Wotlk Article: Quantifying Wrath's success

The Egotistical Priest has a good series of posts up attempting to somehow quantify whether Wrath has been an overall success or not. Of course, it's definitely a financial success, but has the game's second expansion delivered what both players and Blizzard expected it to? Vonya sets out to find out in what has turned into a three part post: you can find parts one and two on the site now, and part three is set to come out tomorrow.

So far, the answer is yes: while the area of Tradeskills is noted as less than a success (it seems to me, too, that tradeskills had more variety and options in Burning Crusade than their current state in Wrath, though that might be because we're only partway through the expansion cycle), everything else is noted as a win for Blizzard: they've really beefed up questing, balance has been intriguing since Wrath (and even if one class has rubbed you wrong, consider how many players came running back with the expansion patch to re-try their class), and of course, Achievements have (predictably) brought the game to new levels of addiction and given players of all kinds new things to do.

Vonya still plans to tackle instancing and raiding as the other two criteria for Wrath's success (and there are probably a few other ways you could test it -- lore? setting?), but by the reasoning so far, Wrath is a win no matter how you slice it. Blizzard has outdone themselves with the second expansion -- the only question is where they'll go from here.

Lichborne: The Rise of Blood in 3.1

The Blood tree often gets a bad rap among those not in the know. It's a decent leveling tree, but it's generally considered not to have the tanking power or AoE DPS Potential of Unholy or Frost. By all indications, that has changed in 3.1, especially in the latest patch. Not only have many key Blood talents and skills received key buffs or changes, but the very nature of Armor Penetration has changed, with the 25% benefit buff making Blood's mostly physical damage dealing style well suited to take advantage of the change. This is quite a shift from just before 3.1, when many were afraid disease-less Blood would be wiped out and leave the tree with no viable hassle-free DPS specs.


Blood DPS

Blood DPS can now safely use Death Strike as their standard Frost/Unholy Rune dump thanks to the buff baseline buffs and the new Improved Death Strike talent, which in alone solves a lot of Blood DPS problems, since you're no longer locked into 13 points of Frost for Annihilation. This allows heading into the Unholy Tree, where one can pick up major useful talents such as Morbidity, Epidemic, and Master of Ghouls, resulting a build that might look a little like this. This build benefits from grabbing extra strength, Death Coil damage, disease duration, and spell hit in Unholy, which would be near impossible if Blood still had to grab Annihilation. Since Death Coil will be your main RP dump and you'll be shooting off free Death Coils due to sudden doom, you'll want the damage and the extra chance for them to hit.

Some people have been a bit concerned that the Tier 8 4-piece bonus doesn't cover Death Strike, but don't expect Blood to fall behind too much because of that, because it does apply to Heart Strikes. That's really the secret of the build. Death Strikes are just there to generate Death Runes for Heart Strikes -- or, if you're AEing large groups, Blood Boil.

The two major disadvantages kept by Blood DPS are needing to babysit the Ghoul (since you won't be able to afford Night of the Dead) and the tightness of their rotation, needing to spend as many runes as possible on Heart Strike before Frost Fever and Blood Plague fall off. The former problem - is the perma-ghoul worth it for Blood DPS when it will die so easily - is probably one that will need some further exploration, and the latter shouldn't be as much of a problem thanks to a few points spent in Epidemic and Death Strike not removing diseases like Obliterate did without Annihilation. Overall, if Blood goes live looking close to how it does now, it should be a very tempting tree for DPS.

Blood Tanking

One of Blood Tanking's major weaknesses has always been that it's the weakest AE tree. That is pretty much gone as a problem is 3.1. The new disease-less Blood Boil is actually working remarkably well as a snap AE aggro tool, enough so that you shouldn't really need to worry about heading 21 points into Unholy to grab Unholy Blight. A Tank build like this should work pretty well both for survivability and threat. If you have a Frost DPSer in your raid who can cast Improved Icy Touch, all the better, you just freed up 3 points.

Also nice for Blood Tanks is the new buff to Scent of Blood. The latest iteration gives 10 runic power per a charge and can be activated by dodging, parrying, or simply by taking damage. Preliminary tests on the PTR are placing it at almost always up in multi-mob situations, and up enough to provide 2-3 runic power per second on average on single target fights.

This should make it a lot easier for Blood Death Knights to keep chaining Rune Strike and cement their place as solid single-target aggro holders. Of course, Scent of Blood is also conveniently low enough in the tree that Frost and Unholy tanks can take it, but Blood will probably still find it the easiest to take, as they'll probably have 3 spare points on the way to getting Will of the Necropolis and Heart Strike easily.

