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The Scout Report returns, and there is much rejoicing
No idea how I missed this for so long (we reported on it once that I can find, way back in June of last year), but BBB is right -- The Scout Report is a terrific WoW webcomic that could probably use some more attention. From the very beginning, it's got pretty great timing and a healthy dose of cynicism. And it's super funny, which is always good for a webcomic.
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As we continue down the road to Wrath of the Lich King, we get more and more information about what factions we'll be coming across. The Taunka, the Tuskarr, the Scarlet Onslaught, things like that. The one that seems to have gotten the most people excited is our beloved Silver Hand. The inclusion of the Silver Hand has even sparked a great amount of debate on the official Wrath forums, yammering for or against the Horde being welcome in the Order. Because of all of this, I've decided we'll take a little look at the Silver Hand this week!Contrary to what most people believe/know, the Order of the Silver Hand was not founded exclusively by Uther the Lightbringer. At the time, Uther was actually still an apprentice. His teacher, Archbishop Alonsus Faol, was the true founder of the Order, though Uther was at his side, naturally.
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See if you can follow this reasoning: WoW has ten million players, which is nice and all, but there are actually 800 million teens in the world. Therefore, since Blizzard hasn't reached even 10% of them (80 million), WoW is not actually a success. That's what Craig Sherman of Gaia Online (a casual, browser-based MMO) said to folks at the M16 Marketing conference in San Francisco this week. He claims that WoW's subscription fee has hampered its growth, and that it would be even bigger if there was a free-to-play model.[View Remaining 3 Paragraphs]
Boubouille of MMO Champion has a special treat for Hunters and loot hounds everywhere today, unveiling footage of the legendary bow Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury in action. The bow itself looks pretty awesome, with lots of detail and colors. In addition, it looks like when you shoot it, you get a pretty nice light show going on. I'd say that they've managed to make it rather legendary indeed, looks wise. It's worth noting that the stat data shown in this video is from PTR data mining, so it may not keep those exact stats when the 3rd gate opens and Kil'jaedan is finally downed, but I imagine a lot of Hunters (myself included) are drooling big time over this little glimpse, and can't wait to get their hands on it regardless.
We've been talking about this for a little while, but the always insightful Relmstein has a nice summary of what's surely one of the ideas behind Blizzard's daily quests -- they serve as a kind of "Federal Reserve rate" for Azeroth, in that Blizzard can control inflation and gold flow by routinely pouring money into the economy. Before daily quests, Blizzard had big problems with gold sellers -- raiding cost a lot of money, as did the various mounts, reputations, and everything else our characters had to buy. But really the only way to get gold was from farming and grinding, both things almost nobody wanted to do.[View Remaining 2 Paragraphs]
A bit over a month ago, all the realms in the European battlegroups Crueldad, Hinterhalt, Némésis, and Nightfall suffered some extra downtime, and players on them received a credit for a free day of playtime to compensate. Looks like it's happened again. In exchange for for six hours of downtime on April 6, members on those battlegroups will once again get a free day. Here's a list of the affected realms:- Crueldad: C'Thun, Dun Modr, Los Errantes, Minahonda, Shen'dralar, Tyrande, Uldum, Zul'Jin
- Hinterhalt: Arygos, Der Mithrilorden, Dethecus, Forscherliga, Norgannon, Teldrassil, Todeswache, Un'Goro
- Némésis: Arak-arahm, Confrérie du Thorium, Eitrigg, Garona, La Croisade écarlate, Medivh, Uldaman, Vol'jin
- Nightfall: Alonsus, Anachronos, Bronze Dragonflight, Burning Steppes, Darkmoon Faire, Darkspear, Kor'gall, Lightbringer, Molten Core
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Despite a scare last April 1 that Nihilum would disband, the bleeding edge guild made true on a promise to continue setting world firsts by downing the Twin Eredars Lady Sacrolash and Grand Warlock Alythess on April 10, 6:00pm CEST. The Rogue-less 25-man team were able to down the twin bosses, their first "world first" in the new raid instance, despite EU Realms having the first Sunwell Plateau gate open a day behind the US owing to the time differential. The drops were Boots of the Forgotten Vanquisher, Equilibrium Epaulets, Shiv of Exsanguination, Sin'dorei Pendant of Conquest, and Spaulders of the Thalassian Savior.
