gathering more loot.

Gold just makes things easier. Looting gets you more gold. And with Autoloot it doesn't take any extra time. So loot away!

And on a more serious note, I wish you all happy holidays that are completely drama free.

Going to Northrend for the holidays

It's the day after Christmas. A fair portion of our readership is only now getting Wrath of the Lich King installed on their computer, especially after the gift exchanges of the last few days. Over the weeks since Wrath's release, we've had quite a bit of content to ease you through your first steps into Northrend. With this latest wave of people hitting the frozen shores for the first time, it's a good opportunity to look back on a lot of that.

Flight Paths and Exploration
New lands, new things to see, new places and ways to get lost! Below are our simple guides to the flight paths in many of the zones in the new continent, as well as directions to the new capital, the mage city of Dalaran.

• Howling Fjord, Borean Tundra, and Dragonblight: Alliance / Horde


• Flight paths in the Grizzly Hills


• Flight paths in Zul'Drak


• Flight paths in Sholazar Basin


• Flight paths in Storm Peaks


• How to get to Dalaran

Factions and Reputation
Every player is likely familiar with the reputation system by now, but Wrath of the Lich King's factions have received a little bit of streamlining. At the same time, a few of the factions are a little harder to find, or figure out your first time seeing them. Listed below are our guides to these reputations.

• An overview of reputation in Wrath


• The Oracles and the Frenzyheart Tribe


• The Sons of Hodir


• The daily quests of the Kalu'ak

PvP
PvP hasn't quite hit its stride yet in Wrath of the Lich King with the new arena season having only begun a week ago, but the new outdoor PvP zone Wintergrasp is attracting players of many different playstyles. It has a lot to offer, and you can find much of it in our guides below along with tips for other aspects of Wrath PvP.

• Wintergrasp overview


• The battle for Wintergrasp


• Honor in Wrath


• Honor and arena gear in Wrath


• Gearing up for the arena

Essential Death Knight Reading
Did you reroll for Christmas, or are you planning to level a Death Knight as an alt? There's a lot you can learn about this new class, and a lot you should learn! Listed below are the basics, and if you're looking for more information our weekly Death Knight column Lichborne and our full Death Knight info page are great places to look.

• Basic talent builds for a new Death Knight
  


• Tanking as a Death Knight
  


• Statistics primer


• Capping your Death Knight's defense
  


• Gear upgrades in the Northrend newbie zones


• Reputation rewards for Death Knights

Looking for more?
This is all likely a bit of an information overload if you're first stepping into Northrend (or first rolling your Death Knight), but we have a lot of resources we've been working on for you to use throughout your adventures. Our various class columns are jam packed full of information, and we also have a couple of series running: Wrath Dailies and Wrath 101. The former is, of course, walkthroughs for the various daily quests in Northrend, and the latter are simple guides to just about everything you can imagine. Both are works in progress, but already full of great stuff!

We have all of those guides gathered up in one little place, if you'd like. A full page of Wrath guides, oh boy! Oh joy! Okay, it's not that exciting, but it sure is convenient, isn't it?

Honor points

One of our site leads, Dan O'Halloran, asked me a question that surprised me yesterday. He asked me what he was supposed to do with Honor points and where he could spend them. See, Dan isn't a huge fan of PvP. In fact, he only happened to try out the wonderfully fun and crazy Wintergrasp in between exploring on his brand-spankin' new epic wings. I think he found it fun enough to play it again.

This brought us to the conclusion that maybe, just maybe, a whole lot of players are going to be accumulating Honor pretty soon without them knowing it. He thinks that a lot of players, mostly strictly-PvE carebears, would be curious enough about Wintergrasp to try it out... and hopefully enjoy it enough to play it again. I hope so, too. This means a whole lot of players who'd never PvP'd before, like Dan, for example, would need some sort of guide on Honor points and what to do with them. Here's where we step in with this handy little Honor overview.

What are Honor points and how do I get them?
Honor points are a type of currency used to purchase rewards in the game. Just like Emblems or Badges from dungeons, the amount of Honor you have can be tracked through the Currency tab in your Character panel. Unlike other types of currency, however, you do not loot Honor. You automatically gain Honor from participating in killing players or key NPCs of the opposing faction. As long as those players or NPCs aren't gray (too low level) to you, they will count as an Honorable Kill (HK).

The amount of Honor gained from each HK varies greatly. It used to be based on the obsolete PvP Rank system, but now that those ranks are merely cosmetic, the base Honor gained from a player is dependent purely on their level versus your level (higher level players are worth more Honor to lower level players). This Honor gain is adjusted depending on other factors such as the number of players in the vicinity -- e.g., if you killed a player solo, you would generally gain more Honor than if you killed one with a group. Certain buffs also adjust Honor gain, such as the buffs in Wintergrasp like Honorable, Great Honor, Greater Honor, and Greatest Honor for the Alliance; and Lok-regar, Lok-narash, Lok'tar, and Lok'tar Ogar! for the Horde. Honor is also granted by some quests, particularly PvP ones, as a bonus reward in addition to Gold or experience.

What can I buy with Honor points?
Cool stuff! No, really. Honor points can be used to buy rare or epic item rewards from vendors in Stormwind and Orgrimmar. Naturally, most of these item rewards are PvP-oriented, which means a lot of the item points are spent towards Resilience. You won't need Resilience for your heroic runs or raids, but sometimes the items are good enough for you to get until you get a better item from PvE.

Hateful Gladiator non-set items, for example, are Level 80 epic gear that are purchaseable purely with Honor points and don't require any Arena ratings. This means that any Level 80 player with enough Honor can buy them. PvP items are made for PvP, so generally they will be loaded with Stamina and Resilience, which won't be terribly useful to you in instances. Even tanks will be better served by dungeon drops with the proper mitigation stats. Aside from non-set items, Honor points can be used to purchase complete sets of the rare Savage Gladiator PvP gear and as partial currency for epic Hateful Gladiator gear.

If you're not going to use the items for PvE, there are Jewelcrafting recipes available for the low cost of 1,250 Honor points. That's like one Honorable Kill above the Honor you gain from a Wintergrasp daily quest. Most of the designs are PvP-oriented, of course, with many of them containing Resilience. Some have odd combinations that might appeal to a few players, like Shattered Dark Jade, which has Haste and Spell Penetration. You can also buy Star's Sorrow, the only Level 75 water that's usable in Arenas.

One Rogue's take on Season 5

Like many of my siblings of the shadows, I play WoW in both the PvP and PvE environments. As a guild leader, it is my responsibility to organize raid groups and to lead my team to victory (and the associated purple loot). While keeping up Hunger for Blood & Slice and Dice & Rupture up may seem interesting for others; after a while the raid DPS grind wears away at my soul. I was not born to be a number-crunching math machine. I am a Horde assassin at heart: born to taste the blood of my Warchief's enemies!