Speaking of Heart Strike...

There are some Death Knights who are asking for a new secondary effective to Heart Strike now that Blood Boil is an effective AE damage and threat tool. There's certainly a good argument for the cleave being less useful than it once was, but it's also useful to keep in mind that it wouldn't be the first time Blizzard has left a strike without a useful secondary ability, such as when they removed the HoT removal from Plague Strike.

Overall, even with that less useful secondary mechanic, Heart Strike is still a very fine damage dealer. Blood is a tree that's currently headed into 3.1 stronger than ever, and if you haven't taken a look at it lately, you might want to strongly consider a second one now. I'm probably going to keep on with Unholy, but at the same time, all that health recovery and a Dancing Rune Weapon churning out Blood Boils is just looking way too juicy for words..

More new Jewelcrafting recipes found on the 3.1 PTR

Here's another nice set of tradeskill updates to show up on the 3.1 PTR recently, as Kaliope points out: New Jewelcrafting recipes.

First up, Shifting Twilight Opal will now finally exist in game. This purple gem should be a great possible choice for tanks looking to fill out a metagem or slot bonus requirement, especially. It's available from Tiffany Cartier in Dalaran.

The other new recipes are actually nice and conveniently straight from the trainer. There's 2 blue rings and 2 blue amulets, one each of caster and melee stats, with plenty of stamina and resilience:

• Emerald Choker


• Sky Sapphire Amulet
  


• Runed Mana Band


• Scarlet Signet

They do require large amounts of blue gems to craft, but Kaliope notes that some of those gems, specifically Forest Emeralds and Sky Sapphires, are rather low profit anyway, and that this jewelry is likely to be in demand among players looking to break into the Arena at the start of the new season that's coming with 3.1. The new recipes are also all in prime position to be valid skillup paths, with the Shifting Twilight Opal learnable at 390 skill and the new PvP jewelry learnable at 420 skill. got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.

Chinese WoW provider The9 faces bankruptcy in wake of Wrath woes

We told you a few days back that Wrath of the Lich King has had a tough time getting approved in China due to the government's strict censorship laws, but now there's even more bad news for Chinese WoW players. As Sister site Massively reports, The9 has told JLM Pacific Epoch that they will face bankruptcy if the expansion is not green-lighted soon. The Government agency responsible for the decision says that they must balance the needs of the9 with the need to root out "unhealthy" content from the game.

The9 has actually already paid for the game itself, having secured the Chinese licensing rights for a hefty fee back in April 2008. Add to that the upkeep cost of many of the most powerful supercomputers in China, and rumors that many Chinese WoW players have either quit or moved on to Taiwanese accounts for their Wrath fix, and it's easy to see why they're is getting a bit cash starved. If the9 goes under, it's difficult to say whether Wrath can be salvaged in China, but we'll keep you posted whatever happens.

Fishers in 3.1,New mounts for Horde

One of the complaints heard from the Horde is that they have fewer buyable mounts than the Alliance side, making it intrinsically harder for them to gain the 100 mount achievement. 3.1 will see some steps taken to amend that gap, as the Horde will now be able to purchase a Black Wolf, a White Kodo, and a Black Skeletal Horse.

Some Horde are still not satisfied, saying that at least one of those mounts should be Epic to truly equalize numbers, but for now, there's at least more easy mounts to get toward the Red Dragonhawk (Which is honestly a lot cooler looking than the silly blue one Alliance get, seriously).

Rumors have also been persisting over the past few days that the Horde will finally be getting an Un'goro Ravasaur as a counterpart to the Winterspring Frostsaber for Alliance. This has been compounded by the discovery of a Venomhide Ravasaur mount and a Ravasaur related quest in the 3.1 PTR files. However, Mor'vek himself seems to be unaccessible, and Zarhym has recently gone on record as saying there will not be a Ravasaur Mount in 3.1. It seems, though, that they're at least working toward the idea. Maybe we'll see one in 3.2.

Here's one more bonus to accompany that whole mounts can swim thing in 3.1: An actual swimming mount. In 3.1, Fishers will be able to fish up a new mount from Northrend fishing schools. As to the identity of the mount, a Coralsheel Turtle mount has been spotted in the 3.1 PTR files, and Zarhym has confirmed that it's the real deal. Between this and the aforementioned fishing dailies, it is a very nice time to be a fisher in 3.1.

If nothing else, between this and the tournament, it looks like we'll be seeing a few more Dragonhawks flying around. Good luck, mount collectors!

