Human Females trade faces on the PTR

One of the more mysterious bugs currently on the PTR is the fact that Human Females (maybe others, but none I've noticed) transferred over to the PTR are having their faces swapped around. In the picture above, you can see that my Paladin has two different faces. The one on the left is from Live servers, the one on the Right is from the patch 3.1 test realm. It isn't happening to all characters, oddly. Just some of them. My Priest, who is also a Human Female, transferred just fine and has the same face she always does. Which happens to be the face my Paladin has on the PTR now. Funky.

It's a known issue, and I'm sure it'll go away long before this patch ever hits live realms, but it's a very curious bug. It was likely caused by something quite mundane, but it makes me wonder if they were working on something that caused faces to shift out of the numerical order they had before. Adding new skins, perhaps? Updating old ones? Maybe, maybe not.

Oh me, oh my. Blizzard sure gets up to some weird stuff. Right now they are holding a theme park contest. Illustrate your own original Blizzard Entert

When the first set of 3.1 patch notes popped up, many Death Knights were surprised to see that their auras were being reworked into something that, well, just isn't an aura at all.

Instead, the effects are being rolled into talents so that, if talented, the Death Knight herself still gains the benefit, but does not extend it to party or raid members.

Although they will now be called, for example, Improved Blood Presence, the benefits will be applied regardless of the presence assumed by the character.

I have to admit that my first reaction to the change was a negative one. It feels weird to me switching from a Holy Paladin to a character that simply does not have a comparable range of buffs and auras to offer.

That's when my roomie and addict of WoW forums and websites, piped in with the why. Today, Ghostcrawler gives an official explanation.

Unholy Aura, which grants a 15% movement speed increase, was slowly "becoming mandatory as a raid buff." The ability is not only handy for long corpse runs, as well as fights where movement speed and reaction time are critical, but it seriously impacts the overall damage done by the meleeing crowd.

Melee characters spend an annoying amount of time backing out of range because of AoE or ground effects, running around the mobs to always stay behind them, following after a mobile tank, and the like. This disrupts their damage, and because this has always been the case, classes and encounters are balanced assuming that this is still going on.

Ghostcrawler also mentions that Blizzard "considered giving it to other classes" but, as you can imagine, that "would just be accepting all players moving faster all the time." If that were the case, many boot enchants would have to be reworked, and in fact, it would likely just be easier to increase everyone's base speed and call it a day.

So why not simply change Unholy Aura? Frost Aura was, to quote GC, "kind of lame", and I'd have to agree. Overall, "the [dk aura] mechanic was just a little awkward and hard to explain."

After all, it is a unique aura system. Paladins can toss up any aura, regardless of spec, while a raid would have to insist on an Unholy Death Knight for the speed boost benefit. Allowing this to continue would be contrary to the direction that Blizz has been taking raiding. They don't want any class and spec combo to get an automatic, necessitated, raid invitation.

Considering that Blizzard is also working to make Blood and Frost specs more appealing to entice more of the Death Knight population to let go of their Unholy ways, this change will not only be fairer to every class that wants a shot at a raid spot, it will also allow Death Knights to be accepted regardless of spec.

WoW Patch 3.1 PTR Druid changes

All right, Druids. I've been rolled out of bed to come look at the new PTR test notes, because apparently this is a big deal or something. As far as I'm concerned, all important business can wait until a reasonable hour in the morning, like 3 PM, but because this site is run by crazy people here I am.

So let's go skim the patch notes quickly -- /flick flick flick -- and try to answer the most important question first:

Is Tauren cat form still in the game?

/flick flick

Yes.

Man, %*#$ this patch.

Leaving aside this EGREGIOUS OMISSION, we're going to take a look at the preliminary Druid changes in patch 3.1 past the cut here, and courtesy of Michael Sacco and some data-mining gnomes, we also have the Druid Tier 8 shoulder graphic, which is pretty cool and reminds me a lot of Tier 5. I'm also seeing some undocumented changes in the game files off MMO Champion, but I'll have to examine those later today. I haven't been able to get on the PTR yet, so I can't confirm whether these changes have actually gone live on the test realm.

NOT ACTUALLY A DRUID CHANGE BUT IT AFFECTS DRUIDS MORE THAN ANY OTHER CLASS

Death Knights: Plague Strike and Blood Plague no longer remove HoT's. Plague Strike's damage increased quite a bit to compensate.

Bwa ha ha! Eat it, you miserable, overpopulated, overpowered walking corpses!

Oh God, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I need to stop setting off interclass warfare like that. Someone might get hurt.

Anyway. What else is here...

ABOLISH POISON: Now ticks every 3 seconds, up from every 2. Now lasts 12 seconds, up from 8.

Eh. My first thought when reading this was that this isn't going to make combat versus Rogues or Hunters more pleasant, but not having to reapply this as frequently is a pretty big plus. Rogues aren't doing so hot in arena right now. In a move that has shocked the world, Hunters are, for some unaccountable reason. Not that you'd catch me dead in arena nowadays. Or alive either.

Proceeding to the Balance tree --

OWLKIN FRENZY: Owlkin Frenzy is now properly considered an Enrage effect. Now also does not trigger from spell hits, only physical ranged and melee attacks.

With respect to PvE, Owlkin Frenzy was always an iffy talent at best, but one in which 1 or 2 points might be worth your time if you didn't need to pick up raid utility talents. There's sufficient raid damage in important Wrath encounters (e.g. Malygos, Kel'Thuzad, Sapphiron, Grobbulus) that the occasional proc would ultimately provide a damage boost, though not a large one. Because nearly all raid damage is magic-based, the 3.1 change basically shuts OF down for good as a PvE talent.

With that said, it always found its best use in PvP anyhow, and in that respect it's definitely a nerf to Moonkin viability versus casters. However, procs off physical damage have been preserved, and at the moment that's where most of the damage is coming from in arena. I confess, though -- I've never PvP'd as a Moonkin. Thoughts?

That's the only confirmed talent change for Balance so far, so let's head to Feral --

NEW TALENT -- PRIMAL GORE: Grants the periodic damage from your Rake, Lacerate and Rip abilities the ability to critically hit.

Blizzard's been asked about allowing DoT's and HoT's to crit previously. If I'm recalling correctly, they've said that when classic WoW went live, they didn't have the ability to program it, but since then it's an idea they've bounced back and forth a lot, athough it's not necessarily simple to implement from either an itemization or class design perspective.

This looks pretty amazing on the outside (and depending on the proc rate, might very well be), but fair warning: don't be surprised if the damage modifier on Ferocious Bite gets nerfed in order to compensate. Ghostcrawler's mentioned recently that they're concerned about Cat burst in PvP (which is a very valid concern between Rend and Tear -- to which Primal Gore is currently linked -- and Feral Aggression) and were looking for ways to increase Cat sustained damage while reducing burst. Granting Rip and Rake the ability to crit is kind of an elegant solution to this problem, as both are necessary bleeds in the Cat high-DPS rotation.

Oh, and before I forget, this also affects Lacerate, which should be a very welcome damage/threat buff for bears. A 5-stack of Lacerate right now should be ticking for somewhere in the region of 700-1K depending on your gear, gems, and enchants, and a crit on this would be lovely.

SAVAGE ROAR: Now considered an Enrage effect.

Hrm. Enrage effects can be dispelled by Hunters' Tranquilizing Shot. Food for thought.

Restoration is getting a few more confirmed changes so I split the post into two parts. Also, Druid Tier 8 shoulders on the next page!

WoW Patch 3.1 PTR Warlock changes

Blizzard said that they'd be introducing a lot of changes for the Warlock class in Patch 3.1, and if the incomplete patch notes are any indication, it looks like they're following through on that promise. You can read through the patch notes, but the Warlock changes are incredibly interesting. There are a lot of them, so let's go through them one by one and I'll weigh in with my thoughts on whether the changes are good, bad, or badass. Let's start with the baseline changes.

Curse of the Elements (Rank 5) - Increased to 13% spell damage, up from 10%.
It appears that the effects of Malediction has been rolled into the highest rank of this spell -- which means raiding Warlocks regardless of spec no longer have an excuse not to throw it up during a boss fight. Of course, this also means the Warlocks in the raid will have to talk amongst themselves as to who gets that assignment. It's like the Scorpid Sting of Hunters. It's a fantastic debuff, but it doesn't show up on the damage meters.

Curse of Recklessness - Removed
One of the least utilized curses, if only because there are better armor reduction effects which don't actually help your enemies. The good news is that the armor reduction has been rolled into the next spell...

Curse of Weakness - Now also reduces the armor of the target by 5%.
Warlock curses aside from Curse of Agony are generally utility spells, and this one has just been improved. I'm still wondering where the flee prevention fits in now that Curse of Recklessness is gone, though. We'll see if Blizzard addresses that through another ability.

More changes after the jump...