I have been flexing my PvP muscles in the new Lake Wintergrasp and Strand of the Ancients battlegrounds, though I find myself sitting in a turret or catapult fairly often. The arena has always been my true love. It was what brought me back to WoW for TBC, and it is what tempted me to level in Northrend for the next installment. With Season 5 now officially underway, my week has consisted of the most bloodthirsty battles I have ever been a part of. So go buy your Hateful Gladiator's Band of Triumph (best initial upgrade with no rating requirement) and read on!

Ret/UDK teams
Let me start by saying that I have no idea there were that many Retribution Paladins and Unholy Death Knights just idling around Dalaran waiting for Season 5 to start so they could smash my face in. The Ret/UDK team has been pretty much everyone's bane for the past week, as I'm sure you've noticed if you started a 2v2 team. My team name is "Warrior Druid AGAIN" if you care to Armory it, though I think next season we'll be titled "Ret UDK AGAIN" if the current trend keeps up. I'm hoping the upcoming Ret and DK nerfs will be sufficient to bring them back in line with the rest of the classes.

Playing in 2v2 with a Paladin (switching between Retribution and Holy) has saved me from a bit of the "instagib" factor of the Ret/UDK team thanks to Hand of Protection. It's not as effective against a UDK due to their multiple magical attacks but it's better than nothing. I've been hit for several thousand while in HoP by the UDK's magical attacks followed by a Hammer of Wrath to finish the job.

The only winning strategy that we have found is to completely decimate the Ret Paladin to start the match. Using Tricks of the Trade immediately out of the gate and opening with Garrote->Mutilate->Eviscerate while my Paladin partner is unloading with his attacks will often cause a pre-emptive Divine Shield by the Ret Paladin, giving us an early edge in the cooldown war.

We try to keep the Death Knight controlled by opening with Sap when possible and using Blind / Hammer of Justice if he uses his PvP trinket. Once the Ret Paladin has used Divine Shield, we attempt to restart the fight by running as fast as possible and breaking Line of Sight. Once Divine Shield is down, we attack again. I start with a Dismantle on the DK (Sap isn't an option as his Ghoul will keep him in combat) and then focus fire on the Paladin, often yielding in a 2v1 situation vs the Death Knight: one of the few fights that a Death Knight will lose.

All this was just for one team! It took a full night of up and down ratings for us to fully understand the Ret/UDK team and how to topple it. This is the part of arena that I enjoy the most. I am a theorycrafter at heart, and figuring out exactly what techniques and combos to use never ceases to get my adrenaline pumping. I have been blessed with my current arena partner who played a Rogue extensively in the past (one of my former mentors) and understands the capabilities and limitations of the class. This makes the post-game strategy talks especially in-depth and meaningful.

Dismantle
Learning to use your all of your skills is the key of good arena planning. A perfect example of this comes from our best WotLK ability, Dismantle. Its usefulness is underrated by many Rogue who are not used to having a disarm option outside of the old Riposte. The ability to take the weapon and shield from your opponent not only cuts down on your incoming damage but also increases your damage done by removing their chance to parry and block.

This move is most effective on Death Knights, many of whom haven't equipped their 2-hander with a Titanium Weapon Chain. The TWC is easier to acquire for regular dual-wielders who can still put a regular enchant on their Main Hand weapon. Hunters, Enhancement Shamans, Fury Warriors, and Retribution Paladins all have Disarm-reducing talents; so use it with caution against these classes unless there is no other Physical DPS target to use it on. And who couldn't use a little more hit rating on their PvP gear? It's not even a splurge to put this on your OH! Your first 5-second-duration Disarm will make it all worth it.

Mutilate Weapon Speeds
Speaking of Off Hand weapons, there has been a lot of talk about Mutilate weapon speeds over the past few weeks. For PvE, you want fast/faster: Mutilate has 2 chances to proc whichever poison is on the Off Hand, making it perfect for your faster, Instant Poison-coated blade. For PvP, I recommend Slower/Slow daggers (with Mind Numbing / Wound poisons equipped). Our PvP white damage is minimal, especially in these short, burst-controlled arena matches. Go for your maximum special damage and get two slow daggers to make targets explode upon contact. With the new 50% proc rate on PvP poisons mixed with Deadly Brew, you can almost take Shiv off your bar.

Subtlety Tips
Shadow Dance Rogues have also been doing quite well in the arena! I tried the spec out for a while but it didn't mesh with the composition that I was running. One tip for those of you sworn to Subtlety: Blind early. Many of us are used to the long fights against Warlock/Druid in 2v2 where a Blind->Sap was necessary to finish off either target after a grueling match. With the new Shadow Dance burst, using Blind at the start of a fight will typically force a target to use their PvP trinket immediately. This gives you the perfect setup to Shadow Dance, opening with a stun and then Ambushing away as necessary. Force the PvP trinket and then teach them that Subtlety Rogues are still just as big a threat as they were at level 70!

As a Rogue, losing is never an option. We are born to kill, designed for murder, and driven to slaughter. By using your knowledge of your abilities and your superior intellect, I have no doubt that with persistence and practice you can overcome any team that comes your way. While many matches are uphill battles with no victory in sight, playing smart and sticking to a plan will triumph over sloppy play in the end. So sharpen your daggers, unsheathe your swords, strap on your fists, and weight your maces: the killing season has begun with force and we are to answer in kind.

Flight paths in Storm Peaks

Welcome back, flight path fans! Storm Peaks is the penultimate zone in Northrend, and a welcome return to navigational complexity. As I mentioned in my last post on Sholazar, it is also my favorite zone in Northrend; I really enjoy all the Titan stuff as well as the background on the dwarves we get in the Alliance quests. The Sons of Hodir have the dubious honor of being probably the most difficult essential faction to rep up with, but that's going to get much easier in 3.0.8 when Relics of Ulduar become a rep turn-in. Anyway, I'd better get on with the FPs; there are quite a few of them.

Neutral

1. 
   

   K3 (41,83), run by the goblins, is the entry point to Storm Peaks (and a pun off a famous mountain). I only wish we could ride on rockets all the time out of this one.

2. 
   

   Dun Niffelem (63,61) is a heavily phased Frost Giant town, headquarters of the Sons of Hodir. You will not be able to go here without being attacked before doing some significant questing (but don't worry, they're very enjoyable quests).

3. 
   

   Bouldercrag Refuge, in the northwest of the zone, has a flight master at 31,36.

4. 
   

   There's also a small cluster of NPCs up near the Ulduar instances, including a flight master (45,28), a repairer, and a reagent vendor. This is very handy for those Halls of Stone and Halls of Lightning runs (both of which are pretty nasty on heroic, in my opinion, especially the Tribunal and Loken). It will become even more essential in patch 3.1, when the Ulduar raid is due to be added.

   
   

Alliance

• 5. Frosthold (30,74) is the hub for some essential questing; I don't want to give anything away, but it's a very dwarf-heavy town. It's also your opportunity to pick up a boot flask for the low price of 10 relics before it gets raised to 250 in 3.0.8.
  

Horde

• 
  

  5. Grom'arsh Crash Site is situated in the north center of Storm Peaks; its flight master is at 36,49.

• 6. Camp Tunka'lo, filled with those nifty Taunka, is in eastern Storm Peaks. You can catch a flight out of it at 66,51. There's an interesting idea that the flight master, Hyeyoung Parker, is named after a Korean actress; it is certainly an unusual name for WoW.
  

