Ready Check is a twice-a-week column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. Today, we step back a little and look at endgame in the context of sports.

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Each week Arcane Brilliance saves the world, one Mage column at a time. Once, we did it by throwing the One Ring into a volcano. Oh, and this one time, we did it by slaying the evil Voldemort. And every once in awhile, we do it by traveling back in time and saving John Connor from the robotic clutches of Skynet. The Edward Furlong John Connor, not the Christian Bale one. Also, Arcane Brilliance doesn't go back as Michael Biehn or Ahnuld. Arcane Brilliance is totally Summer Glau. Yowza.

So...with news flying around about upcoming patches, and changes on the horizon for other classes, I can't help but notice a strange, almost eerie silence over here on the Mage front. If this were a movie, somebody would say "It's quiet," and then somebody else would pipe up with "yeah...a little too quiet," and that'd be the moment when somebody gets grabbed by something big and scary, or something explodes, or Samuel L Jackson gets eaten by a shark or something. Seriously, I'm starting to get a little freaked out here.

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During today's BlizzCon ticket sales (which are now sold out, by the way), you were able to play the game Failoc-alypse. You take the form of a Terran Marine with a gun, a Draenei Death Knight, or a Witchdoctor. Your goal is to kill as many fail-locs as possible.

"Oops flag? You're one dead Murloc!"

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And we're back to looking at Ulduar's gear drops for shamans. This week, I figured it was long past time to look at the various non-set mail drops from the instance, since we've covered rings, shields, weapons and emblem of conquest purchases already. I'm sure we'll need to take at least a couple of weeks to fit all the mail in the place, so we should get started right away.

Again I remind horde shaman enthusiasts that I'm not raiding Ulduar on my orc, and if you want to see screenshots of an horde shaman up here, my email is matthew.rossi@wow.com - I'd be happy to use one or even many of them.I'm just simply not going to be able to raid Ulduar more than I already am.

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Update 10:30AM PDT: Tickets sold out in 30 minutes!

2nd Batch of Blizzcon 2009 Tickets Now On Sale
You can now buy your Blizzcon 2009 Tickets from the official site!

• Ticket Sales Page
• Ticket Queue System FAQ
• Debit and Credit Card Purchases - Information
• Official Blizzcon Site


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I haven't been a big fan of the whole Alliance-centric direction of the Wildstorm World of Warcraft comics, and I picked up the whole Varian Wrynn saga mostly out of a completist impulse rather than actual concern for the story or its characters. I also thought Ludo Lullabi had better samples of art on his personal site than what he showed in the comic, so when I found out the next story arc was going to be pencilled by Jon Buran, I wasn't too concerned. Buran is doing tremendous work so far. Of course, we all soon learned why Lullabi left the book -- he was tasked with illustrating the Ashbringer story.

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In a response to concerns on the forums about warrior rage generation, Bornakk replies that the formula is working fine - it's just using different numbers than the players who tested it. Two of the more interesting parts of his statement were as follows:

• n the formulas people are using, there is a constant value which is labeled as 'c'. At some point in the past, someone calculated a formula for determining c based on their level and that formula is not correct past level 70 as this value needs retuning from time to time like when a new expansion comes out. The value listed for c is 320.6 when it is actually 453.3.
• Some of the testing was done with ungeared characters hitting for very small amounts. There is a component to the calculation we haven't previously mentioned that will make the rage gained from those attacks sometimes not match the formula. Basically, the normal formula is Rage = (7.5d/c+f*s)/2. However, that result can never be larger than (7.5d/c)*2. This essentially means that very low damage attacks have a limit on how much they can be averaged up by the f*s component of the equation.


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It looks like those creative folks over at J!NX have come up with another batch of World of Warcraft-themed clothing for their summer 2009 collection, and I've got to say that they look pretty darned good. While the first batch of WoW class shirts were nice, I wasn't entirely sold on them. They were good, but personally not good enough for me to run over to Hot Topic and pick one up on impulse. I mean, I wanted to order, but pennypinching prudence got the better of me. The summer collection has a latecomer Death Knight class shirt in the style of the first batch, completing the set, as well as two new class shirts that trample all over my aforementioned prudence.

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After a wipe in Naxxramas, Meshenko of Proudmoore zoned back in to find some of his raid members suffering from the familiar facial texture bug. He snapped this picture of a deformed human warlock looting Gothik the Harvester's corpse after they downed the boss. Equally interesting to me is the motley crew in the background. From left to right, we have someone zonked out on Pygmy Oils, a female draenei in the most awkward spellcasting position ever, and what appears to be a warrior being devoured by a water elemental. Hey, people have to find some way to pass the time while the officers look over the DKP.

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Michael Gray: I am playing poker tonight, volleyball tomorrow during the day, hitting the Arena in the evening, then spending the day on Sunday at Virginia Renn Faire. I suspect I'll be wearing my utilikilt for the entire time. My only nod to appropriateness will be wearing boxers, no boxers -- pink boxers in honor of our boys at war.

Jennie Lees: it's the one week of the year the sun shines in Scotland, so I am raiding the "outside" instance. LF24M, no hunters.

Chase Christian: More smashing my head against Mimiron's metal frame, and taking my Warrior from 79 to 80 so I can roll on leather again!

More after the jump.

Robin Torres: Concentrating on my pally and druid while The Spousal Unit attends BotCon. Nerd.

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Content patches have been coming rather quickly as of late. With the exception of the long-awaited Patch 3.1, which only felt long because Naxxramas was ridiculously easy, Blizzard has been throwing a salvo of patches our way in a fast and furious fashion. In fact, Blizzard has been relatively quick to issue hotfixes and minor patches these days when they notice this or that class rising above others. Death Knights were an exception but that can be explained away by the newness of the class.

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Ironbound/Rusted Proto-Drake Achievement Rewards removed in Patch 3.2
As of patch 3.2, the Ironbound and Rusted Proto-Drake will no longer be a reward of the Glory of the Ulduar Raider achievements.
Quote from: Bornakk (Source)Last I heard they would be removed when 3.2 comes out, if this changes we'll let you know.
Europe - Cross-Language Battlegroups are here!
If you can't remember where your server is, check the Battlegroups page on the official site!
Quote from: Wryxian (Source)After successful testing on the PTR, we are pleased to announce that the first Cross-Language Battlegroups were created last Wednesday. This new feature combines Battlegroups from different languages into one, expanding the pool of players keen for PvP action in both Arenas and Battlegrounds. We plan to proceed with the next batch of Cross-Language Battlegroups on Wednesday, June 3rd during the weekly maintenance.

Players from realms of different languages will only ever face each other as opponents in battle and will not be playing on the same faction in Battlegrounds, ensuring that those playing on your side will speak the same language as you.

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