Enslave Demon - Spell haste penalty reduced by 10%, Melee haste penalty reduced by 10%. Warlocks have an increased 10% spell hit chance with this spell.
Not terribly useful now that the Infernal and Doom Guard no longer need to be enslaved, this change rolls the Demonology talent Improved Enslave Demon into the baseline spell. Will there be demons in Ulduar? A Warlock can only dream.

Fire Shield (Imp) - You can now cast this ability on raid members, rather than party members.
Mandatory change now that most buffs are raid-wide.

Ritual of Summoning - The summoning of the initial portal is now instant cast, down from 5 seconds.
This is one of those 'quality of life' changes Blizzard talked about. Considering the spell doesn't even summon anyone (it just summons a portal), I'm thankful for this tiny change.

AFFLICTION

Eradication - Redesigned. When you deal damage with Corruption, you have a 2/4/6% chance to gain the Eradication effect. The Eradication effect increases the critical strike chance of your Shadow Bolt spell by 30%. Each critical strike reduces the critical strike bonus by 10%. Lasts 30 sec.
I can't do the math on this yet, but this looks like a good change that firmly cements Shadow Bolts in Affliction's spell repertoire. Just like the old Eradication, though, the first point in this talent is worth more than the next two, which only increase the chance to proc the effect.

Haunt - Now only increases your shadow damage-over-time on the target. (No longer includes non-Shadow damage over time spells.)
I think this is Blizzard's way of telling Affliction 'locks to remove Immolate from their rotation. A definite nerf.

Malediction - No longer increases the effect of Curse of the Elements.
Because the bonus effect was rolled into the highest rank of the baseline spell, Malediction is now just a vanilla increase in spell power. It's a buff to the class, a nerf to the spec. There are now better talents to spend three points on.

Pandemic - This talent has been reduced to a 1-point talent, now grants your Corruption and Unstable Affliction the capability to critically hit.
This should work identically to three points in the old Pandemic. A pretty good change that frees up two points.

Shadow Embrace - Now only increases the damage done by your shadow damage periodic spells.
The writing's on the wall: stop using Immolate. It's a destruction spell. This seems to be one of Blizzard's methods of 'simplifying Affliction's rotation'. A nerf to the talent.

Siphon Life - The Siphon Life spell has been removed. Siphon Life now causes your Corruption spell to instantly heal you for 40% of the damage done.
Again, this is one of Blizzard's ways of simplifying Affliction's complicated repertoire. However, this looks to me like a DPS reduction as it no longer drains life from the target. This is good for multi-target situations, however, allowing us to cast Corruption in succession for both damage and healing. It's a buff to Corruption but the talent itself no longer offers a DPS boost. This, along with the disincentive to cast Immolate, should reduce the debuffs Affliction Warlocks need to apply to a more manageable four (aside from Shadow Embrace) -- Haunt, Corruption, Unstable Affliction, and a curse.

Suppression - Now increases spell hit for all of your spells.
This is a great change, which means Affliction 'locks no longer have to go up Destruction just for Cataclysm. It's also on the first tier, which means all specs have access to it.

Before we move on, it's important to note that the DoT effect of Immolate is improved with the redesigned Aftermath, which is still low enough in the Destruction tree for Affliction Warlocks to get. Conceivably, the rotations can still include Immolate, but doesn't benefit from bonus effects as much as it used to.

WoW Patch 3.1 PTR Death Knight Changes

As expected, we got a pretty long list of changes for Death Knights. The frost tree has received some extensive and actually somewhat shocking reshuffling, and there's a few other unexpected but interesting changes. It's good to be mindful that these changes are still in flux. We'll probably see more changes and perhaps some reversion of these changes depending on what happens. It's worth noting that MMO Champion currently has undocumented changes and a completely different 3.1 DK Talent tree up that doesn't even match the one suggested in the patch notes, so we can't say for sure if the patch notes are already outdated. But for now, we're going to focus on the patch changes for the most part. So, let's dive right in.

General Death Knight Changes

• Blood Boil's damage increased to make up for Pestilence no longer doing damage.


• Blood Boil now does some damage to undiseased targets and extra damage to diseased targets. Its radius has been decreased.


• Blood Plague: Now lasts 15 seconds untalented.


• Death Pact: This heal cannot be a critical.


• Frost Fever: Now lasts 15 seconds untalented.


• Pestilence does no damage and has only one rank.


• Plague Strike and Blood Plague no longer remove hots. Plague Strike's damage increased quite a bit to compensate.


• Raise Ally has a >15 min cooldown to keep it out of Arena.


• Raise Dead: Duration lowered to 60 sec. and cooldown lowered to 3 min. The cooldown on this ability now begins when the pet dies rather than when it is summoned.Rune of Cinderglacier now procs per minute instead of a 5% chance.


• Rune of Razorfrost now affects Frost damage done by the DK only, but stacks up to 10%.


• Strangulate no longer does damage and has been reduced to 1 rank.

To start with, we have some basic but expected PvP nerfs, such as removing the damage from Strangulate and the HoT removal from Plague Strike. These are probably to be expected, and if nothing else, were probably needed because of the swapping of talents in the Frost Tree. The bumping up of Duration on Blood Plague and Frost Fever should make tight rotations a little less punishing and allow for more freedom to fit in a runic dump before reapplying disease or apply one last Frost/Unholy rune attack before diseases drop. The enforced cooldown on Ghouls is definitely a bit annoying. It may be a PvP nerf, to allow teams a bit of breathing room against a Death Knight by killing his Ghoul.

Talents

BLOOD

• Blood Aura: Replaced with Improved Blood Presence. This allows the Death Knight to keep the healing from damage done bonus of Blood Presence in any presence, and increases healing received while in Blood Presence.


• Blood-Gorged now grants armor penetration instead of expertise.


• Bloody Strikes now increases Blood Boil damage instead of Pestilence.


• Bloodworms now heal more.


• Dancing Rune Weapon: Fixed a bug making it trigger an unusual number of effects from the weapon equipped by the Death Knight. In addition, it will now only echo Death Knight spells whose primary purpose is dealing damage. Also corrected a bug making the effect last 8 seconds longer than intended.


• Scent of Blood will now proc on a dodge, parry or taking damage, and internal cooldown lowered to 10 from 20 sec.


• Sudden Doom now procs a free Death Coil instead of requiring you to push the button. Ranks reduced from 5 to 3.

For all the talk of buffing Blood, there wasn't much to get really excited over in this current push of the patch notes. Bloodworms heal more, which is at least good news to grinding Blood Death Knights. MMO-Champion is claiming Blood Gorged actually gives 10% Armor Penetration. As long as that isn't 10% after other armor reducing effects, that may end up being an overall buff, or at least a somewhat fair tradeoff for the lost 5 expertise. Dancing Rune Weapon will have likely lost the ability to summon an extra Ghoul or the like as well.

Blood Aura's change is a bit disappointing in that it's lost a lot of its utility. It appears to work only for the Death Knight now by granting them Blood Presence healing in all Presences, plus some extra healing in Blood Presence. This, again, might work out well for grinders, but a smart DPS Death Knight in a raid situation probably isn't going to be taking enough damage for this to be worth it, especially if he's in Unholy Presence for the rune cooldowns.

Since the Aura talents (Much like the also switched to self only Razorice debuff) don't really have a cousin from any other class, Blizzard probably felt they needed to switch them to single target avoid making Death Knights with Auras seem mandatory for any fights. This is understandable, but I'm not quite sure they're all the way there yet as far as these new presence buffs. The Blood Aura replacement specifically just doesn't seem to give the right amount of utility to the Death Knight to make them worth using.

It's also worth noting that MMO-Champion is reporting that Blood and Heart Strike now do slightly less base weapon damage, but do a percentage more damage per disease on the target. So yeah, there's a strong chance we'll be saying goodbye to diseaseless Blood. If these changes are also an overall damage buff, which they may well be depending on how the extra percentage of damage is applied, it could mean Blood is looking stronger than it might by glancing at the patch notes.

Still, overall, I'd expect more Blood buffs to be coming on the PTR.

FROST
F

• The following talents have moved in the Frost tree: Runic Power Mastery, Glacier Rot, Killing Machine, Chilblains, and Endless Winter.


• Black Ice now grants 2/4/6/8/10% Shadow damage in addition to the Frost damage.


• Black Ice: Frost Damage bonus lowered to 4/8/12/16/20%


• Blood of the North is 3 ranks instead of 5 for the same effect.


• Chillblains: Now a 15/30/50% movement speed debuff (up from 30%). Moved to position currently occupied by Glacier Rot.


• Endless Winter: Moved to position currently occupied by Chillblains.


• Frost Aura: Replaced with Improved Frost Presence. Allows the Death Knight to keep the health bonus of Frost Presence in any presence, and decreases magic damage taken while in Frost Presence.


• Glacier Rot: Third rank added, and damage bonus increased to 7/13/20. Moved to position currently occupied by Endless Winter.


• Howling Blast: Swapped positions with Hungering Cold in the talent tree (HB is now at 51, and HC is now at 31). In addition, the damage bonus for targets with Frost Fever is now only 20%.


