Recently in Patches Category

Today we have 38 days until we can begin hopping on boats and zepplins to travel to Northrend and begin the much touted Death Knight Starting Experience. I thought I would go over a few things that you, me, or anyone can do to pass the next 38 rotations of our big blue marble.

Farm Herbs - With the new Inscription profession coming in the patch that is expected to go live in 9 days, there are a multitude of herbs that you can gather, even if you are a level 70 and fresh to herbalism. If you want to check out the numbers of herbs you may need to get a character up to 375, the level that you will be able to learn up to before the actual expansion.

Farm Ore - Once you have all the herbs you want, you may want to think a bit on the professions your Death Knight, if you choose to make one, will have. Mine will be going Incription/Weaponsmith, since the Death Knight's most noticeable piece of gear is his blade. I would look into the burn rate on materials for the profession, including the steps needed to become a Weaponsmith, then begin gathering those materials up to power to 375 Blacksmithing as early as possible into Wrath.

Prepare for Achievements - There are hundreds of achievements coming in Wrath, and while some will have to wait for the expansion to go live, there are plenty of Achievements you can begin working on now, like exploration, professional, and more. You can go to dungeons, go to NPCs, or just wait for 3.0.2 to be live and start /love'ing the critters in your life.

Grind Rep - There are a number of reputation Achievements in the expansion that rely on reputations, and some of those even award titles. If you are a druid, you might find the Guardian of Cenarius to be one destined for your To Do list, and with the huge leaps in rep for the Encrypted Twilight Texts, you can get the rare Exalted Cenarion Circle part done in no time, assuming you are 70.

Obtain the Impossible - When 3.0.2 hits, there are several raid based rewards that will no longer be available, so why not spend some time now shooting for them? Champion of the Naaru, Hand of Ad'al, and the Amani Warbear are all going bye bye, for those who do not have them, once the new patch goes live, so I encourage you to go for them with all you have, if that is your wish.

There you have it, folks, a short list among many things you can do to pass your time for the next 38 days, that is if you are not participating in one election or another, working your ass off to earn the time off to play Wrath, or just, ya know, taking a break and trying out the competition while they are still around. What are you doing for the next 38 days?

So we look to have a date for the upcoming 3.0.2 patch, which will bring in some of the features of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, so I thought I would give you the lowdown on the stuff that will make it into 3.0.2 based on the latest PTR builds, what you have to wait until the expansion for, and what won't be in until much later on.

The Patch - We know we will see the Barbershop feature in the patch, giving us the chance to finally change those hairstyles we've had for up to four years. Achievements will make it in, so while a few will wait for many of the Achievements that require Northrend to complete, we can get many of our desired achievements out of the way before we slag through the lengthy install process for the expansion. Inscription will be active, which is surprising a lot of people since Jewelcrafting was not available unless you had the expansion. A feature we will see that has many of my character's banks rejoicing is the Pets/Mounts tab, which will be in for the patch. Thousands of vanity pets will soon find a new home!

Hunters will get to customize their pets in a new talent style of ability system, with the old system of training points going the way of the Ghost Wolf. Hunters will also get Exotic pets, so expect to see Devilsaurs, Rhinos, Chimeras and Worms in your local bank. Stormwind Harbor will finally open up, and King Varian Wrynn will return to Stormwind, bringing a new era to the land of Azeroth. The patch will bring in new UI features like the Calendar system, built in threat meter, and many new emotes.

In the way of combat we will also be seeing several stat changes. Hit, Crit, and Haste will affect Melee and Spell attacks, while Spell Damage and Healing stats will be unified into a universal Spell Power, meaning more gear can be shared between the various casting classes. Lastly on this section, channeling and casting interrupts are changing, with any hits after the second no longer interrupting or stopping a cast bar, though I believe full spell interrupts like Kick and Counterspell will still work as usual. As you can tell, the patch will be bringing some big things for all players of the game.

The Expansion - As big as the patch is, the expansion is even bigger. Of course we get to travel to Northrend, which can be accessed from boats in either Stormwind Harbor or Menethil Harbor. There is also the leveling to 80 thing, which is a pretty important expansion-only feature to mention. From my travels in beta, this is going to be an area that is well worth the time to buy the expansion for. The mobs are interesting, and often unique. The zones are huge, and each has many quest hubs. Medros, one of my Paladins, has gone through all of Borean Tundra, Dragonblight, Howling Fjord, and part of Grizzly Hills before he hit 76.

I am in Sholazar Basin, have left a bunch of unfinished quests in Grizzly Hills, and I have yet to enter any Northrend instances. I haven't even touched quests in Zul'Drak, Crystalsong(quests Not Yet Implemented), Storm Peaks, or Icecrown. I feel it is quite possible Medros could ding 80 without even touching the top two zones, and on Live it would be even easier with guildies to run dungeons with. No need to worry, folks, there will be no lack of things to do when Wrath hits, even beyond the 80 Ding.

