Hey hey, now we're talking. Here's our first Ulduar item, and it is an excellent caster dagger.

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I am definitely an advocate of the fast instance or raid -- when I played a tank, I pulled pulled pulled (according to the healer's mana, of course), and even now, mostly as a Hunter, I still get impatient. When the healer's mana is full and the tank is not /afk, I sometimes just throw a Misdirect up and go. That's probably why I really liked Naissa's tips for speedy raiding -- she lays out a few really practical things you can do to get your raid moving faster, from only marking skull and X when necessary to only worrying about the healer's mana. It's not the end of the world if the Mage or Hunter has to drink for a second after the pull. While you should always get back to full before a boss pull (and as she says, that's a perfect time to break down the basics, only the basics, of the fight), usually as long as you've got the tank and healer ready, a quick pull will give you time for aggro to settle down as well.

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Just a few quick observations to assist your weekend trading. The following events are notable to us because we’ve seen these changes on five different servers, which tells us that these are consistent WoWenomic trends, not just single server anomalies.

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Update: Added the quest rewards from the quest you get after killing Algalon (10-Man) and Algalon (25-Man) .

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The developers are continuing their hotfix spree, this time targeting Replenishment in the arena. While in an arena, any class that procs Replenishment will only proc it for themselves. It does not apply to the entire party while in an arena. This is something that a lot of people have expected would happen eventually, and it's good to see that they didn't wait for another major content patch for something like this. It had to be done, so they did it. I'd love to see that trend continue.

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Val'anyr, Hammer of the Ancient Kings

The wait is over!  Val'anyr, Hammer of the Ancient Kings is now on the Armory.  Stats below.

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Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today.

I'm very glad today is Friday. It means that... well, all it really means is that we'll work on weekend content for WoW Insider tonight. We should have some great Noblegarden content coming out on Saturday and Sunday, so keep an eye out for that. And then of course there's the constant bug fixes and hoopla around patch 3.1.1abc. Talking about bug fixes everyday is a blast I tell ya, a blast.

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Like Boubouille, I'm pretty surprised to find that Val'anyr, the legendary healer mace from Ulduar-25, is up on the Armory, but there it is [update: it's been removed from the Armory], and that means we now know all the stats on it. Just on the off-chance that someone considers this information to be a spoiler, I've put it behind the cut, so click on if you want to know what the Hammer of the Ancient Kings has to offer.

The other interesting thing about the stats is the lack of regen: no spirit, no mana per 5. This means that aside from the proc, there's nothing healer-specific about it (not that spirit is even really healer-specific these days). Of course, the proc is plenty to guarantee that the weapon goes solely to healers until they've all got theirs.

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Gnomeaggedon has a really insightful post about one of my favorite "hidden" features in patch 3.1. The first time I ran Naxx after the patch, I was a little worried on the first boss that I couldn't loot my badges or Stone Keeper's Shards. But of course, I'd missed it in the patch notes: all of that currency stuff now works like currency should. Whenever one person in the group or raid loots it, everyone gets their own as well. No more forgetting to loot your Badge, as it all goes automatically into the currency screen. Very nice change.

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Another week, another series of raids into Ulduar.

I'm not going to talk about it this week... I'm waiting for more T8 level gear (just got my pants last night) but in general, I'm moving from 'mild discontent' to 'frothing nerd rage' at the state of fury right now. The main reason isn't even my own DPS, which is going up... it's that other classes and specs that aren't 'pure DPS' are now bumped up to where my spec was before patch 3.1, when the reason for my spec's nerfs was stated as that level of DPS being 'too good' for a class that had options besides DPSing. If a class can tank, heal and DPS why is it okay for them to do the damage I used to do when I can only tank and DPS?

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Self: "Self, I wonder if there's any more in-game fixes for today."

Self: "I don't know Self, let me go look."

Self looks around.

Self: "Why look at that self, there is!"

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Kalon at ThinkTank touches on a subject near and dear to my heart -- missing out on loot upgrades because you forget what you're supposed to want. While on an Ulduar-10 run, he passed on the Kologarn drop Mark of the Unyielding, which is close to being the best-in-slot neck for bear tanks, for one good reason (the other tank raids more than he does at the moment) and one bad one (he couldn't remember just how good the piece really is). Particularly galling, he notes, is that he recently wrote an excellent guide to tanking upgrades in Ulduar in which Mark of the Unyielding was singled out for especial commentary. Ouch.

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Here at WoW Insider we don't always agree with each other. Whether it's debating the merits of various tanks on different encounters, the damage difference between pure and hybrid DPS classes, the ideal function of a particular healing class in raids, or the superiority of cake over pie, our back-channel discussion tends to be pretty interesting.

Eliah Hecht's article "25-man gear should not be better than 10-man gear" sparked a lot of great discussion with our readers and, I think, some illuminating poll results as well. The majority of responders believed that giving 10-man and 25-man raids the same loot table would result in a significant drop in popularity for 25-man raiding. Overall, I tend to agree with this, but I also think that Eliah touched on something that speaks to Blizzard's evolving sense of game design, much of which is evident in the transition between late Burning Crusade and Wrath.

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Oh my goodness. I can't believe that I just now got the joke. The main character in Ninth Batter's series is called "Nobody." The title of the series is "Nobody Like You." Get it? If it were Bob, the joke would be saying that it's a "Bob Like You."

Ninth Batter has released "Nobody Like You Episdoe 2." It's a short episode. The whole thing only runs about 3:00 minutes soup to nuts, including the final credits. According to the author, he just didn't feel that more material "fit" in this bite sized piece. I think that makes sense, since the jokes in this skit do pretty well when they stand alone.