• Icy Talons - This talent how has a new icon.


• Runic Power Mastery down to 2 ranks.

With Black Ice buffed to include Shadow Damage and Glacier Rot moved further down the tree, Frost suddenly seems like a much, much more alluring secondary tree for Blood and Frost Knights. Chillblains being both buffed and moved to the first tier seems a bit overdoing it considering how hard it is to escape from a Death Knight already, but perhaps it is Blizzard's way of compensating for the removal of HoT removal from Plague Strike. If it sticks, though, it will be nice for Blood Death Knights when paired with the Glyph of Blood Strike, especially.

Still, MMO Champion lists Runic Power Mastery as moving to tier 1, and I find that much more likely. That should be a tempting choice for Blood and Unholy Death Knights alike, making it easier to squeeze out one more Death Coil or keep Unholy Blight and Gargoyle up at the same time.

If 32/39 wasn't already down for the count, 3.1's going to send it screaming into oblivion with the moving of Howling Blast to the 51 point slot. This seems like a pretty smart move for sure. Hungering Cold was always a lackluster 51 point talent, but seems to be reasonably well powered for 31 points. We'll have to see now if 51 point dual wield frost can still hold out and deliver reasonable damage. At least it will still be able to grab Necrosis and Blood Caked Blade from the Unholy tree - but even that may not be quite as helpful. More on that later.

The new Frost Aura replacement is probably a bit better off than the new Improved Blood Presence, at least for tanks, with the extra magic absorption. It really depends on how much damage it decreases. I don't expect many DPS Frost to take it though. What I do expect to see is a lot of DPS Frost Death Knights testing out the new Razorice to see if the extra Frost Damage outweights the extra strength from Fallen Crusader.

UNHOLY

• Blood-caked Blade: Now has a 3 second cooldown on the effect.


• Desecration: This talent now has a 100% chance to be triggered. Additional points in the talent increase the damage bonus and snare magnitude instead of increasing the chance.


• Epidemic: Epidemic now has 3 ranks (adding an additional 3 sec of disease duration). Magic Suppression is 3 ranks (down from 5) for 2/4/6% magic damage reduction.


• Master of Ghouls: Now also reduces the cooldown on Raise Dead by 60 sec.


• Necrosis: Can now only be triggered by main hand attacks.


• New talent: Improved Death Strike. Increases Death Strike damage by 10/20.


• Night of the Dead: Redesigned to grant a flat reduction on cooldown to Raise Dead and Army of the Dead instead of a reduction from using abilities.


• Outbreak bonus for Scourge Strike lowered to 10/20/30%.


• Scourge Strike: Damage increased.


• Unholy Aura: Replaced with Improved Unholy Presence. Allows the Deathknight to keep the movement speed bonus of Unholy Presence in any presence, and increases rune regeneration rate while in Unholy Presence.


• Unholy Blight and Gargoyle have swapped places in the Unholy tree. Gargoyle is the new Unholy 51 talent.

The removal of so much chance and hoop jumping on the part of Desecration and Night of the Dead is definitely appreciated, and should make Death Knight DPS a bit more convenient. I was somewhat surprised to see Scourge Strike Damage increased. Scourge Strike is a very solid skill that already does lots of solid damage, and I wonder if this heralds a declassification of Ebon Plaguebringer as a disease or another nerf. This is especially amazing considering that MMO-Champion is reporting that Outbreak now increases Scourge Strike damage.

Now that Epidemic is only 1 second per talent point, I think we'll see more Death Knights skip it altogether and count of Glyph of Scourge Strike and the new baseline 15 second duration to help them out. There's probably better way to spend your points.

The Gargoyle rebuff will have to be tested, but I'm certainly excited, and I'm looking forward to trying an Unholy/Frost

Also tucked into the notes are a couple of definite dual wielding nerfs. Necrosis doing main-hand damage only means the damage will remain unchanged for 2-handers but will drop significantly for dual wielders. You may still see some people trying a 51 Frost/20 Unholy dual wield build, but as things stand now, 3.1 is the era of 2-hander dominance for sure.

The Improved Unholy Presence talent will mean your raid members will be wanting to grab Tuskarr's Vitality, but an Unholy DPSer may find they like this new version plenty well. We'll have to see more numbers, but with many tight rune rotations already prefering Unholy Presence even for PvE, we could see Improved Unholy Presence providing a significant damage boost, allowing the use of more strikes per a disease cycle.

MMO-Champion also claims that Shadow of Death will be removed from the game altogether and replaced with a Ghoul buff called Ghoul Frenzy that provides 25% haste and a 30% of max hp HoT over 15 seconds. With the changes to Raise Dead meaning an enforced 2 minute cooldown if your Ghoul dies unexpectedly, having that extra heal will be very helpful to an Unholy Knight who makes their Ghoul a meaningful part of their DPS, especially when combined with a few Death Coils.

Overall, I think we haven't seen the last of the Death Knight changes. Right now, 32/39 has probably been laid to rest for good, but Unholy 2-hand DPS probably reigns supreme even more so than usual, and Frost 2-handed DPS probably still looks pretty solid too. Blood, it's too early to tell, but I expect additional buffs to that tree, and possibly some rollbacks of the Scourge Strike buffs in Unholy.

Hang on tight, 3.1's liable to be a wild ride. Let's get on there and test and see what happens.

WoW Patch 3.1 PTR Warrior changes

I want you to try and remain calm, okay? I know as warriors you're crazy excited for all the twists and turns for the class on the PTR. While I can't hit all of the highlights, I can give you a taste.

Warrior

• ARMS


• Blood Frenzy improved to 2/4% increased damage.


• Heroic Throw missile speed increased.

And we're done.

Now's a good time to remind everyone that these patch notes are not in any way, shape or form complete, and that there will almost certainly be more changes. We've already seen posts from Ghostcrawler indicating that a lot more than this was in the works, so we can consider these changes just preliminary.

So why just roll these two out for warriors? Both are good changes, it's true, but when some classes are seeing major overhauls these look rather paltry. What's going on?

It seems that Arms is a major focus for the dev team for 3.1, for one thing. It makes sense that they might want to roll those changes out more slowly, especially if they're more major changes to the spec than we might otherwise expect. Changing arms without buffing fury accidentally has been stated to be a big priority to them so far so we'll see how that shakes out.

In addition, they're still discussing how to make the new stance system work. Since they haven't decided how that's going to work, it's not surprising that we don't see it rolled out on this patch.

For warriors this is a very preliminary patch, all told. Sunder hasn't been changed, the changes to rage generation through shields don't seem to be there (I didn't see them under the priest notes either) so I'm fairly sure we're going to see a lot more for warriors when all is said and done here. The PTR is dropping in stages this time, we have to keep that in mind.

Edited to Add: MMO-Champion has posted some undocumented changes to warriors.

• Wrecking Crew (Tier 10) now states that it no longer stacks with enrage.


• Titan's Grip (Tier 11) now reduces physical damage you deal by 10%.


• Sunder Armor now reduces target's armor by 4% per application. Stacks up to 5. (Previously reduced armor by a set amount)

Clearly the Titan`s Grip change is a substantial lowering of fury`s DPS potential.
We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1

WoW Patch 3.1 PTR Shaman changes

Well, there's some interesting new stuff happening in the latest patch notes for the 3.1 PTR. Like what, you ask? Well, here's a sample from what's coming for enhancement:

• New Talent: Frozen Power: Increases the damage done by your Frostbrand Weapon if it is enchanted on your main-hand weapon by 10/20%, and your Frost Shock has a 50/100% chance to root the target in Ice for 5 sec. when used on targets at or further than 15 yards from you.


• Spirit Weapons: Now reduces all threat generated by 30%, not just physical attacks.


• Stormstrike charges have been increased by 2, and cooldown reduced by 2 sec.

And that's hardly all, folks. Let's take a look at the complete list of changes and discuss them behind the jump.

We'll go line by line with the notes and discuss the changes as we go.

• Bloodlust/Heroism: Cooldown reduced to 5 minutes, but Sated and Exhausted now last 10 minutes.

This is a nerf to raids with more than one shaman who were using Bloodlust/Heroism every five minutes. Now, they'll only be using it every ten, and moreover, only one shaman will be necessary to use it. I don't really understand why they shortened the cooldown if they were going to extend the debuff... are they anticipating raids rotating in a whole new DPS group and are okay with that? If not, why have the cooldown come up a full five minutes before the ability can be used again? It seems arbitrary, but it's possible I'm missing something awesome here.

• Poison Cleansing Totem and Disease Cleansing Totem have been merged into "Cleansing Totem." Cleansing Totem pulses every 3 sec, down from 5.

Nothing but awesome here. More pulses and only one totem for both effects is purely good.

ENHANCEMENT

• Lava Lash now has a new icon.