Northrend's Gross Domestic Product: 719 million gold

Our friend The WoW Economist started a little project the other day: he added up, according to the top items lists, all of the products sold from Northrend across the servers, and then multiplied each by what he calls a "median" price (though exactly how that's reached, we're not sure), and landed on a huge amount of wow gold: 719,918,239.7. Obviously I'm not a WoW Economist (I'm not even that good at math), but that sounds to me like Northrend's gross domestic product: players are creating an economy of 719 million gold in Northrend from week to week.

Unfortunately, that number alone doesn't tell us much, except that there's a lot of gold moving around in Northrend (it would be interesting to compare this to, say, Azeroth or Outland's equivalent, though the more useful numbers would probably be Outland before the new expansion hit, when everyone was still farming and selling items from there). And it will be interesting to see this tracked in the future: the real GDP is usually used as an indicator of both standard of living and a country's economic health, and while there are drawbacks to using that number to gauge both of those qualities, it's probably fair to say the economy in Northrend is booming. Maybe tracking this in the future will let us see how new content patches or item or even class updates can affect what the economy does there.

Very interesting. EVE Online's creators, CCP, have actually hired an economist to help run their ingame economy, and while WoW's isn't generally seen as quite that complicated, there are still plenty of big numbers to play around with..

Officers' Quarters: The new loot drama

Take a look at the stats on that trinket at the right. No, it's not the best trinket in the game (or even close) -- but what's remarkable about it is that any spec of any class could make a legitimate case for rolling on it. Add to that the fact that it's a world drop, so it could drop in any random pick-up group, and it's BOE, and you've got the perfect recipe for loot drama. The name says it all, doesn't it: Tears of Bitter Anguish. It's like Blizzard knew how much QQ this item could cause.

In this new world of spell power and combined spell/melee hit/crit stats, raid leaders have to make some tough decisions -- and not everyone is happy about it. This week's e-mail is all about the loot QQ.

Dear Scott,

I am a regular member of a fairly hardcore raiding guild, and have been working as the master looter since BC. Our guild has always has the rule that everyone gets dibs on their armor class first. For example, as a Holy pally, I can't roll on cloth gear unless no clothies want it, the theory being that its not fair seeing as clothies can't roll on plate.

While I have had no problem with this, we are running into a problem where there is very little spell mail armor, and so our shamans are feeling a little left out when leather Boomkin gear drops and the lone druid in the raid automatically gets it even though there is very little gear for themselves. As well, when mail does drop they get into arguments over whether it is Resto, Enhance, or Elemental gear, seeing as it looks almost identical.

Any suggestions?

Obviously, a DKP or similar formal loot system can sidestep a lot of these issues. You can just ignore the armor class of a drop and let players bid as they wish. A limited resource that must be earned has a way of limiting people's desire for any drops that aren't the absolute ideal item for a slot. Are guilds still using these systems?

My guild, even though it's very large, has been running mostly 10-player raids. As such, it's been easy for us to distribute loot solely by /random and some common sense.

Our priorities are a bit different than those outlined in the e-mail. It sounds like you're giving out offspec gear that could be used for a main spec just because it happens to be leather rather than mail. So I don't blame your Elemental and Resto shamans for being somewhat upset. (I do blame them for mistaking Enhancement gear for caster gear, however . . .)

Your system may be fair in a strict sense, but it's not the best system to help your progression and it's also probably pretty frustrating at times for your players.

Raid leaders have to keep the best interests of the raid in mind, which means giving out loot where it will benefit the raid's DPS, mitigation, or healing efficiency most.

Here's how my guild does it. When an item drops, first dibs goes to the players whose armor type and spec matches the gear. For example, if Sapphiron drops Helm of the Vast Legions, rogues and Feral druids would be the first classes to roll on it. If there are none in the raid or they don't want the helm, then any other physical DPS main spec, regardless of class or armor type, would have the opportunity to roll. That way, if the item is an upgrade, it will be used to boost the DPS of the raid.

If no main spec DPS class wants the drop, then it will be up for grabs to any offspecs who can equip it. Our players will often defer to the offspec whose armor class matches the item, but it's for an offspec, so we don't micromanage who can roll.

This system has worked great for us so far, but we are a relatively drama-free bunch. Still, you can justify it every time because it helps the raid improve. Common sense wins out. Likewise, you can't really justify giving Footsteps of Malygos to a Feral druid over an Elemental shaman just because it's leather. That item will rot in a bank instead of helping your raid. Loot that helps the raid results in more loot. Common sense tells you to give it to the player who will use it to kill bosses rather than the player who will use it to grind dailies.

Now, tanks and healers might not like it. After all, although it's easier than it used to be, they do have a tougher time solo questing than DPS specs do. But they also have plenty of opportunity to acquire solo gear in many other ways -- reputation, crafting, BOEs, and so on. An extra 10 DPS for your DPS main specs can mean the difference between loot and wiping. An extra 10 DPS for your Holy priest will mean he or she can get her quests done ever so slightly faster.

We all want our tanks and healers to be happy. But in the course of farming the limited raids that Northrend currently has to offer, they'll have plenty of chances to roll on loot that main specs don't need. It may take a few weeks, but eventually the players who attend raids regularly will get every drop they ever wanted and then some. And the quicker you gear up your main specs, the less time it will take every week to get those drops.

Rings, necklaces, trinkets, cloaks, and weapons don't have armor types, so those items are most likely to cause drama. Again, common sense has to come into play. Clearly an item with attack power should go to a DPS spec and an item with spell power should go to a caster. Other stats are a bit more tricky.

• If an item has hit or armor penetration, DPS main specs should get priority.


• A healing main spec should never have priority on an item with expertise or spell penetration.


• A ranged DPS class should never have priority on an item with expertise.


• If an item has mana per 5, healing main specs should get priority, unless it also has DPS-priority specs.


• If an item has extra armor or other mitigation stats, tanking main specs should get priority.


• If an item has intelligence, a mana-using class should get priority.


• Haste and crit are stats that any spec can use.
  

You can apply these guidelines to any drop. It sounds complicated at first, but it's really not that bad. With these guidelines in mind, decisions can be made very quickly and with practically no debate. Here are some examples: Infection Repulser or Volitant Amulet -- healing main spec priority because of mp5; Gown of Blaumeux -- cloth-wearing, DPS caster main spec priority due to hit; Mark of Norgannon -- any melee DPS main spec priority due to expertise; Benefactor's Gauntlets -- Resto and Elemental shamans have equal priority because crit and haste are helpful stats for both classes.

Beyond that, you can go into further detail if you wish. For example, armor penetration isn't a highly effective stat for Ret paladins because many of their attacks already bypass armor. But that type of aggressive min/maxing can overcomplicate your system, so use your own discretion there.

Making good decisions about loot that benefits the raid is the best way to avoid drama. You'll never be able to keep every player happy, but you can create a situation where arguing against the system is, almost by definition, acting selfishly.