With reaching 80, you immediately have the chance to hop into the 10 man Naxxramas dungeon, which is followed by the 25 man, and the other three Raid dungeons, The Nexus, Eye of Eternity, and Ulduar. According to Blizzard's reps, you should be able to enter Naxx 10 man with just the quest and dungeon gear you have when you hit 80 or shortly thereafter, and the gear progresses naturally from there. While Icecrown Glacier the raid will not be in at launch, it should launch in 3.1, which can be expected a couple months into 2009.

While we have not seen any sign yet of the Dance studios, the Death Knight is definitely the biggest thing not yet listed, and it will require the expansion to create one. You too get to go through the Starting Experience, likely the first example of the implemented phasing technology Blizzard has made a huge deal of that most people will see. You will be able to Death Grip people from vast distances, summon ghouls from the bones of friends and enemies, and ride and walk on water using the Path of Frost ability given to our friends of the Ebon Blade.

Of course we have the little stuff, like new profession abilities, discovery for many crafters, and so on, not to mention the excitement of the culmination of 2 years of Blizzard's efforts. So while there is no doubt plenty to get excited about in patch 3.0.2 when it hits, expected to be on Octber 14th, there is yet more to get pumped about in Wrath of the Lich King, on store shelves, and online, November 13th.

So the 8926 beta build came out last night, with the 3.0.1 background downloader starting up today, so of course there is news and data mining and opinions aplenty. I figured I may as well give you my highlights from the new beta build. There are a few low lights too, sadly, but this is beta and things are always changing.

The first thing I need to mention is Heirlooms. I believe it was at the Invitational in Paris when we first heard of the possibility of an account bound object, instead of character bound, and now we have them. In the new build Blizzard has introduced Heirlooms, items that will be bound within your account, currently bought with the Naxx tokens, that can be sent within your account. The other good thing is that these items scale with the toon, so you can send your new level 1 Warrior an item, and it will continue to improve in stats as the character gets higher in the ranks.

I assume there will be heirlooms for each type, like a Melee DPS for each of leather, mail, and plate in end game, caster for all levels, and so on, and this way you ensure that the various classes still get proper gear for their needs. So far we have weapons, trinkets, and shoulders, though I would assume more will come in time. Also, while MMO Champion has model viewer made shots of many Heirloom items, there is no word yet on whether those items will look as awesome on a level 1 as they will on a level 80 character.

You may have heard of the changes promised to racials, and those changes did hit this build, though some have already been altered from the promised looks. Fall of Humanity, a feign death like ability, was remove before the build went live, and I can imagine the Night Elf Shadowmeld, which now works in combat, is also in live, or will in the next build. Humanity will be getting a new racial, "Every Man for Himself": Removes all movement impairing effects and all effects which cause loss of control of your character. This effect shares a cooldown with other similar effects.(I have confirmed that Fall of Humanity is not on the live beta realms)

And not we have Paladins. Ret and Prot Paladins got lots of love this build, though since I know Ret best, I will fill you in. Many of our talents got redone, from Art of War to Diving Storm, Judgment of the Wise to Crusade. Overall I think our changes were an improvement, with the added benefit of a full power Blessing of Kings coming with only 5 points spent in the Protection tree. From my playing I am so far loving the build, and might actually document this one if it lasts past the next build.

Oh, and one more thing...(since Steve didn't do one) we are getting some peaks at the coming build that will be next, and one of the things that Blizzard is clear on is that Riding Crops and all the other mount speed boosters will be gone at the least by 70. They were going to make them enchantements, but then they made all mounts learned spells and the boosters just became a pain to fix. I am not sure I feel they are less of a pain pre 70, but Blizz seems to be working out other speed boosting abilities so we will have to see what will come to pass. Take care!

I have two hunters. I know, I know, one of them I barely mention in these pages. I kinda left him hanging at 41 when the leveling bump hit and I favored my new Paladin, Telaan, who is not happily propped up at level 70. While Ameland, my main hunter, is great and all, sitting with a perfected Marksmanship spec that I love dearly, I do so wish I could find a reason to level Traluun up. Then I just finished watching Big Red Kitty's Devilsaur video from the beta realms. Like in cartoons from days of old, a light bulb went on.

So here's my plan. I will still do my profession stuff and questing, what ever I have left of them, on Telaan, but then I will work when I can on Traluun. I did some quick math, and the point when Traluun can get the final Beast Mastery talent point would be level 60. That means that at Level 60, he can run over to Un'Goro crater and tame him a Devilsaur. I am pretty sure I can do 20 levels in a month or two, even on a boring hunter type like Traluun is now, and be ready for that lovely talent point when the 3.0 patch hits pre Wrath.

Have you ever rolled a second character of a class you already have, just to try out a new spec? Is there a spec you haven't tried that you plan to when Wrath hits? Let me know in the comments!

I was reading this WoW Insider piece talking about 2.4.3 being the author's savior, as it gives them something fun to do while they wait, currently bored, for the expansion to hit. Zach Yonzon suggests that it is quite possible this will not be the last patch of this kind, and this got me thinking. Is it realistic to think we can go for the oft predicted 5-6 months with no change to the 'no 2.5' stance that Blizzard is still sticking to?