• New Talent: Frozen Power: Increases the damage done by your Frostbrand Weapon if it is enchanted on your main-hand weapon by 10/20%, and your Frost Shock has a 50/100% chance to root the target in Ice for 5 sec. when used on targets at or further than 15 yards from you.

The new icon thing is pretty done to death as a shaman joke, so I'll just ignore that. The new talent, though, is fascinating. I don't expect it will lead to any Frostbrand builds for PvE, but for kiting and snaring in PvP it will have some nice applications. Of course, if anyone remembers the Vashj fight, you'll never know when this could have PvE applications as well.

• Spirit Weapons: Now reduces all threat generated by 30%, not just physical attacks.


• Stormstrike charges have been increased by 2, and cooldown reduced by 2 sec.


• Improved Stormstrike re-designed: When you Stormstrike, you have a 50/100% chance to immediately grant you 20% of your base mana.

Spirit Weapons change is pure good. Enhancement DPS became much more balanced between physical and magic with the launch of Wrath, so changing Spirit Weapons to reduce both kinds of threat is a good move. The effect of Improved Stormstrike just got rolled into regular Stormstrike, so I have a hard time seeing that as bad, and the new Imp SS sounds like it will be a positive boon to mana regen. All in all, hard to be unhappy with any of that.

• Toughness: No longer increases your armor. Instead, this talent now increases your total Stamina by 2/4/6/8/10%.


• Unleashed Rage - Reduced to 3 points, down from 5. Each point now also increases your total Agility by 1/2/3%.

The Toughness change may or may not help with shaman health in PvP. The Unleashed Rage changes bring it into line with similar abilities and gives shamans a reason to have it beyond the raid buffing aspect.

ELEMENTAL

• New Talent: Booming Echoes- Reduces the cooldown of your Flame Shock and Frost Shock spells by an additional 1/2 sec., and increases the direct damage done by your Flame Shock and Frost Shock spells by an additional 10/20%.

Nothing much to hate here, it's a buff. It should encourage elemental to work those spells into their rotations more, especially in PvP if the new enhancement talent Frozen Power is accessible to elemental shamans.

RESTORATION

• Ancestral Awakening: This talent now accounts for your ineffective healing, rather than effective.


• Cleanse Spirit now has a new icon.


• Riptide: This spell has a new icon.

We will once again ignore the new icons. The Ancestral Awakening change confused me until smarter healers than I explained that it means that Ancestral Awakening will now heal for 30% of the amount healed including any overheal. This is a buff, because if you top off the tank with a massive critical overheal, the Ancestral Awakening proc won't heal someone who is almost dead for an intensely trivial amount anymore.

So far, some interesting changes for shamans all told. It's definitely obvious that PvP on shamans is getting some tuning, and also some damage and mana efficiency issues are also being addressed. The threat reduction from Spirit Weapons is also very, very good news. The nerf to Bloodlust/Heroism frankly baffles me. It's bad and it's done in a very strange manner. We'll have to see, but I call that change the one big nerf in an otherwise excellent patch for shamans.

Since this is the PTR, I suggest you get on there and test and feed back as much as you can, shamans. All of this can change, so don't take any of it as set in stone.

WoW Patch 3.1 PTR Holy and Disc Priest changes

A lot of changes are being introduced for both types of healing Priests in the upcoming 3.1 patch. Some of them are expected and others are unexpected! As always, check out the full PTR notes (which are most likely incomplete).

The promised changes to increase Holy's PvP ability don't seem to be here yet. I rubbed my eyes when I saw it because this wasn't the Holy tree I remembered.

As an overall grade, I'd say there are some serious buffs being doled out for healing Priests. Our Area of Effect heals have been ramped up!

Some notable highlights? Rapture has some new additions to it (It grants energy, rage, mana, or runic power to the target when it is removed). Prayer of Healing is no longer restricted to the Priests current party. Renew get's some extra nice bonuses in the form of an instant-application aspect and an overall spellpower bonus.

Keep reading! Disc and Holy changes are after the break!

Changes

• Abolish Disease: Now cleanses a disease every 3 sec, down from 5. Duration reduced from 20 seconds, down to 12 sec.
  This will help Priests against Death Knights who like to unload every conceivable disease onto us. Will help during the Heigan encounter, too!


• Devouring Plague: This spell now has a new icon.


• Divine Spirit is now trainable at level 31.
  This will remove Divine Spirit and Improved Divine Spirit from the talent trees.


• Holy Nova: Mana cost reduced approximately 20%.
  Good change! This makes Holy Nova a much more attractive party wide healing spell. Not sure how it will compare to Prayer of Healing and Circle of Healing yet. The Glyph of Holy Nova heals for an additional 40%.


• Hymn of Hope: This spell has been removed.
  No more 8 seconds of standing still. This means we lose an avenue of mana regeneration. Surely there will be other talents that increase our mana return?


• Improved Holy Concentration removed.
  So we're left with Holy Concentration now.


• Prayer of Healing: This spell now heals the target's party, rather than being limited to just your direct party.
  No longer need to stagger Priests across various groups. Since Prayer of Healing is no longer restricted to the Priest's current party, flexibility of the spell goes up.


• Shadowfiend: Health scaling increased. Now receives 30% of the master's spell power. Mana return increased to 5%, up from 4%. The Shadowfiend now receives mana when its melee attacks land, rather than when it deals damage. Movement speed normalized to player movement speed. Tooltip revised.
  Sweet! Now it might be able to live long enough to actually restore mana instead of being one or two shot! This should lead to a net increase. Our mana restored goes up when the Shadowfiend hits a target. Doesn't matter if it gets blocked or parried, it seems. Another 1% increase in mana return should help.

Discipline

• Divine Aegis - Divine Aegis effects will now stack, however the amount absorbed cannot exceed 125*level (of the target).
  Nice. A buff to Divine Aegis. Even though Divine Aegis will continue to stack, there's now a ceiling. Seems like the magic number is 10000 for level 80 characters. I can stack Divine Aegis many times on a tank. Each application will absorb 30% of the amount heal. Each time Divine Aegis lands, that number will continue to go up until it reaches 10000.


• Grace: Duration increased to 15 seconds, but now is only limited to one target.
  I guess we're definitely sticking to tank healing for a while.


• Improved Power: Word Fortitude - Now also increases your total Stamina by 2/4%.
  Seems like the Priest itself gets an extra 4% overall stamina.


• New Talent: Soul Warding: Reduces the cooldown of your Power Word: Shield ability by 4 sec., and reduces the mana cost of your Power Word: Shield by 30%.
  Interesting new talent! This essentially removes the cooldown timer on Power Word: Shield! The Weakened Soul debuff will still remain. The lowered mana cost is good.



• Penance: Damage increased approximately 30%.This spell can now be cast on yourself.
  Forget the damage increase, the fact that Priests can cast this on themselves is pure gold. I wonder what the animation will look like.


• Power Infusion: This effect now has a new spell effect and sound.


• Reflective Shield:This talent has been removed.


• Unbreakable Will:Increased from 3/6/9/12/15% to 6/12/18/24/30%.


• Rapture: When Power Word: Shield is absorbed or dispelled, you gain 1.5/2/2.5% of total mana back. Your target has a 33/66/100% chance to energize your shielded target with 2% mana, 8 rage, 16 energy, or 32 runic power.
  Taken from the new talent calculator that MMO Champion has provided. This is a big buff. Hopefully this just might silence the tanks who keep asking us not to shield them so they can gain more rage.


• Enlightenment: Increases your total spirit by 2/4/6% and increases your spell haste by 2/4/6%.
  It's a switch from Stamina to spell haste. Good change. I guess I won't be tanking as much.


• Improved Flash Heal: Reduces the mana cost of your Flash Heal by 15%, and increases the critical effect chance of your Flash Heal by 10% on friendly targets at or below 50%.
  Nice addition! With the Glyph of Flash Heal, this reduces the overall mana cost of Flash Heal by 25%. The critical chance increase should help save lives, too.


• Meditation: Allows 17/33/50% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting.
  Expected due to the Spirit nerfs. Holy Priests may not be dancing as much anymore.
  

Holy

• Circle of Healing: Healing increased by approximately 40%.
  To help make up for the cooldown nerf, they introduce a healing increase.


• Holy Concentration re-designed: Mana regeneration is increased by 16/32/50% for 8 sec after you critically heal with Flash Heal, Greater Heal, Binding Heal or Renew.
  Start stacking a lot of crit. It might be possible to get it so that Holy Concentration is almost always active.


• New Talent: Empowered Renew: Your Renew spell gains an additional 5/10/15% of your bonus healing effects, and your Renew will instantly heal the target for 5/10/15% of the total periodic effect.
  So Renew gains an instant heal component when you cast it. Not only that, it's all overall effect is increased even more. Renew finally gets some love!


• Serendipity re-designed: When you heal with Binding Heal or Flash Heal, the cast time of your next Greater Heal or Prayer of Healing spell is reduced by 6/12/20%. Stacks up to 3 times. Lasts 20 sec.
  Trying to make healing more fun and less monotonous. I might not go out of my way to set off Serendipity, but it's an interesting change. Will need more time to test it out in game.