Has anyone out there come up with a better system or solution? Tell us about it below!

Wintergrasp daily quests

So now you know all about the zone, familiarized yourself with the gameplay, and have some sort of idea on the strategies on how to win it, let's have a look at the daily quests associated with the zone. The cool thing about Wintergrasp dailies is that they are the only source of Stone Keeper's Shards outside of dungeon bosses and the only way to obtain them whether or not your faction controls Wintergrasp.

The Wintergrasp dailies are also an excellent source of Honor and some can be done without actually doing any PvP whatsoever, which is a strange new trend in Wrath of the Lich King, where the PvP side of the game is accessible entirely through PvE. The very first daily quest is self-explanatory -- Victory in Wintergrasp, which requires players to win a battle for the zone. Alliance players get this quest from the Tactical Officer Abrahmis, while Horde players get it from Tactical Officer Kilrath. If you control the zone, these NPCs can be found in front of Wintergrasp Keep, where the Titan Relic is housed. If you don't, they can be found in the landing camps on the East or West.

The quest seems to be currently unavailable in the game, as it has been very buggy and many players have reported not completing the quest even after a victory and having the requisite Rank. I'm certain the quest will return in bug-free form with Patch 3.0.8, if not hotfixed sooner. Completing the quest awards one Stone Keeper's Shard, 13 Gold 23 Silver, and 1241 Honor at Level 80.

Gallery: Wintergrasp

No Mercy for the Merciless (A) / Slay Them All! (H)
Just like most quests in Wintergrasp, this is pretty straightforward -- kill 20 members of the opposing faction. Unlike other Northrend PvP quests, such as the ones in Grizzly Hills, only players and not NPCs will count towards this quest. Because of tagging mechanics, it's best if you do this while in a raid group. Players killed with a vehicle will count, too, so don't worry about taking control of one.

Alliance players can obtain this quest from Commander Zanneth while Horde players can get this from Commander Dardosh. Just like all Wintergrasp NPCs, they will spawn inside the Fortress if your faction controls it or at the landing camp if your faction does not. Completing this quest awards three Stone Keeper's Shards, which is almost like killing a heroic dungeon boss when you have Essence of Wintergrasp. It also gives 13 Gold 23 Silver, and 1241 Honor at Level 80. Because you also gain Honor while killing the requisite 20 players, this is a good quest for Honor grinding.

I highly recommend taking the trip to Icecrown and picking up the dailies Make Them Pay! if you're Horde and No Mercy! if you're Alliance from the floating airships. Kills made in Wintergrasp will count towards these quests, including siege vehicles, which count as a player of the opposing faction. This makes either quest extremely easy to complete while in Wintergrasp. The quests award 13 Gold 23 Silver and 800 bonus Honor at Level 80.

A Rare Herb (A) / Healing With Roses (H)
These quests are part of the elemental farming series that randomly change every day. Alliance players may get the quest from Anchorite Tessa and Horde players from Primalist Mulfort. It requires killing Living Lashers or enemy players in the Steppe of Life in Southwestern Wintergrasp. The drop -- Alliance or Horde Herb Pouches -- comes from the plant elementals as well as opposing players. Players have a higher chance to drop the item and in larger quantities (up to two).

In Patch 3.0.8, players will have a buff indicating what quest item they will drop when killed. This will make farming the drop easier and presumably not limited to the zone. This is an awesome change because it means players can complete these kinds of quests while battling for the Fortress simply by looting slain opponents.

These quests aren't as good to farm through simply killing Living Lashers because of the low drop rate and because there are no greater elemental versions of the plant elementals even if you control Wintergrasp. Completing this quest rewards three Stone Keeper's Shards, 13 Gold 23 Silver, and 1241 Honor at Level 80.

Bones and Arrows (A / H)
This quest may be obtained from Bowyer Randolph if you're Alliance and from Lieutenant Vieron Blazefeather if you're Horde. The required drops, Quiver of Dragonbone Arrows, come from the shadow elementals in the Forest of Shadows in Western Wintergrasp, as well as opposing players. Players and Shadow Revenants have a chance to drop up to two of the quest item, so unlike the previous quests where it makes no difference, it's best to do this when your faction controls the zone. Completing the quest rewards three Stone Keeper's Shards, 13 Gold 23 Silver, and 1241 Honor at Level 80.




Fueling the Demolishers (A / H)
This quest is given by Siege Master Stouthandle if you're Alliance and Siegesmith Stronghoof if you're Horde, but unlike similar daily quests, these are turned in to your faction's Commanders -- the ones that ask you to slay 20 opponents -- instead of the original quest givers. I'm not a big fan of this quest because the Cauldron of Flames in Southeastern Wintergrasp, where the fire elementals who drop the quest item Eternal Embers can be found, is a heavily farmed place.

On a good note, the Flame Revenants are guaranteed to drop 1-3 Crystallized Fire, so it's not bad money at all if you decide to do it when your faction controls Wintergrasp. Otherwise, when Patch 3.0.8 kicks in, it's easy enough to complete the quest when killing players elsewhere in the zone so you won't have to compete with Crystallized Fire farmers. Completing the quest rewards three Stone Keeper's Shards, 13 Gold 23 Silver, and 1241 Honor at Level 80.

Warding the Warriors (A) / Jinxing the Walls (H)
The last random daily elemental farming quest is one that requires players to kill water elementals in the Glacial Falls in East Wintergrasp. Because Water Revenants have a chance to drop up to two Imbued Horde Armor or Enchanted Alliance Breastplates, it's best to do these quests when your faction controls the zone as with Bones and Arrows and Fueling the Demolishers. Sorceress Kaylana gives this to the Alliance, while Hoodoo Master Fu'jin gives this to the Horde. Completing the quest rewards three Stone Keeper's Shards, 13 Gold 23 Silver, and 1241 Honor at Level 80.

Stop the Siege (A / H) or Defend the Siege (A / H)
The last daily quest is only random depending on whether you get it while you control Wintergrasp or are assaulting it. If you control the zone, you will get Stop the Siege from Senior Demolitionist Legoso if you're Alliance or Alterac Valley favorite Lieutenant Murp if you're Horde. If you don't control the zone, they will give Defend the Siege instead. However, you can complete the quest whether you are attacking or defending.

Stop the Siege is the more straightforward of the two quests, requiring you to destroy three siege vehicles. This is easy enough to do and it will help if you are in a raid group. Defending the Siege is easier to do on offense, as you will get credit for the quest whenever a siege vehicle destroys a structure. This means if there are three siege vehicles within the vicinity when a wall or tower is destroyed, this quest easily completes. On offense, you'll have to accompany vehicles to destroy workshops or Southern towers, which isn't always done. Completing the quest rewards three Stone Keeper's Shards, 13 Gold 23 Silver, and 1241 Honor at Level 80.

Completing all Wintergrasp daily quests available reward up to 10 Stone Keeper's Shards (9 at the moment as Victory for Wintergrasp seems to be unavailable) and almost 5,000 Honor, which is an awesome haul considering players can do it solo. It's curious to note that the quest NPCs will despawn for a short while when the battle begins or sometimes even for the entire duration of the battle. The Victory for Wintergrasp quest also seemed to occupy or share the daily Battleground quest slot such that it became unavailable if you already accepted a daily Battleground quest. Hopefully the quest bugs will be fixed soon.