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Last week David covered pet control, in case you missed it. This week I'll be talking about a question people ask on the forums quite often: "What profession is good for a hunter?" Each profession, of course, has its pros and cons. Most professions, in fact, have a variety of professionals involved at all levels, and in many cases you couldn't get two of them to agree on their career of choice for love or money. A cursory look at the professions forum will confirm it most days. But over the years, and with several hunter characters, I've picked up a few ideas from my own experience and from that handed out in the forums. Herein, I'll share what I know, and perhaps what some others have taught me as well!The "Basic Income"
Not all players take pleasure in crafting. It can be tedious, time consuming, and the gear you produce can be replaced with drops in many cases at the same level. Hours can be spent running back and forth from auction house, to bank, to forge, to auction house, to forge, to bank, to Wowhead, back to auction house, and so on. If that doesn't appeal to you, the "Basic Income" might be perfect.
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WoW Insider has confirmed through anonymous sources that the next expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, is in closed alpha status, and that various players are being invited to check it out, under a strict NDA.[View Remaining 3 Paragraphs]
Hotlunch of Thunderlord has a bit of a problem - It seems she was out on the prowl recently, and found herself an AFK Warlock. However, despite the fact that she jumped out of hiding and wailed away at the poor Warlock, the Warlock's faithful Felguard came to his aid and killed her first. To Hotlunch's credit, she didn't immediately chalk up the blame to overpowered Warlocks but, probably rightly, to her gear. It's pretty true that poorly geared Rogues aren't much trouble to your well geared Warlock. As long as you have the hp and armor to last through their barrage of stuns to get off a fear and trinket out of Crippling Poison, then kite them around while they burn through Cloak of Shadows and Cheat Death, they're pretty easy. It's when you get the well geared rogues with tons of armor penetration and resilience that you start feeling the sting of those blades.
Of course, some people in the thread rightfully pointed out that she should start looking at Opportunist's Battlegear for a quick leg up on PvP gear - it seems like her situation is exactly what it was implemented to help out with, and might have helped out a bit with the Felguard. Good luck to Hotlunch on getting geared up. With a little more preparation, I'm sure the next AFK Warlock won't be so lucky.
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This week, The Care and Feeding of Warriors talks about Expertise. There's going to be a lot of math talk. It will probably have an error or two in it. Mr. Rossi needs to get some int gear for writing these columns. Expertise is useful for tanking and melee DPSing, so it seemed time to discuss it. Also, I've recently realized I can't actually hit the 'expertise cap' as a tank with the gear I can get. Sad but true.We live in interesting times since patch 2.3 here in warrior land. Whereas previous to this patch, we had good old fashioned bonuses to our weapon skill (remember the old Edgemaster's Handguards? Admit it, you wore these at 60. Some of you wore them at 70. You don't have to lie to us, we know.) we now live in the magical world of expertise rating and expertise. What is expertise, and what isn't it?
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Well Fed Buff serves up tasty dishes to boost your HP, stats and appetite – with that special WoW twist, of course.
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Retribution Paladins in World of Warcraft have a lot to look forward to when Blizzard finally releases Wrath of the Lich King. The developers previous mentioned that the class would be getting some improvements, however, they were rather vague regarding what changes will be implemented to the class.[View Remaining 2 Paragraphs]
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The National Post has an interview with an artist named Eddo Stern, who has created what he calls "sculptures" of figures from WoW. You can clearly see what looks like a dragon (Onyxia), Chuck Norris, and a Night Elf above, and there is apparently another sculpture in the series featuring Chuck Norris mashed up with something from Chronicles of Narnia. Finally, Stern apparently has created a video installation of a thread from the EverQuest forums called "Best... Flame War.... Ever." Sounds like pretty standard forum posturing to us -- a kid calls another guy a noob, said guy threatens to show up in RL for a fight and then talks about his buddies in Iraq.