• Test of Faith: No longer increases critical effect chance of your heals, but healing done on targets lower than 50% health is increased from 2/4/6 to 4/8/12%.
  No more crits but the healing is increased on targets below half life.

These patch notes are incomplete and can chance at any time!

So yes, not all of these changes or additions will make it to the final cut. But for the time being, they're here and in the patch. Let's see how they'll perform first.
from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1

WoW Patch 3.1 PTR Shadow Priest changes

The PTR patch notes have hit, and while we don't have the entire spread of changes yet (they'll be coming in waves), we do have a lot of pretty good material to look at. Personally, I think the Shadow Priest changes are pretty great this time around. PvP Shadow Priests might feel a little disappointed, but PvE Priests should be fairly happy with how things are going so far.

Even PvP received a few good buffs, but while it's a step in the right direction, it simply isn't enough. It feels as if they're trying to approach some of the big issues carefully, when they really do need to go in there and start making pretty sweeping changes to the PvP-centric talents of the Shadow Priest. A lot needs to change to make the Shadow Priest relevant in PvP again without strapping a Warlock to their hip at all times.

Enough of that, though. Let's look into the changes, shall we?

• Shadowfiend: Health scaling increased. Now receives 30% of the master's spell power. Mana return increased to 5%, up from 4%. The Shadowfiend now receives mana when its melee attacks land, rather than when it deals damage. Movement speed normalized to player movement speed. Tooltip revised.

Well, Shadowfiend needs serious buffs in some situations, and while this will help a bit, I think it's too little. One of the big issues with Shadowfiend is that it's so easily juked in PvP. Absorption shields on the enemy won't totally hose you anymore (since the attack just needs to land, not do damage) and that's a good thing, but it's still going to be able to be kited around. It needs to move faster than players, not as fast as players. Against someone who's playing smart, the Priest simply won't get a mana return from the Fiend.

It's not going to do its job in PvP until that happens, period. It's a little better, but still not so good.

PvE, the bugger might be a lot more reliable if that HP buff is substantial. Having him die to random things makes me facepalm each and every time, there's no reason he should be able to die at all, so if they can prevent the gibs I'm perfectly happy with him. It also looks like he'll be doing more damage, so that should be neat.

• Blackout: This talent has been removed.

This doesn't come as a shock, we saw it coming. It's a bit lame since it was one of our best 'defenses' for so long, but RNG stuns going away is not at all something that blows us away.

• Darkness: This talent is now in Tier 1, moved up from Tier 6.

I'm somewhat surprised they put this talent so high up in the tree, opposite Spirit Tap. I can't really see a problem with its placement, to be completely honest, but it feels weird to me for some reason I can't explain. That placement does make potential split/tri-specs a bit more appealing. You know, the specs that are primarily healing but go Shadow through Mind Flay? Those specs might get a little juice out of this placement (though they'd likely ignore it for Spirit Tap), but otherwise it shouldn't bother anything at all. Which is likely the point.

• Devouring Plague has a new icon.

Greatest change they've made to the game in the last 5 years. Hands down.

• Dispersion: Now clears all snare and movement impairing effects and makes you immune to them while dispersed.

This had to happen, and I'm glad to see they did it. Dispersion wasn't truly an escape maneuver, it was more of a delaying maneuver. Live six more seconds, hope someone rescues you. This should give Dispersion a little more usefulness, and when combined with Improved Shadowform's Fade effect, it should prove difficult to keep a Shadow Priest in melee range. Well, hopefully. The whole 'cooldowns' bit might rain all over that parade.

• Shadowform: Bonus damage from critical strike chance removed and replaced by the ability of those periodic damage spells to generate critical strikes.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's official. DoTs can now crit. Do you hear that sound? That melody?

That's angels singing.

• Silence: Range increased to 30 yards.

It's about freaking time.

• Vampiric Embrace duration increased to 5 minutes, up from 1 minute. PvP duration is now 60 seconds. Cooldown removed.

I don't really grasp why it needs to remain at 1 minute in PvP, but oh well. No cooldown is good. Longer PvE duration is good. I support this change.

• New Talent: Improved Devouring Plague (Shadow): Increases the periodic damage done by your Devouring Plague by 5/10/15%, and when you cast Devouring Plague you instantly deal damage equal to 5/10/15% of its total periodic effect.

A straight buff to the spell through this talent, that's pretty nice. It's also very interesting to see this talent give the DoT a direct damage component. I might be mistaken, but I think patch 3.1 is the first time we're seeing that sort of modification to HoTs and DoTs via talents. Our Holy brethren see a similar treatment with Empowered Renew. Hopefully it works out and they explore more of it, it's a pretty nice way to give DoTs an extra little kick. It also makes reapplying all of your DoTs a bit less boring, because it gets the damage rolling again right away.

My big concern with the addition of this talent? Previously, a PvE build totally ignored Blackout, picked up Spirit Tap and Improved Spirit Tap, and worked down the tree. Now a PvE build will be picking up the Spirit Taps, then Darkness, and then start working down the tree. That's going to be more talents spent in the tree than we were previously, and most Shadow builds barely scraped together enough points to pick up Meditation in the Discipline tree for our mana regen.

Now, will this be a problem? Potentially, but perhaps not. My Shadow Priest doesn't run out of mana at all at this point, but I have Meditation. Does Meditation make that big of a difference? Will the buffs to the Shadowfiend make up for a potential loss of Meditation's mana regen? Or will we need to gloss over some of our DPS talents to get those points into the Discipline tree?

I suspect that we'll be fine passing over Meditation. Hopefully Improved Spirit Tap, Replenishment, and the Shadowfiend buffs will keep us in the green. We'll find out sooner or later.

There are a few other changes coming for Priests in patch 3.1 that aren't aimed directly at the Shadow tree, but will help us out a bit anyway. Divine Spirit, as we've mentioned before, is becoming baseline. Every Priest will get the first rank at level 31. It won't be the fancy improved Divine Spirit for us Shadow Priests, but additional Spirit always rules and we'll be able to buff it ourselves now.

Improved Fortitude is getting a secondary effect as well, it's going to grant the Priest an additional 4% stamina with two points in the talent. Priests can always use a bit more survivability, both in PvE and PvP, so if they're going to add on some extra health to a talent I was investing in anyway, I'm really not going to complain. from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1

Warlock's guide to gearing for Naxx

Wrath of the Lich King has created a new standard for sheer volume of content available to players as soon as they hit max level. And with content, comes gear! Reputation grinds such as the Argent Crusade and the Kirin Tor can be completed in only a few days, even if you schedule time to deal with things like 'real life'. Crafted gear is mostly bind on equip now, making it much more accessible. Several heroics, such as Utgarde Keep, Violet Hold, and Nexus, are easy enough that a DPS can usually slip into them shortly after hitting 80 without slowing their group down. Even the 10- and 25-man versions of Obsidian Sanctum and Vault of Archavon, are frequently cleared by pick-up-groups.

Head slot items for warlocks are pretty much limited to three right now. My current favorite is The Argent Skullcap, attained through a rather simple quest-chain in Icecrown. The high amount of hit rating makes getting that all-important 446 much simpler, and it's far easier and cheaper to get than either of the other two pre-Naxx headpieces. Though if you're a tailor The Hat of Wintry Doom may serve as a skill-up for you. And if the Forgotten Shadow Hood happens to drop in Heroic Culling of Stratholme, it's also a good choice. However, that 446 hit rating has to come from somewhere, and I've rarely seen any piece of gear with as much as The Argent Skullcap has.

There are a few nice neck pieces pre-Naxx that are good to keep an eye out for. Emeline's Locket is my personal favorite, for the hit rating and the gem slot, but if you manage to get into a Heroic Culling of Strat run (which you really should try to do almost as soon as you hit 80. Heroic isn't much more difficult than normal so long as the group isn't attempting a timed run,) then the Necromancer's Amulet is a good alternative. Of course, if you happen to get lucky in 10-man Obsidian Sanctum, then the Circle of Arcane Streams blows them both out of the water!

Shoulder pieces are slim-pickings, but if you look carefully you can find a gem or two. The Runecaster's Mantle is a random drop in Heroic Utgarde Keep, and I don't know if I've ever been there without seeing it drop at least once -- sometimes twice! The Mantle of Deceit is my personal favorite pre-Naxx piece, and has a very good chance to drop off of Mal'Ganis in Heroic Culling of Stratholme. The Dark Runic Mantle, a frequent trash drop in either version of Halls of Stone, is also an excellent choice.

Back pieces are dismally difficult to acquire early on. Even after running Naxx several times I've yet to upgrade from the level 78 Cape of Seething Steam out of Halls of Lightning. And by all rights, there isn't much in the way of level 80 capes even after you get into Naxx. My advice here is to figure out your preferred method of acquiring the Deathchill Cloak (crafting, purchasing, begging friends...) and start working on getting it. But you'll likely be well into Naxx before you've got your hands on that particular purple. I myself still have about 100 quests left to do before the trainer will teach it to me.