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In the absence of a ranged weapon or wand, Druids, Shamans, Death Knights, and Paladins all have an interest in filling the little slot directly to the right of their weapons with something good. You won't get the stats from idols, totems, sigils, or librams that pure classes will get from that slot, but with luck you'll significantly improve a core ability or two. However, because these items usually affect only one or two spells or attacks, they tend to be somewhat hit-or-miss in terms of usefulness, and many specs go for a while without having anything particularly good to put there.

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Discipline-4-lyfe priest Mutsje of Wildhammer-EU was searching through her screenshot folder recently when she discovered this picture of her first forays into Northrend. Ah, remember back in the day? There was a whole new land to explore, full of mystery and wonder, and characters could take a moment to relax and bask in the glory that is a female draenei in Merciless Gladiator's without worrying about falling behind on their dailies. But at least we can relive the launch of Wrath through the recent server instability and random disconnects. The game may change, but the aftermath of major patches will always stay the same.

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I like Ulduar, I really do. I mean, the place is huge. I don't think we've ever seen a raid so massive. While it has about the same number of bosses as Naxxramas or Karazhan, give or take a few, the scale of Ulduar really dwarfs me. The very first encounter is epic -- it feels like some sort of Mad Max sequence, with throngs of enemies rushing at you. Despite my misgivings about vehicle fights, I thought the concourse to Flame Leviathan was a lot of fun. I think Blizzard outdid themselves with the scope of the zone. When they say that Titans built the place, you see and feel it.

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Hard Mode Hall of Fame Updates

You'll notice last week's hard mode kills are present.  While I mentioned I was going to be excluding those, I came to the conclusion that it's not fair to penalize guilds because Blizzard wasn't able to properly tune the hard modes prior to releasing them.  As such, guilds will retain their Hall of Fame #1 kills, even if they defeated the encounter last week.  The only encounter I haven't made a decision on in that regard is Flame Leviathan, because he received a substantial buff in difficulty as a hotfix shortly after the first kill.

Gold star indicates world and region first, silver star indicates region first.  If no guild of a region is in the top-10, they'll receive honorable mention at the end of the top-10 for being the first in their region.

Freya Hard Mode Hall of Fame

# Guild Faction Region Realm Date

1	Inner Sanctum			Silvermoon	Apr 17, 2009
2	Method			Sylvanas	Apr 23, 2009
3	Ensidia			Magtheridon	Apr 23, 2009
4	??
5	??
6	??
7	??
8	??
9	??
10	??

Thorim Hard Mode Hall of Fame

# Guild Faction Region Realm Date

1	Inner Sanctum			Silvermoon	Apr 16, 2009
2	Method			Sylvanas	Apr 16, 2009
3	Ensidia			Magtheridon	Apr 23, 2009
4	For the Horde			Naz'jatar	Apr 23, 2009
5	Paragon			Lightning's Blade	Apr 23, 2009
6	Exodus			Ysondre	Apr 23, 2009
7	??
8	??
9	??
10	??

Replenishment Change For Arenas

Quote from: Zarhym (Source)

We are making a hotfix (any minute now probably) so that Replenishment in arenas will only affect the character and not the whole team. It will continue to function as it does currently outside of arenas.

We feel Replenishment is balanced for larger groups, but just makes too much of a difference on smaller arena teams. Making the rules work differently in PvP and PvE isn’t a solution we like to use often, but in this case we think it fixes the issue cleanly, while still making the talents in question useful to the character who takes them. Alternatives, such as nerfing the amount returned by Replenishment in arena or making it not function at all, seem like more punitive choices from which we want to stay away.

Recent In-Game Fixes - April 23rd, 2009

Quote from: Bornakk (Source)

4/23/09

• Fear Ward will now properly be consumed whether a player is sitting or standing.
• The Rogue talent Savage Combat should now properly be removed after leaving an arena match.
• Greater Blessing of Wisdom and Mana Spring Totem will no longer stack as intended.
• The trash mobs before XT-002 Deconstructor have gone through additional changes that should make them a little easier to get through.
• The Ocular in Icecrown should be killable again using the quest item Eyesoar Blaster.
• The quests "Shatter the Shards" and "The Guardians of Corp'rethar” should be completable again whether or not you are involved in Argent Tournament quests.
• The trash mobs before Mimiron have gone through additional changes that should make them a little easier to get through.
• The Priest ability Serendipity is now properly consumed when a spell finishes casting and does not affect a second spell.
• Nature’s Swiftness should properly affect Rebirth.
• The damage of XT-002 Deconstructor’s Gravity Bomb ability has been reduced.

Blue Posts

Recent Companion Pets (Source)

It could have been more exciting, sure, but there are some people out there who adore the fawn too. The Argent Tournament pets got a fair amount of attention in terms of special animations though and the squire/gruntling, well they are just plain awesome.

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Right, the Argent Tournament companion pets are not Bind on Pickup. :)

Darkmoon Faire Achievement Tab (Source)

No comment at this time. >_>

Argent Tournament - More seal sources in future patches (Source)

I'd just like to add there will be more ways to acquire seals in the future. We'll provide more details a bit down further the road. ;)

Stealth Nerfs (Source)

A true stealth nerf would be something we were trying to hide, or at least waiting to see if players discovered it. There aren't many changes like that, particularly in this day and age. When we make hotfixes, we are patching the server. This isn't a big orchestrated change like launching a new client patch so we don't always know the exact minute or second when the change goes in.

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