Cooking and clams get more convenient changes in patch 3.1

The patch notes for the 3.1 PTR have recently been updated, and they have quite a few nice updates and a few things that should make things more convenient for cooks everywhere. We were promised cooking would be easier in 3.1, and these patch notes definitely deliver on that promise. Let's check out the changes (compiled courtesy of MMO-Champion), which include even easier campfires and those 2 promised recipes:
* A new recipe has been added to cooking trainers for making Black Jelly, using several Borean Man 'O War as ingredients. While it looks disgusting, it restores more health and mana than the highest level food.
* Flint and Tinder is no longer necessary for creating a campfire. You're just that resourceful!
* Ingredients such as Spices, Apples, and the like have been removed from most cooking recipes.
* Players no longer need to complete the Clamlette Surprise quest to gain Artisan cooking. The quest now offers the unique recipe, Clamlette Magnifique. If you already completed the quest, you can visit Dirge Quickcleave in Gadgetzan to learn this recipe (for free).
* Several Northrend recipes were given greater skill up ranges to make it easier to reach 450 cooking skill.
* You no longer need to learn cooking from books. The trainers have finally done their reading and are able to teach you the same thing.

Streamlining the way we learn the cooking skill seems to be one of the themes of these changes. Not only do we no longer have to do the quest for Clamette Surprise to learn Artisan cooking, but even the cookbooks are a thing of the past. It's at least one or two less hoops to jump for, and very nice for newbies and alts, letting them focus on leveling and questing instead of running halfway around the world for a basic skill.

Of course, most dedicated cooks are still going to want to do the Clamette Surprise quest, since it gives a new cooking recipe, Clamlette Magnifique. One more option to level cooking is always good, plus it means less trouble for chefs in trying to smuggle recipes between factions to get Chef de Cuisine. And hey, that's not the only decent Clam related news in this patch. They've finally managed to fix that silly clam stacking bug. Loot recovered from a clam, whether you were mounted or not, will automatically stack coming out of the shell. That was definitely an annoying bug, and this fix will a godsend for my Murloc slaughtering sprees.

In more straight up convenient changes, Northrend cooks will find it easier to skill up. Not only will we be getting a new recipe for the Borean Man O War (Mmmm, delicious, delicious Black Jelly), but we'll be seeing existing Northrend recipes gaining greater skillup ranges. Hopefully this no more grinding of annoying feasts. Not that I won't still grind em. Small Feasts are hilarious.

Finally, Flint and Tinder is no longer needed for campfires at all. I suppose if we're resourceful enough to find wood for a campfire anywhere, we should be able to find two sticks or rocks to bang together for a spark, right? Of course, I didn't have a problem with needing it anyway. I always kept my pocket knife around.

Extra non-meat or fish ingredients for food is also apparently going away for many recipes. Of course, this is a trend that's been around for a while, as many Outland and Northrend needed no spices either. Of course, it's likely Northern Spices are sticking around. What else are we going to use all these Dalaran Cooking Rewards for?

Is Wrath too easy, or are we just better?

In the eternal question of whether Wrath of the Lich King is too easy, Our Girl Friday posits an answer that I've often wondered about myself. Is it really that WotLK is so gosh-darned easy, or could the issue actually be that maybe, just maybe, the players have gotten better?

The wealth of knowledge about the nuts-and-bolts of theorycraft has never been more available. New players and old veterans alike have resources like WoW Insider, Wowhead, WoWwiki, or that juggernaut of theorycraft, Elitist Jerks. There are strategy videos, stategy manuals, and even a few strategy comics. The forums themselves have never been more informative, especially when you consider Ghostcrawler laying down wisdom all over the place. The information about how to play is out there for the taking.

And, c'mon. It's been about half a decade and near 12 million subscribers. Once you've done Nethekurse or Zereketh, you should know that you're not supposed to stand in pink, black, or red circles. Really, just don't stand in stuff. Is that really such a deep and meaningful skill that you have to relearn "Don't stand in stuff!" for Kel'Thuzad? So, if the Wrath raids aren't demanding a gear-based progression (meaning, it's all a gear check), then we should entertain the idea that we've gotten pretty good at not standing in stuff. That's certainly not the only raiding skill, but I'm using it as an indication that we're meeting the basic "skill" requirements.

Of course, even Ghostcrawler has acknowledged that Naxxramas is somewhat the new welfare epics. We know that Ulduar's going to be noticeably more "difficult." But until then, we could probably accept that the current accessibility of content owes some part to us getting better as players.