For a chest piece, the Ebonweave Robe is my favorite by far, both because of the massive hit rating, and because it got me a skill-up for my tailoring. However, the mat requirements on this one are steep, and I must admit that I had a Naxx run or two under my belt before I got hold of this piece. The Robes of Crackling Flame are an excellent alternative, despite the somewhat taboo presence of Mana-Per-5. Given how quickly reputation gains occur if players consistently wear a single tabard, most will probably get exalted with at least one if not two before they head to their first Naxx run. Easier still are the Water-Drenched Robe from Heroic Violet Hold, which are more than adequate for Naxx.

Best wrist piece grab before getting in LFG for Naxxramas is the Azure Cloth Binding, off the last boss in Heroic Violet Hold. It has an almost 1-in-4 chance to drop, so your odds are pretty good if you can head in there every day. Lady Luck likes to play coy sometimes though, and if she's not being very kind to you then just ask your favorite tailor to make you a pair of Black Duskweave Wristwraps They'll suffice for getting started in Naxx.

Best way to stylishly keep your hands warm while in Northrend is with a good pair of Ebonweave Gloves. They're much cheaper than the Ebonweave Robe, so if you've got a tailoring friend, the hit rating on the gloves is really astounding. That doesn't mean, though, that the cost is insubstantial. So, if you'd rather go a more economic rout, Heroic Culling of Stratholme again has something to offer us with the Gloves of Distorted Time, which drop off of the third boss.

In my humble opinion, the Plush Sash of Guzbah for your waist should be the first piece of badge gear acquired by any warlock. If you've already spent your badges on something else, though, or just don't have the 40-badges to spend, there are good alternatives. The Belt of Unified Souls drops off the first boss, Meathook, in Heroic Culling of Stratholme. And for those willing to farm up some tailoring mats, the Deep Frozen Cord is an excellent piece.

Wearing pants is important, at least that's what the judge told me, and there are several good choices to pick from. The last boss in Heroic Utgarde Keep drops the Breeches of the Caller. Or, if you prefer straight up stats to gem slots, the Black Duskweave Leggings are easily acquired from your neighborhood tailor for a modest fee. The titanic spell power offered by the Opposed Stasis Leggings is also a good alternative.

Feet pieces are some of the more difficult to find in these days. If you rushed to get Wyrmrest Accord reputation for that sexy mount, then the Sandals of Crimson Fury are your best bet. If the dragons weren't your first choice for reputation grinding, however, then the Cleric's Linen Shoes out of Heroic Nexus have a very decent chance to drop off of the faction contingent boss.

Rings are a tricky business, since you need two of them and most are unique-equip. It's also one of the easiest slots to find an epic for. Personally, when I was gearing up for Naxx the first thing I grabbed was the Signet of Hopeful Light from being exalted with the Argent Crusade. But then, I have a freakish compulsion to get exalted with any Argent faction – probably rooted in subconscious guilt over my demonic ways. There are also some good choices in heroics, with the Band of Guile and Annhylde's Ring dropping from Heroic Culling of Stratholme and Heroic Utgarde Keep respectively. And of course, for people who know a friendly jewelcrafter, the Ring of Northern Terrors is a pretty sweet blue.

Trinkets are a lot like rings; the fact that you need two of them makes it a little more work to fill both slots, and there are fewer choices out there for trinkets than there are for rings. The Sundial of the Exiled will likely last you through Naxx and beyond if you've got the badges to spend on it. The Mark of the War Prisoner from Heroic Violet Hold, or the Tome of Arcane Phenomena from normal Oculus are both fine choices -- though the Cannoneer's Fuselighter from questing in Icecrown served me well until I upgraded it in 25-man Naxx.

Your best bet for a wand is the Wand of the San'layn off of the first boss in Heroic Utgarde Keep. It's one of the best wands available prior to Naxx, and it's exceedingly simple to get. However, if you've had bad luck with drops, or just can't stand Utgarde Keep, Iceshrieker's Touch from questing in Storm Peaks is a viable alternative.

Quest gear is the order of the day if you're looking for a weapon of any kind at the preparatory stage. The Chilly Slobberknocker from Amphitheater of Anguish and the Stave of Youthful Sorrow from Tirion's Gambit are roughly equivalent, depending on how you plan to itemize. And if the third boss in Heroic Culling of Stratholme happens to drop the Sempiternal Staff it's a good upgrade to the Slobberknocker if you've managed to find hit rating somewhere else. In the case that you've already got a one-hander you really can't let go of, then Telestra's Journal off of Telestra in Heroic Nexus is a great piece. Check out page 37 for a juicy bit about her crush on Rhonin.

And that's the skinny on pre-Naxx gear for warlocks. Keep in mind this is intended as a brief rundown of good preparatory gear for each slot, and that I've largely omitted any gear that can only be attained through instances I consider difficult for a freshly minted 80. This is just a guide for those looking to replace a particularly low-level piece of gear, or who are trying to get into raiding for the first time. That said, if you manage to deck yourself out in gear from this list, then Kel'Thuzad will be shaking in his chains once you step into Naxx with a bone to pick.

Raiding: How easy is too easy?

Karthas, a feral Druid from the Garona-US server, wrote a thought-provoking treatise on the current end-game on his blog a few days ago. Of course, he's hardly the first to declare the current end-game far too easy, but he brings a very interesting angle to the discussion -- namely that of the casual.

He interviews various casual raid guild leaders in his piece. These are guild leaders who, back in Burning Crusade, mostly ran Karazhan and maybe dabbled a bit in Zul'aman. They certainly were far behind the curve. But they had a dedicated core of 10 raiders who got together, faced the challenges, and overcame them. But now, even these casuals are saying that the end-game is just too easy.

One guild leader interviewed is finding that some of their raiders have gotten all the loot they need from Naxxramas and maxed out Northrend Achievements and Reputations, and, for lack of anything to do, are not logging on for days or simply letting their subscriptions lapse altogether, leaving their guild leader to make the painful decision once Ulduar comes to either refuse to give them their raid slots back or kick out their replacements.

Another guild leader is just beginning Naxxramas, but whereas in BC there was a sense of excitement and challenge at starting Karazhan and Zul'aman, the guild leader says now that Naxxramas fills a bit like a glorified PuG, one more dungeon you run for badges and loot, rather than an epic challenge like BC-era raids.

Karthas ends by insisting that Ulduar won't solve any problems. "Hard Mode" doesn't really create any new content. Most guilds won't try the Hard Mode, and the few that will will still burn out on running the same content over and over again, even if they can bump the difficulty on certain fights.

Of course, these stories are anecdotal, so it's hard to say how true they are overall, but it's though provoking all the same, especially to hear traditionally "hardcore" complaints coming from casual guilds. I'm still pretty in love with Wrath, but I know I'm quickly running out of things to do and finding myself hoping 3.1 has more content than just Ulduar to keep me busy. I also have to wonder if simply dressing the same encounter in a new set of clothes by insisting raids deliberately handicap themselves or fight counter-intuitively and calling it "hard mode" will really keep anyone's interest in the long run.

The comments on the blog actually bring up good points as well. One commenter believes that 2.4 actually put dungeon accessibility where it needed to be by removing attunements and creating badge and craftable gear that was just below raid power level. They just started too late, then overcompensated in Wrath by lowering difficulty too much.

It seems like the argument comes down to a few basic questions: Is the End-Game too easy? Is there too little content? And finally, are "hard mode" achievements with better loot a valid end-game mechanic, or simply a way to mask the fact that the end-game content is too easy and too sparse?

Zapping in the North

Engineers have plenty of fun tricks up their sleeves, and that includes a hip, quirky means of gathering. Specifically, they ride around on fancy machines zapping clouds into Crystallized elements, at least in the far North.

Such elements are used in crafting, or combined in stacks of ten to form Eternal elements, which are also a common reagent in patterns and schematics.

Both forms of these elements sell for handsome sums on the Auction House, and can be stockpiled for one's own needs, such as updating item enchants.

Gear Up
Being an Engineer does have its benefits, but free gear certainly isn't one of them. In fact, one might even go so far as to say that an Engineer's gear is more expensive than your average crafted item, especially if we discount Blacksmithing.

The most important piece of equipment that you will need is the Zapthrottle Mote Extractor. The schematic can be obtained from completing the quest, The Zapthrottle Mote Extractor! which is acquired in Zangarmarsh. Horde players will have to head to Zabra'jin and seek out Mack Diver outside of the village fence. Alliance players will need to visit Telredor and speak with K. Lee Smallfry.

Once you've learned this schematic, you should avoid switching from Goblin to Gnomish Engineering and vice versa, as you will lose your knowledge of how to make this item, and as the schematic comes from a quest and is bind on pick-up, you will never be able to craft it again.