25-man Razuvious mage tanked

Instructor Razuvious is the first boss of the Military Quarter in Naxxramas. The typical strategy on the 25-man version of the the fight is to have a priest mind control one of his four adds and use that add to tank the boss, because Razuvious hits far too hard for normal tanks (hundreds of thousands on plate). But who needs a traditional strategy, right? A Team, of Stonemaul, decided they would do this fight with no priests.

The trick was to have a mage constantly spellsteal Bone Armor off of the trash leading up to Razuvious. The mage then tanked the fight, the healers kept the mage up, and all went well. The mage that had been tanking did die around 40%, but another mage hit the spellsteal, picked up the boss, and the fight went smoothly from there. There's a WWS available, if you're curious. The reason the mages don't come out on top for damage in is that it's all absorbed by Bone Armor (otherwise you'd have some very dead mages). Let's hear it for creative methods!

Flight paths in Sholazar Basin

Sholazar takes the the honor of having the fewest flight points of any Northrend zone, featuring only two neutral points.

1. 
   

   Nesingwary Base Camp. This FP is interesting in that it is not immediately open - you need to do some quests to retrieve an engine and collect parts in order to rebuild the flying machine in order to be able to fly from it. After doing the quests, the flying machine itself, named the Spirit of Gnomeregan (26,58), acts as flight master.

2. 
   

   River's Heart, in the center of the zone. This FP (50,62) does not need to be unlocked by questing. There is also a Cold Weather Flying trainer here, in case you happen to ding 77 while questing in Sholazar (though on both of my 80s so far, I hit 77 either one or two zones earlier).

The next post will take me to my favorite Northrend zone, Storm Peaks, which is a little more interesting FP-wise. Until then, have fun, and if you see our local friendly spirit beast, be sure to tell a hunter.

Northern Engineering highlights

Engineering has seen many changes over the past year, and Wrath of the Lich King brought even more. Today, Insider Trader is taking a look at some of the highlights of the profession to help you set goals and plan ahead with your leveling.

This by no means covers every schematic, and instead looks at the big ticket items and new innovations, including stylish, if somewhat controversial, new modes of transportation, consolidations to save bag space, and more.


Engineering
Engineering in Wrath of the Lich King is very different from what you've experienced previously. For example, Engineers used to be weighed down by trinkets, if they ever wanted to be able to use many of their gadgets. This system is slowly being replaced by a special type of "enchant" that allows an Engineer to consolidate.

Engineers are also beginning to focus on designing items that can be sold to other players, which adds another side to the profession.

There are currently no dropped Engineering schematics, although the plans for the two faction-specific mounts come from reaching exalted with the Horde Expedition or the Alliance Vanguard.

350-380
Cobalt Frag Bombs, introduced with the latest expansion, offer an incredibly cheap way to level your Engineering. This is perfect for players that are still leveling their characters, and can't fly around Northrend gathering whatever they please at efficient speeds.

These bombs are orange at 350, and go yellow at 375, and green around 380. The Volatile Blasting Triggers needed can be found in the Borean Tundra. in the Geyser Fields. There are plenty of little mechanical mobs that can be killed, looted, and then salvaging their parts, much the way a Miner can mine certain rocky corpses.

375
At this point, your bombs are yellow quality, and you learn two new recipes. The Bladed Pickaxe and the Hammer Pick are not only cheap ways to level, they are useful items that can be sold to other players.

The Bladed Pickaxe serves as both a mining pick and a skinning knife, which is perfect for gatherers who chose Mining and Skinning over Herbalism and Skinning, or the tracking nightmare that is Mining and Herbalism.

The Hammer Pick is ideal for Blacksmiths and Engineers who took Mining alongside their primary professions.

380
While this is not a leveling tool, the Belt-Clipped Spynoculars will save you some bag space and make you look more like a bonified spy.

This clips to your belt, and replaces your Ornate Spyglass, if you carried one. It allows you to see far into the distance, and it shows all of the locations of gas clouds on your mini-map. These two functions are also carried out by many engineering goggles, especially epics, but you may find yourself without an appropriate pair while leveling.

This stacks with the Eternal Belt Buckle made by Blacksmiths.

You will also learn the Flexweave Underlay, which allows you to turn any cloak into a Parachute Cloak by adding this "enchant." This does take the place of an enchant, so it will likely be more popular for casual players who farm, quest and do some dungeoning or light raiding, than it will be for people who love to push their stats up as high as possible.

Previously, if you wanted your cloak to give you a Slow Fall-like effect, you needed a separate cloak like the Parachute Cloak (30 second cooldown) or the Skyguard's Drape (30 minute cooldown). This new method not only allows you to wear any cloak you like, the effect is usable once every minute.

Both of the above items are yellow when trained at 380.

390
At this point, you can learn another belt "enchant." This does not stack with any other belt "enchant" that you can produce, although again, because the belt buckles do not count as enchants, you can have one of each.

The Personal Electromagnetic Pulse Generator will stun nearby mechanical entities for three seconds. This is its only function, and does not work on vehicles or seige weapons. It would be especially useful while questing through Northrend, or while farming mechanicals for parts in an area like the aforementioned Geyser Fields of the Borean Tundra.

This schematic is yellow when trained.

400
Also yellow at the time of training is the Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket. This glove "enchant" will take the place of a traditional enchant or armor kit, but effectively gives you a ranged weapon that deals 1035 to 1265 damage, usable once per minute. It is also an instant cast.

Not only is this useful for classes that have trouble pulling from a distance, it is also a nice boost in overall damage. Place the rocket onto your gloves, put the icon into your bar, and all of a sudden you have a 1-1.2k burst of damage every minute. It is also useful for runners and pulling mobs out of the sky.

It is important to note that this item has no minimum range, and so can be fired by melee at point blank range, although it will reset your swing timer as well as activating the global cooldown.

On the positive side, it can crit!

This replaces the old Goblin Rocket Launcher, a trinket, that also gave 45 stamina and a 3 second stun effect. In essence, you are swapping out a low-level trinket and a glove enchant, for a slightly less powerful but very stylish, fun and useful "enchant," along with the latest and greatest trinket of your choice.

If rockets don't get your blood flowing, you could instead "enchant" your gloves with the Hyperspeed Accelerator. This does not activate the GCD, and awards you, upon use, 340 haste rating for 8 seconds every 2 minutes.

This will stack with other haste-increasing enchants, potions, food, and talents and abilities, such as is being discussed in the comments on Wowhead.

Both of these glove modifications are usable in arenas. Also, if you happen to be a Blacksmith-Engineer, these will stack with your Socket Gloves ability.

405
The Nitro Boosts can be trained at 405, yellow quality, and are used to modify your boots. Again, this takes the place of a regular enchant, but gives you an ability similar to Sprint, although it is only a 5 second duration with a 5 minute cooldown.