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Their loot: (loot table)
• Spaulders of the Thalassian Savior
• Shiv of Exsanguination
• Equilibrium Epaulets
• Sin'dorei Pendant of Conquest
• Boots of the Forgotten Vanquisher
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After a serving a short stint with the intern babes - involving tape and piñatas - V'Ming returns to laughing ominously in AV, tanking Olm with his own minions and pondering troll fashion from Zul'Aman. He's rocking SSC and TK with his 0/21/40 build and still bragging about consecutive 8k shadow bolts.Your comments in my previous Badge loot shopping article got me thinking about warlocks having multiple outfits, just like tanks and hybrids. Warlocks usually serve a single role - DPS - so our outfits aren't generally as dramatically diverse as what a druid, for instance, might pack.
After accumulating a bunch of epics with varying stats, most of us have moved beyond the "one outfit for everything" situation. In fact, I'd say we're spoilt for choice now and can afford to use the right gear for the right situation.
Resistances obviously play a part in dressing up, especially in specific encounters where warlocks need to go toe-to-toe with certain mobs. Notable examples include arcane resistance for the Curator (if you're "soaking"), fire resistance for Leotheras the Blind and shadow resistance for Illidan.
In most other situations however, Warlock gear choices are dictated by some important numbers:
Spell Hit
The key stat for Warlock DPS, and other than our tier 6 pieces, spell hit traditionally comes on gear that lack spell crit or haste. As a result, most raiding warlocks would dedicate an outfit to maximize spell hit. Ideally, you'd want to enter level 73 boss fights with a spell hit rating of 202 (76 for affliction spells, with Suppression talent). For trash mobs who are generally between levels 69 - 71, a spell hit of 202 is simply excessive. You only need 63 spell hit to be capped out against a level 72 mob. Most warlocks trade out spell hit to optimize the other stats below for non-boss encounters.
Spell Damage
This stat is pretty much ubiquitous amongst caster DPS gear, so it really is a secondary consideration when it comes to developing outfits. That said, affliction locks will still want to prioritize this stat over crit or haste, after meeting the spell hit "requirement".
Spell Haste & Crit
Without delving into hair-splitting theorycrafting, spell haste seems to be gaining more prominence over spell crit after patch 2.4, particularly for destruction locks. Like spell hit, spell haste is an "exclusive" stat; most haste gear do not come with hit or crit. Given that they are also relatively new to the market and almost always associated with high end content, many destruction warlocks will be hard-pressed to forego crit for haste at the moment. I can also imagine that spell crit will continue to have greater utility in shorter encounters.
Stamina & Resilience
In PvE encounters where random environmental damage is prevalent, I prefer to put on stamina-heavy "survival" gear. Survival gear is also useful in providing a wider margin of error when you are new to an encounter. To quote a Mage guildie, "dead DPS is no DPS" - it's better to survive a 10-minute fight than to deliver stellar DPS for 20 seconds. In many respects, PvP gear is ideal for this purpose, packing loads of Stamina but sacrificing some raw PvE firepower. Other than swapping out some PvP-specific trinkets, most PvP outfits will double up nicely as PvE stam outfits.
For my outfitting needs, I use Ace's Wardrobe2. Outfitter does a fine job too. Switching entire sets of gear outside of combat is as easy as selecting an outfit from the dropdown list, provided you've spent the time setting them up. Based on the discussion above, I would recommend building the following basic sets, as soon as you've accumulated sufficient gear:
- "Boss" outfit: maximized Hit and balanced spell damage, crit and haste, for boss fights
- "DPS" outfit: optimized crit, haste and spell damage, depending on your spec, for all general killing purposes (including the battlegrounds, but this is strictly personal choice)
- "PvP" or "Arena" outfit: a whole load of Stamina and Resilience, the PvP trinkets, and perhaps 38 spell hit to avoid missing your level 70 opponents.
- "Stam" outfit: maximize Stamina - the objective of this outfit is to provide survivability without sacrificing too much firepower.