Fortunately, the item itself is bind on equip, and you could commission another Engineer to make one for you. If you've already made one, changing specializations will not delete it, but you'll have to be careful not to accidentally delete it yourself.

As for the art of tracking these clouds on your mini-map, the old days of feeling confined to wear certain pairs of goggles when farming are over. All you need to do now is attach some Spynoculars to your current belt and voila! The best part is, when you upgrade your belt, you can just attach a new pair.

Unlike the other Engineering item enhancements, this does not override the other enhancement that is possible for your belt, the Eternal Belt Buckle. You are free to add the socket and the Spynoculars to the same belt.

Clouds: Locations and Crystallized Elements
There are three types of gas clouds in Northrend, and each spawn in specific locations and will grant you certain Crystallized elements, but not others.

1. Arctic Clouds can be found in both the Howling Fjord and Dragonblight. These pale wanderers will grant you Crystallized Air and Crystallized Water.
   


2. Cinder Clouds produce Crystallized Fire when zapped. Head out to the Savage Thicket in Sholazar Basin, or to the Obsidian Dragonshrine in North Western Dragonblight to hunt for these clouds.
   


3. Steam Clouds are commonly farmed in the Geyser Fields and Scalding Pools of the Borean Tundra, although they too can be found in Sholazar Basin. When zapped, they yield Crystallized Fire and Crystallized Water.

Addons
While being able to track current spawns on your mini-map is handy, wouldn't it be even nicer if you could track all of the spawns you've found in the past, or even plan out your gathering flight plan ahead of time?

Lately, I've been hooked on Gatherer. It is simple to use and requires little to no configuration. It tracks spawns of herbs and other nodes that I've gathered, allowing me to locate areas with more spawn points. Unfortunately, it won't help you out with your gas cloud needs.

Especially if you have a gathering profession alongside your Engineering, you might be better off going with Cartographer Routes. It will not only remember nodes, it will also allow you to plan your route ahead of time, ensuring that you get the most loot for your time spent.

Lisa Poisso pointed out that this addon essentially grants you "connect-the-dot gathering." You would be able to plan out a path that would take you through the areas that have gas clouds while ensuring that you pass the most (for example) mining nodes on the way there and during your search.

This addon, unlike Gatherer, is not plug-and-play. Fortunately, we've written up a great overview including some of the benefits that the addon offers, as well as a link to an excellent guide that will walk you through configuration step by step.

The only catch is that since its creation, it has branched off from Cartographer to become its own stand-alone addon called Routes, although it still works with Cartographer quite nicely. Because of this, some of the information regarding downloads and plugins will be outdated. The information about using and personalizing the addon should still provide insight into the current process.

Arena players say they can't compete with Death Knights

A Korean Arena team named Kill e A has dropped out of the upcoming Extreme Masters tournament and claimed that they just can't compete with Death Knights in the Arenas. "Due to recent balance changes resulting from the 3.0.9 patch, we believe that it is no longer possible for the Mage and Rogue character classes to remain competitive in a high-level PvP setting," says the statement posted on the ESL's site. They go on to say that "our testing has shown that it is now impossible for other classes to compete effectively with the Death Knight." Since they don't have a DK player and their team's strategy is based around using a Mage and Rogue, they're out, and another team from SK Gaming is in. The SK Gaming team will be running with a DK, and they say they're certain they won't be the only ones.

And Kill e A isn't the only team dealing with the power of the Death Knight. Gotfrag has an interview up with Rumay "Hafu" Wang of Fnatic/Orz, winners of two big tournaments last year. She too says Death Knights are a force to be reckoned with, though the recent changes might bring them down a notch. Plague Strike, as even the NPC Death Knights say, is a Lifebloom-killer, and Hafu says that as a Resto Druid in the Arenas, she can't match them.

Blizzard will definitely be watching during the upcoming Arena tournament -- if Death Knights are as overpowered as these players claim they are, we might see some PvP-based nerfs in their future.

Wrath delayed in China

As excited as the Chinese community may be with the imminence of Wrath of the Lich King -- it was on the covers of most gaming magazines in the past months -- WoW players in China are going to have to wait just a bit longer for the latest expansion. According to a report, World of Warcraft China distributor The9 plan to delay the release of the expansion until March or April after initial plans to launch on February 19.

The delay would be due to a "policy supervision" and it's likely that the launch will come after the National People's Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), both of which happen on the first week of March. The report also said that the game's fame -- as well as recent bad press about Blizzard -- was also to blame, subjecting it to greater scrutiny.

Some rumors state that The9 is delaying the release of the game in order to speed up negotiations with Blizzard, who wish to have more control over server groups and other issues. Both companies are also reportedly in disagreement over monetary issues, although The9 denied the news. The9 President Xiaowei Chen has stated in the past that the contract would be renewed in June.

The9 may release WotLK to China on February 19th

Rumor has it that The9, the company that runs World of Warcraft in China, will be releasing the game's latest expansion there a week and a day from today, on February 19th, after holding a press conference a day earlier. We just recently got sent a question here at WoW Insider asking why the US and EU kills were often called "world firsts," and this is why: China usually gets expansion content much later than the other regions of the game do.

But recently, Blizzard mentioned that they were aiming to release the content closer together, and this appears to be a result of that: it's still not simultaneous, obviously, but a few months is better than a year or so. Apparently 17173.com has heard that China will be getting Wrath of the Lich King next week, so if that does happen, we can look for the first Chinese level 80 and the first Chinese clears of Naxx and the other endgame raids soon after that.

Engineering's BFG edition

Alex is out loading up his backpacks with all his gear, hopping on his Traveler's Tundra Mammoth and walking across Azeroth for a couple days. So until he's back to us full time I'm going to take a few more days this week of "Da Queue." Be sure to leave us your questions as a comment, or if you want to remain anonymous (because really, besides "Why can't Paladins tank?" there is no such thing as a dumb question) you can send us a tip on our tip line. Enough talk! Let us Queue!

Ava asked...

"Any word on when they're going to make engineers not useless in 3.1..."


Well... I gather the saving grace came today when Blizzard announced the removal of consumable ammunition won't be happening in 3.1. So you have a little longer to make things and sell them for a nice profit.

I think Engineering has always been a niche specialty. Obviously in BC it became a tad over powered with some of the helmets it could make, and of course there was the de-facto tanking gun up until the release of the Sunwell. Now it still has some of those features, but it's not as predominate as it once was.

But this is by design too.

Blizzard doesn't want the professions to be something that are so great they are essentially required for a given class. Remember Leatherworking in BC? Everyone who was a hard core Sunwell raider had to have Leatherworking for drums. It was really really really dumb to have Priests respec to Leatherworking just to get a continuous drum rotation going on. Blizzard knows this, and at BlizzCon last October Ghostcrawler made mention several times that they never want to return to that horror.

And truth be told, Engineering now is at least more useful/fun than it was four years ago.

Nicole asked...

"I've found that the Death Knight class is a fantastic way to explore the other faction and I was just wondering if you this was a popular thing to do?"

I really can't answer for other players, but I can defiantly speak for myself. I've got a 69 Blood Elf Death Knight that I've been having fun with now and then. All my mains are Alliance side (and yes, I've even got an Alliance Death Knight going on my second account), but my Hordie is quite fun to play.

I'm looking forward to running through the Wrath Gate quest line Horde side in a few levels, since I've done the Alliance one so many times now I practically have it memorized. It's also been fun to see the different angles on events as I leveled my way through Outland and into Northrend.

Are Death Knights autowin in PvP?

Here's a question I'm sure a lot of players have asked themselves when faced against those dreaded Death Knights. Critical QQ wrote an interesting post in his blog theorizing that the side with the most number of Death Knights will win. Think Ret Paladin during the first week or so of Patch 3.0. He posits that Death Knights are such a powerful PvP class that they tend to turn the tide of a battle. To a degree, it's actually true. The very first Arena Master was a Death Knight.

The blog post plays out several scenarios where Death Knights make a difference but doesn't get into too much detail. But the point he makes is clear, and some of you might have actually felt it whenever you played some Battlegrounds -- whichever side has the most Death Knights wins. I've never actually stopped to figure out the ratio of Death Knights in all my Battlegrounds games, but there's no question a Death Knight is a force to be reckoned with in PvP. But are they unbeatable?

The obvious answer, of course, is no. But they sure are damn hard to put down. Blizzard was aware of this and severely nerfed Unholy in Patch 3.0.8, cutting down the duration of Anti-Magic Zone, lowering the mitigation of Bone Shield and Icebound Fortitude, and putting an unnecessarily long cooldown on Shadow of Death as well as removed it from Arena play. The last change was needed, but the 15 minute cooldown is probably too long considering Blizzard also nerfed the duration to 25 seconds. They also toned down the class' burst damage somewhat, including the amazing Gargoyle talent.