The speed boost is 150%, which is much greater than Sprint. This will take the place of a traditional enchant, but does allow the Engineer to wear any boots he or she pleases, rather than being stuck with Rocket Boots Xtreme or Rocket Boots Xtreme Lite.

415
You might consider making a pile of Scrapbot Construction Kits. For 10 Saronite Bars, you get a stack of 5 bots that will live for five minutes, and buy your junk. It will not repair for you, but can be summoned every 15 minutes. This is great for extended farming.

425
At 425, MOLL-E, the portable 5-minute mailbox usable once per day, is an excellent way to gain one skill point. You will be everyone's favorite raider when you walk in with MOLL-E and a stack of Field Repair Bot 110Gs.

While the cooldown isn't ideal, the fact that MOLL-E is a keepable item rather than a consumable is a huge plus, and this is something that Engineers have been wanting for a long time. Unfortunately, she doesn't currently fit in your Engineering bag, although I'm sure that will change.

The Gnomish X-Ray Specs, while they do actually replace your head piece, let you see everyone in their underwear. 'Nough said.

You will also be able to make a nifty frost resist helm, Mechanized Snow Goggles, which should be helpful for parts of Naxxramas.

You might also make a Global Thermal Sapper Charge, that will not only inflict AoE damage, it will also affect seige weaponry.

440
Epic goggles become available for you to create.

450
At a whopping 450 skill level, you will be able to create either the Mechano-hog or the Mekgineer's Chopper, provided that you are exalted with either the Horde Expedition or the Alliance Vanguard, which you should be by that point.

These cost a bunch to make, can be sold to non-Engineers for even more, and even have their own achievement, Get to the Choppa!.

Wrath guide to the Feast of Winter Veil

Nothing says Winter Veil like a skanky santa outfit. Ho ho ho, indeed. The winter holidays in Azeroth have enough sex and violence (mostly violence) to counteract all of the feel-good, family-friendly holiday cheer going on in the real world. It's exactly what you need after going anywhere near a mall parking lot at this time of year.

In-game holidays are always good for those of us with limited playtime because the quests give good experience, fun loot and there are often entertaining stories and activities to go along with it. The Feast of Winter Veil is no exception. While it doesn't have the ridiculous xp of the Midsummer Fire Festival or Hallows End, it does have some great Achievements, virtual toys and enough xp to make it worth your while. Following is a casual player's guide to the festivities.

Achievements

If you have access to Dalaran, are PvP savvy and have time to do non-heroic Northrend instances, you are capable of getting all of the Feast of Winter Veil Achievements along with the title of Merrymaker. Check out WoW Insider's guide for how to achieve them all. If you are in Northrend, but haven't braved any of the instances yet because of past problems with PuGs and time constraints, go ahead and give them a try. Blizzard kept true to its promises and kept the new dungeon clear times to less than an hour -- some as short as 25 minutes with a good group. The Winter Hats required for looking cool and achieving 'Tis the Season drop off the Northrend dungeon bosses, so there will be plenty of people to form hat hunting groups.

Quests

The main Winter Veil quest hubs are in Ironforge for Alliance and Orgrimmar for Horde. Check out all of the ones that are available at your level and do them -- they are pretty simple, there are plenty of people around to help and you get Achievements and large experience rewards for completing them. Here are some tips for each one:

• Treats for Greatfather Winter: This quest is available at level 10 and is just a simple cooking quest. The recipe required for the cookies is obtained from one of the Smokywood Pastures vendors as well as the spices. The milk can of course be obtained from any innkeeper or food and drink vendor. And the small eggs can be harvested from killing lowbie birds or from the AH at exorbitant prices. We'll chat more about collecting small eggs later.


• Stolen Winter Veil Treats: Available starting at level 30, you get this quest from one of your friendly Smokywood Pastures vendors. You have to travel to Alterac Mountains, talk to a snowman, and then kill the Abominable Greench, who is just a very large yeti. There will be a bajillion people of both factions there killing him, too. Happily, as of this writing, the Greench is on an instant respawn, making it easier for everyone to get a kill quickly instead of fighting for spawns for an hour while getting ganked (no, I'm not bitter). Do group up to get him. He is a level 36 Elite, so if you are less than 40, he will be tough. Also, everyone in the group gets the treats off the kill, so the whole thing just goes more quickly for all involved if you are in a group.


• Metzen the Reindeer: Yes, all of Greatfather Winter's reindeer are named after developers. This quest is available at level 40 and you get it from a Smokywood Pastures vendor. The notes he gives you tells you that Metzen is possibly in two locations. He is actually in both locations (hmmm), but I think Tanaris is the easiest. Just go to where the pirates are south of Steamwheedle Port and you'll find him near one of the barracks buildings. The real trick here is to talk to him and use the dust quickly while you have the chance as there will be other players attempting to free him at the same time. Again, it is probably best to join a group to keep the mobs around him clear.

Profiting from the Holiday

Just like in real life, there is a lot of money to be made during the Feast of Winter Veil. Because of Achievements, more players than ever are doing the holiday quests and are willing to pay high prices to get them done quickly. Here are a few ways to cash in on the fun and help you save up for mounts, bags or whatever tickles your fancy.

• Tailoring: You can make a lot of money off of selling Winter Clothes on the AH. The pattern for your faction will be sold by one of the Smokywood Pastures vendors. You can probably find the pattern for the other faction on the neutral AH for a high price. (Edited to add: Only if there are unused patterns leftover from last year as they are BoP this year. Thanks Osi!) The clothes for your faction can sell for about 5 to 25g while the ones for the opposite faction go for 45g and up. The prices will probably drop over time, so take advantage of the high prices now.


• Leatherworking: Winter Boots are your cashcow, so to speak. The patterns can be purchased from one of the Smokywood Pastures vendors. I couldn't find any on my server's AH for less than 45g since the event began.


• Small Eggs: In case you feel bad for price gouging players for these easily obtained items, remember that you are saving them time and effort. So go ahead and charge at least 5 gold for stacks of 5 on the AH. They will stack in stacks of 10, but the Treats for Greatfather Winter quest requires 5 cookies, which means 5 eggs, so split your stacks before selling. If you are Alliance, the drop rate on vultures in Westfall is pretty decent. If you are Horde, the dragonhawks outside of Silvermoon drop at least 1 per kill. Yes, 100% drop rate and sometimes they drop 2. You entrepreneurs yell at me all the time for announcing this, but there will always be lazy players to profit from.

Fun

Blizzard really brings out the silly for this holiday. There are devices for turning you into sexy santa gnomes and holly for turning your mount into a reindeer. You blow kisses at revelers once an hour to receive snow, holly and mistletoe. There are snowballs to throw, bots to battle and snowman disguises to wear. And, of course, there are presents to open on December 25th, no matter if you have been naughty or nice.

Whether you participate for fun, profit, experience, achievements or all of the above -- there's something for you at the Feast of Winter Veil. The holiday goes on through January 2nd, so even if you can't squeeze in too much playtime now, you still have plenty of time before this event expires.

Happy Feast of Winter Veil!