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Focus is a powerful tool built into the default UI that I just don't use nearly as much as I should. With '/focus" (and a number of key bindings), you can set up a "focused" target that, with one keypress or macro, you can snap back to and cast whatever needs to be casst. Resto4Life has been putting together a great series on Focus and how to use it: They've hit on hibernating, healing with focus, and now using your focus' target to deal out debuffs.[View Remaining 2 Paragraphs]
Every Thursday, Shelbi Roach of The Bronze Kettle guides you in creating WoW-inspired crafts using real world mats with World of WarCrafts.[View Remaining 2 Paragraphs]
Sure, he doesn't compare to Skwisgaar Skwigelf in appearance, but Talbot of Sha'tar-EU has managed to make the Lunar Festival totally metal. The backup dancers could use some skimpier clothing, though. Or, considering that they're rotting, decaying corpses, possibly some very heavy overcoats.
Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!
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We get our motivation today from Thongsnapper (nice name) of Gorefiend who asks, if you could have any spell in Warcraft in real life, which one would you have? Hearthstone would be an interesting choice for sure, and Polymorph would make for an interesting life (though its uses might be pretty limited, considering that real life doesn't actually have aggro management), but I think personally I'm going to have to fall back on the old superpower standby: stealth. Moving around unseen just seems too fun to pass up.
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The Magisters' Terrace is a five-man instance in World of Warcraft. In order to conquer it, players must face five bosses and one of them is the Priestess Delrissa. According to Fuhen from the Frostwolf realm, his stealth doesn't work against the Priestess. Over at the official forums, Fuhen said that he gets pulled out from stealth mode every time they engage with the humanoid fiend.
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According to Harum's report over at the World of Warcraft official forums, there's an issue with the game log that's preventing it from properly recording certain actions.As Harum further specified, the /combatlog in particular is unable to record a line when a player dies. The bug report was picked up by community moderator Hortus.
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Gaming companies have their own ways and means of selecting beta testers, and Blizzard is no exception. If you've been wondering, as World of Warcraft player Holger did, how Blizzard selected beta testers for The Burning Crusade expansion, wonder no more. Blue poster Nethaera has recently shed light on the subject.
Nethaera mentioned that the selection process was an eclectic one:
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Have you already wondered what would happen if you put Portal and World of Warcraft together?
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Player Shinkosh over at the official European forums for World of Warcraft is asking if teams have to pay another 12 Euro or roughly around US 20 after the qualification stage this coming May 20.The question was prompted when the player saw that qualifying teams still need to re-register to continue to take part in the Tournament Realm past the above mentioned date.
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Yesterday, I talked about a small update on Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury, and here it is ! Nothing really big but according to what's available in the game files, there is a pretty cool feature to make the bow a bit more impressive : all the arrows you shoot with the bow will have a light effect ! Of course, it could be a problem if you're trying to sneak behind the enemy lines to snipe a few enemies from behind a tree, but most of the time I'm sure you'll enjoy it.
Before watching the videos keep in mind that :
- Stats are still from the old pre-PTR leak, they could have been changed. (But it didn't happen with any other item)
- As usual with this kind of preview, nothing is officialy confirmed, the bow didn't drop yet and everything could be changed.
- It's not affecting "special" shots like Steady shot or Multi-shot, this could be a bug on my side, a bug on Blizzard's side, or just working as intended.
Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury from Boubouille on Vimeo.
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There's a lot of ways to become famous in the World of Warcraft. For some, it's by being the first to down some of Azeroth's more nefarious bosses. For others, it's by proving yourself to be among the best fighters in the MMO's PvP scene. Now, if you happen to belong to subscribe to the latter, here's a quick head-up from Blizzard. The company is sending word that they're looking for screenshots of your best-looking Arena exploits.
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In its vigilant attempt to disperse population across the many realms of World of Warcraft, Blizzard is giving away free character transfers yet again. Beginning April 9th until the 15th, players in highly populated realms can join the ranks of less populated realms for free.[View Remaining 3 Paragraphs]
Heads up, World of Warcraft Arena Tournament participants! We're sure you've been sharpening your swords and practicing your PvP skills, and since you actually have to show up for the tournament to be able to compete, you'll need a copy of the tourney's schedule, yes? Blizzard poster Thundgot from the WoW Europe Forums posted the schedule:[Expand 1 Paragraphs]
Right after World of Warcraft U.S. gamers gained access to the first gate of the Sunwell Plateau, Blizzard made sure the European servers are not left behind. It's now open for Europe so better head to the Isle of Quel'Danas to reach the Sunwell Plateau.
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