The non-healer healing class
So how come Death Knights are still extremely powerful in PvP despite the mitigation nerfs? Have you ever fought a Death Knight and wondered to yourself why your health keeps getting low while theirs is getting high even after you've hit them with everything you've got? Something that's been overlooked for the most part in the spate of recent balance changes is the sheer awesomeness of Death Knight self-healing. Mitigation on separate cooldowns and a variety of self-heals make Death Knights one of the most resilient classes in the game.

As a baseline ability, Death Knights have Death Strike, a melee strike that heals them as long as they have stacks of diseases on their target. Once Death Knights have set up, it becomes very difficult to stop them because they'll wear you down while they pump themselves up. Then there's Death Pact, the legacy Warcraft III ability, that sacrifices an undead minion such as a ghoul or gargoyle in exchange for health. Note that Death Pact works off maximum health and not current health, which means it's an excellent ability to use when their pet is about to die.

Blood has access to Rune Tap, as well, which when improved can heal them for 20% of their health every 30 seconds. Prior to the nerf, the most popular PvP builds were a mix of Blood and Unholy which had access to frightening healing as well as mitigation. Blood / Unholy Death Knights will use either Scourge Strike or Death Strike depending on whether they need healing. Because both strikes use Unholy and Frost runes, this leaves a Blood rune or two for Rune Tap at a moment's notice. That's not even the best part. Rune Tap is off the GCD. Insane? Sure it is.

While not a popular build for PvP, some pick up talents like Bloodworms, Blood Aura, and Vampiric Blood, which add to self-healing. Vendetta is awesome for a continous grind -- not just for mobs, but in Battlegrounds PvP or Wintergrasp. Sure they'll need to land the killing blow to proc it, but they're Death Knights. Killing blows are second nature to them.

Now, although Unholy is still the PvP tree, it's now more common to complement it with Frost all the way up to Killing Machine. Players speccing Frost / Unholy pick up Lichborne along the way, which is an incredible anti-CC ability on a three minute cooldown. Aside from breaking Charm, Fear, and Sleep effects, it provides immunity to it for 15 seconds. Guess what? Just like Rune Tap, Lichborne is off the GCD, as well. Here's another Death Knight trick -- when under the effects of Lichborne, they can heal themselves with Death Coil. So you can add that to the list of effective self-heals.

Understand that these heals can tick for a lot. Death Strike can crit, which sometimes results in heals upwards of 5,000 hp. This means that while they're dealing damage, they're healing themselves at the same time. Because Unholy Presence cuts the GCD by .5 seconds, Death Knights can blow two Death Strikes in quick succession to heal themselves for a considerable amount. If they have a lot of diseases stacked, that's a lot of healing. Ten seconds later, they'll be able to do it again.

The best (or worst, if you're up against a Death Knight) part is, all of these heals are instant. None of them have a cast time. Rune Tap is an instant heal off the GCD on a thirty second cooldown. Death Strike is a heal that is part of an attack, usable twice in succession every ten seconds. Death Pact is instant on a three minute timer. Bloodworms just happen. All Death Knights will have access to Death Strike and Death Pact, while the others are talents. Instant, uninterruptible self-healing on one of the most devastating DPS classes is equal to PvP godhood.

Death Grip wormhole is a bad, bad thing

As much as we enjoyed watching what is arguably the most phenomenally fun bug ever, it should come as no surprise to anyone that exploiting it is a very bad thing. In particular, GMs have been alerted to the bug and are on a keen watch for players who attempt to do it. After Elizabeth Harper's experimentation -- all done in the name of journalistic investigation, we promise -- resident killer Rogue Chase Christian attempted it, too. He was very swiftly messaged by a Game Master informing him that he would be banned if he ever did it again.

The boys over at DeathKnight.info confirm the same thing, not only because it is under close watch by GMs, but because it has serious repercussions for players who are 'pulled' into the wormhole. Players with the temerity to try it out have reported getting stuck in limbo and had to submit tickets to get their characters unstuck. No doubt a deluge of tickets describing suspiciously similar circumstances was more than enough to raise alarms over at Blizzard. So while we enjoyed showing that video of the Death Grip bug, we hope you didn't follow such bad examples. I mean, you didn't, right? Of course not. Good boys and girls.

PvE Enchantments for Death Knights

Fresh on the heels of last week's gemming guide, we have an enchanting guide. Like gemming, enchanting is an easy way to go the extra mile to get your gear the best it can be so you can properly keep aggro without dying and/or top the damage meters in your next Naxxramas raid. Since there's so few enchants available, it's a lot less complicated than gemming too. DPS will just want hit to the cap and attack power (Sorry, there's not many strength enchants), while tanks will want defense to 540 and stamina.

It's also worth noting that almost every slot with an enchant has a weaker version and a more powerful version. Although it's usually frowned upon to go weak when can go strong, in the case of enchants, it's probably okay at the entry level to go with the weaker version of an enchant. The more powerful ones generally take Abyss Crystals and the like, and may be a bit steep. In addition, there's a few other quirks and special enchantments to watch out for. Let's take a look, by slot, at some of the best choices for enchanting for both DPS and Tanking.

Weapon

Runeforging is better than enchanting, just to get that out of the way. There's no use wasting shards and dust on a weapon enchant when a better one is just a Death Gate away. As far as which to get, though, let's look at the options.

For DPS, it's very hard to go wrong by just applying Rune of the Fallen Crusader. The health will help soak up environmental damage, and strength will translate to AP, which will translate to spellpower, which means a large overall boost to your damage. Even better is the fact that it scales, meaning the better your gear gets, the better the proc gets. If you're running a Howling Blast build, you might get away with Razorice, but otherwise, there shouldn't be any question in your mind that Fallen Crusader fits the bill.

Tanking has a choice between two enchants: Rune of Swordshattering and Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle. If you haven't hit the 540 skill defense cap, take the gargoyle, no ifs, ands, or buts. Once you get past 540, there's some small amount of debate over which enchantment works best. 4% parry is a very nice chunk of avoidance. On the other hand, the 2% stamina on the gargoyle rune is still pretty nice, it works from all directions (whereas parry works only from the front) and even past 540 defense, you do get some avoidance. In general, if you feel like your stamina is a little low, or you want to unload some stamina for threat on your armor, you can use Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle to pick up some of the slack. Otherwise, that 4% parry will probably prove superior if you can keep your enemies in front of you.

Head

For your head, DPS will want to pick up the Arcanum of Torment from the Knights of the Ebon Blade. For Tanking, you'll need revered Argent Crusade reputation for the Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector. It's a nice and straightforward choice, which is always cool.

Shoulders

Much like the head, here's another straightforward choice. Grind Sons of Hodir reputation, and at honored you can grab the Lesser Inscriptions of the Axe or the Pinnacle, depending on your role. At exalted, grab the Greater versions. Of course, you can also level inscription and skip the whole mess altogether, but otherwise, it's definitely worth the grind.

Chest

For tanking, you can grab some quick and easy defense via the Greater Defense enchantment. DPS or tanks who don't need defense can grab Super Stats, or if they have the gold to spare, the more powerful Powerful Stats.

Bracer

For tanks, Major Stamina is amazing if you have the gold to spare. It's steep though, so if you can't afford it, you can probably get by with Greater Stats until you get more gold or some bracers worthy of Major Stamina. Of course, if you're desperate for a last few points of defense, you can track down a Burning Crusade era enchanter with the Major Defense enchant.

For DPS, you'll want to track down either Greater Assault or Striking, depending on how much gold you want to spare.

Gloves

Tanks will probably want to go for Armsman. The Eternal Earths really aren't that hard to come by, especially if you're a miner, and 2% threat and a bit of extra avoidance is hard to beat. Of course, if you're absolutely secure in your ability to keep threat, you could always grab Expertise to get closer to pushing parries and dodges off the table.

For DPS, you can use Precision to fill some of your hit rating needs. If you're fine on hit rating, go for Greater Assault or the more powerful (and still relatively affordable) Crusher for the attack power.

Belt

There's no enchantments for belts per se, but be sure to grab an Eternal Belt Buckle. It's perfect for, say, a Bold Scarlet Ruby if you're DPS, or a Solid Sky Sapphire if you're a Tank.

Legs

You'll need to seek out a leatherworker here. The epic leg armor used to be a clear choice, but now that it requires Frozen Orbs, you may want to just stick to the blue-quality stuff until you get Naxxramas level legs depending on your cash flow. For Tanks, you'll want epic Frosthide Leg Armor, or the cheaper Jormungar Leg Armor. Both provide plenty of stamina and some added agility for bonus avoidance. For DPS, you have the Icescale Leg Armor or the cheaper Nerubian Leg Armor.

Boots

Tanks here can pick up a nice chunk of health with a Greater Vitality enchant here. Of course, if you don't have Unholy Aura, you may also want to consider Tuskarr's Vitality. A bit of extra speed can help in wrangling and positioning mobs more than you might expect.

DPS can grab Icewalker here for a quick and easy hit rating boost. If you've hit 8% hit though, you're better off going for the attack power enchants. Greater Assault isn't too steep in price, but you can also get the Assault enchant for even cheaper.