The Vault of Archavon

So you've won Wintergrasp. Now what? Well, the very first thing that most players do when they wrest or maintain control of the zone is head into the Vault of Archavon. The vault is a raid instance accessible only to members of the faction that control Wintergrasp. It is one of the more important reasons why control of Wintergrasp is so important. Archavon the Stone Watcher is an extremely easy raid boss who drops pieces of Tier 7 and Arena gear. In short, he means free epics.

While there are no level restrictions to entering Wintergrasp (though if you can't fly you'll either have to take the portal or be summoned), players must be Level 80 and in a raid group in order to enter the Vault of Archavon raid instance. It's a very short raid with exactly four trash mobs who have special abilities, but are essentially tank and spank and prepare the raid for how the boss will be like. Archavon is a DPS race.

Raids will need two tanks, the necessary healers, and a whole lot of good DPS. The off-tank is needed for when Archavon picks up the main tank and uses him to mash other members of the raid for eight seconds. It doesn't even have to be a real tank, just someone tough enough to take some heavy hits. Archavon will also leap at random raid members, dealing some damage and creating an AoE cloud that deals about 2k per tick. He just has to be moved out of this cloud to allow melee DPS to do their thing. Lastly, he shoots out rock shards at random raid members, which deals damage to anyone within 5 yards of the target. If you're the target, simply stay put. If you're not, just move away from the rocks.

The only real difficulty with Archavon is his 5-minute enrage timer. Groups must pump up enough DPS to kill him before he wipes the raid. It's an extremely straightforward fight and is the easiest raid boss in Wrath of the Lich King. He drops two pieces of either Tier 7 (10-man) or Hateful Gladiator chest, legs, or gloves in the normal version, and four pieces of either Tier 7 (25-man) or Deadly Gladiator chest, legs, or gloves in heroic. The Gladiator pieces do not require ratings and can be worn when picked up. He also drops 2 Emblems of Heroism or 2 Emblems of Valor in normal and heroic versions, respectively.

There is absolutely no reason not to do Archavon every week, as he promises the best reward-to-effort ratio than any other boss. It usually takes longer to organize a group, usually a PUG, than it is to actually finish the instance. Aside from itemset drops, Archavon also reportedly drops the extremely rare Grand Black War Mammoth, which is also an Achievement. So even if you have no interest in PvP or Wintergrasp, Archavon should always be a weekly stop for the promise of free and easy upgrades.

Are you ready for Season 5?

It's finally here. The real reason I rushed to 80 and moderately gear up by mid-December is because I wanted to be ready for Arena Season 5. To be quite honest, now that it's here, I'm a bit nervous. Not nervous, that's not the right word... giddy, I think, excited like a six-year old going to the playground. Strangely, though, I've been having so much fun in Wintergrasp that I've hardly given a thought to Arenas.

Now that I've given mulled it over a bit, I realize that the gear gap -- or lack of one -- is going to become immediately palpable simply because so much gear is readily available in Northrend. Any player who has just hit 80 will have immediate options for gear, and it won't be so hard to catch up or gear up for Arenas. Even without Resilience, so much gear has massive amounts of Stamina. I mean over 100 Stamina for a trinket? That's kind of insane. Players have so many options for gear now that some people won't even be doing Arenas to get Arena gear.

It's going to be a completely different ballgame. The presence of Death Knights will completely change Arena PvP, as it already has in PvE. Knockback effects such as Thunderstorm or Typhoon will be exciting tools in the movement-heavy environment. How will players react to a sudden Death Grip into the opposing team's kill zone? Will HoT-impairing effects like Shadow Embrace or Plague Strike be enough to curb Druid dominance? We'll see. It's exciting. Are you prepared for Season 5? Not just in terms of gear, but psyched and ready for the unpredictability of the metagame, at least for the first few weeks?

Patch 3.0.8 roulette

Okay, so I'm not saying right out that patch 3.0.8 is today, but with the 3 AM to 11 AM Pacific extended downtime this morning, well, it seems likely, and I was right about the PTR going up in the first place. Still, one week is sort of short, isn't it? Anyway, as long as we're on the subject of 3.0.8, let's go ahead and look at some of the things we've discussed about it in the last week or so, that way you'll be ready if it does drop this morning.

• Here's the original PTR patch notes for 3.0.8.


• In one of the most noticeable changes in this patch, expect to see Night Elf Mechanostrider gangs popping up any day now with the removal of race restrictions on PC race mounts.


• Among some of the biggest class changes are those for Death Knights, with some skill and talent changes meant to bolster them in PVE tanking and scale them back slightly in PvP.


• Mages, specifically Arcane Mages, are getting some nice buffs in 3.0.8.


• Yes, this is also the patch of the great Hunter nerf, alas.


• If you've been stuck trying to complete Northrend Gourmet, new recipes coming with this patch will now make that achievement -- and thus the Chef title -- possible.


• WoW, Casually discusses 3.0.8's advantages for the casual player.


• Check out some of the new items, including sigils and rings, that are coming in 3.0.8.


• The promised Feral Druid attack power changes are coming in 3.0.8, and with them comes a major change to Feral Staves


• Relics of Ulduar will be non-soulbound next patch, and will garner Sons of Hodir reputation when turned in to them in groups of 10 as well. Unfortunately, there is a small tradeoff. Hope you got your boot flask in time.


• More good news for tanks: You got some nice new stamina enchantments coming in 3.0.8.

The new look of Northrend

Let me say first that Wrath is awesome!! I LOVE it! One of my favorite things is the way they designed the new armor. That being said, one thing that has absolutely started to drive me crazy is the lack of diversity in armor! I can understand having the same models while leveling, however the fact that level 80 blues look just like the blues I got at 71 is just plain lazy! Has anyone else noticed this, and do you guys think Blizzard will step it up in the future?

Lindelan

This is an interesting issue -- Blizzard got some flak in Outland for the gear being a bit too colorful. "Clown" was a word that was used pretty often, thanks to all the glowing and neon extras that came on our gear last expansion. And in Northrend, we fortunately haven't had that problem: the gear looks a little more badass, made up of dark steel and leather with pointy and ragged spikes on it.

But have we gone too far the other way? Does all of the gear look the same now? Personally, I just miss my Hunter's mail kilt from the Argent Dawn world event rewards, but I think the gear has been much better looking in Northrend. I'm just happy none of it is pink, so if I have to choose between dark blue or straight black, that's a choice I'm happy to make.

New tanking enchants added in patch 3.0.8

It seems the devs took notice of the fact that many important Tanking enchants were just plain missing from Wrath, because we're getting a couple of new ones in patch 3.0.8. At the price of 5 Abyss Crystals each, you can buy the following formulae from the Shard Trader in Dalaran:

• Enchant Weapon - Titanguard: Teaches you how to permanently enchant a melee weapon to increase Stamina by 75. Requires a level 60 or higher item.


• Enchant Bracer - Major Stamina: Teaches you how to permanently enchant bracers to increase Stamina by 40. Requires a level 60 or higher item.

Before Titanguard, Mongoose remained the best tanking enchant (unless stacking threat stats), which was just downright silly. It's still a good avoidance enchantment, but for your pure tanking set you can't really pass up +750 HP on your weapon, before any talents or buffs are thrown into the equation. That's pretty incredible!

The Bracer enchant is a 28 stamina over Burning Crusade's equivalent: Enchant Bracer - Fortitude. That's quite the jump. While neither of these enchantments are especially interesting due to the lack of procs and things like that, they're definitely very good and I fully expect tanks to be scrambling for them as soon as patch 3.0.8 goes live.

Relics of Ulduar and Iron Boot Flask changed in patch 3.0.8

One of the cooler vanity items you can get in Wrath of the Lich King is the Iron Boot Flask, which turns you into an Iron Dwarf for 10 minutes every hour. Currently it only costs 10 Relics of Ulduar (an item that has a chance to drop off of anything in Storm Peaks), but that's going to change in patch 3.0.8. The Relics themselves are losing their current Soulbound status, but the Boot Flask will cost a jarring 250 Relics of Ulduar.

That price makes a whole lot of sense for an item like this, to be honest. Similar items, the Orb of the Sin'dorei and the Orb of Deception are both pretty rare. It's unusual that this one was so cheap, but it's probably a side effect of the item originally only having one charge in earlier incarnations of the item. Nowadays it has infinite uses but with a cooldown, so that higher price is deserved. You still have a chance to get it before the price change, and I really recommend you do. Especially when you consider the other change coming to the Relics and the Sons of Hodir.

Sons of Hodir reputation will be made a little easier using these Relics, because you'll be able to turn them in ten at a time to the Sons Quartermaster for 250 reputation per turn-in. I highly, highly recommend buying the boot flask as soon as possible at the current 10 Relic price if you want it, or you'll have wasted 240 perfectly good Relics! That's 6,000 rep you could have earned. Or, you know, a ton of gold on the auction house since they'll no longer be BoP.

Guide: Guild control

At the right you'll see Blizzard's illustrious guild control panel. Anyone who's been a guild leader has had to deal with this clunky interface at one time or another. I don't know about you, but I dread having to make adjustments there. I've even gone so far as to download add-ons in order to make some changes easier. But today's column isn't about how unfriendly the interface is, but what choices to make. Here is this week's e-mail:

Dear Scott,

I found your column on Wow insider and it's a very good idea for a column!

I recently started a guild on the Haomarush server called The Kings Guard. It's going quite well with decent officers, a guild bank and tabard.

Something I do want to ask you about however is the settings on the guild control.

I'm not quite sure how much power to give who and to what rank, and also what guild bank depositing/withdrawing rules to set up.

If you could give me any help with settings on guild controls for each rank (I'd be particularly interested to hear what your settings are), it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Yours sincerely,

James Kennedy

(Jimbot) -- Haomarush

Hi, Jimbot. Rarely do I receive such a straightforward question. Usually I'm dealing with thorny, drama-fueled conflicts with no easy answer. It's like fresh air for me!

The guild control panel has a number of options for assigning various guild permissions, but you should reserve the vast majority for your officers and yourself.

Your regular members will need three permissions: Guildchat Listen, Guildchat Speak, and Edit Public Note. You could set up a punitive rank that can listen to guild chat but not speak in guild chat, but I don't believe in that. If someone is causing such an uncontrollable uproar in guild chat that you feel compelled to take the permission away, you might as well remove them from the guild altogether.

The Edit Public Note feature is not well designed. It gives you the ability to edit your own note, which is why I allow anyone in the guild to have this permission. However, it also lets you edit anyone else's note. That can be a problem, particularly since the interface doesn't track who edits what.

I've only ever had a problem with someone editing notes once in nearly four years, however, so I think the risk is worth it. It lets members give each other important basic info like who their main character is or what trade skills they know. This information really should be part of the guild interface, but until Blizzard gets around to adding it (if ever), we're left with this option.

The remaining permissions include access to officers' chat and officers' notes, demotion and promotion of members, invitations to the guild, gkicks, and the message of the day. These options are all best handled only by officers. It means a little bit more work for your officers. It also means you have to be very careful whom you promote to officer status. But in the long run, giving anyone below that rank the ability to invite or kick members -- or change someone's rank -- just introduces too much chaos into the system.

These decisions should never be taken lightly. In many cases, the officers will want to discuss their options before anyone goes ahead and acts. So carrying out the invite, the kick, or the rank change should require someone who's been privy to that discussion.

The officers' chat channel is very useful to officers -- but only if half the guild isn't already in there. It allows us to have the above-mentioned discussions in a private forum where we can be brutally honest about our members. This honesty isn't always a bad thing. Of course sometimes we talk about how someone is a potential problem, but we also talk about how someone has really stepped up and shown the promise of effective leadership.

Officers' chat can be a problem if the officers isolate themselves there and rarely speak in general guild chat. It's an issue I've encountered during the darker periods of my guild's history, where the officers felt persecuted. Since then, I've tried to encourage my officers to be more involved in guild chat. It's better for guild morale if the officers have an active presence there. That way, members can get to know your officers a little bit more. And they can be reassured that officers are paying attention to what is said in the channel.

As annoying as it is to change these guild control permissions in the basic interface, changing guild bank permissions can be even more tedious -- so you want to get it right the first time.

In my guild, we've bounced back and forth on these permissions. At first we tended to leave the permissions more open. We allowed anyone who was an official member to take out a large amount of stacks from the basic vaults, and we allowed the officers to take a large amount of stacks from the officer vaults.

Then an officer got hacked. And it happened to be an officer with a ton of alts, all of whom were promoted. The hacker got away with quite a bit of loot before we were able to catch on and demote the remaining alts. It wasn't a total disaster. Blizzard restored all the items that were taken.

Still, we didn't have access to those items for a few weeks, which was a bit of a hassle. So afterward I changed the permissions to allow very few withdrawals for any rank. This approach stymied hackers (and we did have more people hacked in that time), but it also meant that everyone had to be very selective about what they withdrew. Items that weren't highly desired tended to rot away. The vaults quickly got clogged up with junk. We realized that this system wasn't working out very well, either.

So we tried to find a happy medium between security and convenience. We raised the number of stacks per day for all members, particularly for the lower vaults that hold mostly trade items, recipes, consumables, and the like. Anything valuable that someone deposits there gets moved up to higher vault after a couple of days. People can always request those items from an officer.

Veteran members have their own vault where they can share valuable items with each other, such as BOE rares, hard-to-get recipes, and so on.

The officers' vault has more relaxed permissions now, but we try not to stack items too much. For example, when Void Crystals were used for all the best enchants, we divided them up into stacks of five. That way, instead of a hacker getting 60 shards from three withdrawals, they'd only get 15. If worst came to worst and an officer had more requests that day than they could fulfill, they were always able to ask another officer to withdraw more.

Of course, as you can see in the image above, the character who is the guild leader has unlimited withdrawals by default. I wish it were possible to change that, but as far as I know, you can't. A guild leader getting hacked is pretty much a worst-case scenario. It would be great to be able to limit the damage, but Blizzard apparently disagrees.