I think that, like the author, we just might see some filler patches if the next expansion does take longer than my current prediction of late September. As I had previously explained my now horribly wrong summer prediction for Wrath, let me take a moment or twenty to explain my current thinking behind that guess, cause I tell ya, it's a doozy!

Fist point: Blizzcon in early October. Second point: No Blizzcon has been held without the announcement of an expansion for the game. Third: There is no bigger sign that your next expansion will be a flop than announcing it's predecessor before it even hits store shelves. I had a fourth point until recently, the Brewfest/Hallow's End factor, but both now seem somehow less pertinent now that 2.4.3 has much of that content from the alpha test.

If we look at the lead up to Burning Crusade, we never really had the precursor stuff to that expansion that we are seeing beginning in 2.4.3, which has at least the Stormwind Harbor under construction. While it is entirely possible this could be the only lead up bit, I somehow doubt it since no construction project goes from blasting supplies to a fully completed section overnight.

In the end, what we will see likely depends a great deal on how long the expansion takes to be completed in Alpha and possibly Beta. I don't think it will last more than another 3 months, but I may be wrong. We might see a Blizzcon without a new expansion announcement. We might see WoW 4.0 announced. Such an announcement may also include a release date for Wrath, which would take some of the surprise out of the occasion. We also should see some new info that could hint as to what we might expect from the expansion at the Worldwide Invitational in a few days.

As I have said before, I think we just might have a clearer picture of what we can expect in Wrath and it's release at the worldwide invitational. I think that with around 10 million players in the game, it would be surprising to not see something about the expansion mentioned at the Invitational in Paris. I suspect the amount of content that is playable at the Invitational will also be a telling note for how far into the development they are.

As for my thoughts on the prospect of truly progressive content, I would simply say "YES!!!!!!!". As a long time leveler in Westfall and other human lands, I would love to see something like the Westfall inn repaired fully, the bridge in Lakeshire rebuilt, and all of the 'work in progress' in the game actually get finished. Now, I am told this has changed, but I am fully against the way content progression worked in LOTRO when I beta tested it, cause once you completed an instance you could not return, and the entire world, including who you could talk to and play alongside, had changed. Progressive, not exclusionary content, rocks!

In case you didn't know, today the 2.4.3 Public Test Realm patch notes were released. There are, undoubtedly, a lot of changes for a 'dot oh' release, which is to say a release that is not a primary patch. A few of the highlights from my perspective are

• Mounts at 30 for 1/3 the cost to train
  
• Haris Pilton is actually becoming a productive, if gouging member of society with a 22 slot bag
  
• Nether Ray Fry non combat pet at exalted Skyguard
  
• apparently a big change where swapping items interrupts spell casts
  
• Green quality gems can now be mined again(see here)
  
• Major nerfs to the Magister's Terrace instance, making the place a lot more doable
  
• big changes to the GM ticketing system
  
• Alarm Clock
  
• Stop Watch
  
• a few quest mob drop changes, like spore bat eyes off any spore bat

Check out the full patch notes from the PTR. If you recall the last PTR, they rolled things out slowly as the patch was tested, so while this may be possible for this test cycle, this patch seems to include items that will be coming in the next TCG expansion which launches on the 1st of June, and the new Arena season begins in a week and a half. I suspect we will see this no later than the 1st. 

I gave in and put a game card on my account this afternoon, not wanting to wait another minute to get my realm along the progression path for the Isle. I am now good until May 27. If you want to get me a birthday present, which is between now and then, game cards make a nice gift. Anyways, I did all the Outlands dailies, all except the thrones ones, I then was summoned to Magister's Terrace by some guildies for my first foray. My paladin is nearly as well geared as my druid, so I decided I wanted my Paladin to get the first stab at it.

For the most part the instance went ok. We wiped on trash a couple of times due to bad pulls and a lack of familiarity with the place, but by the time we hit Kael we were firing on all cylinders. Having never seen Kael'Thas in The Eye 25 man of Tempest Keep, I did not know what to expect. "like a mini version of The Eye tells me nothing unless you've been there. We wiped about a half dozen times, but in the end a comment with strategy from the user mharmless on WoW Head, part of an evil gold seller empire sadly, was the ticket.

mharmless wrote: During phase two, we stayed clumped up together at the door, staying low to the ground. When the orbs got close, we went up and over the orbs to DPS Kael. Now, this was not the entire secret to how we won. I put two comments, mhearmless suggesting to wait until the phoenix was recently dead, and another comment said that killing the egg of the phoenix would stop respawn, together. If we could kill the egg, along with the get to the door, low to the ground but not touching, then swimming over the spheres to finish dps, we might get him down.

We began the fight, and I went in whole hog on Kael with our tank. At 65% I left to go watch and wait for the phoenix to go down, since I couldn't go in and melee with his fire damage. When I saw the egg, I went in and began hammering it until it was goo. I went back, helped get Kael down to 50%, at which time I he brought orbs, but I got enough dps in to have him at 45% with a consecration. We swam for the door, and I go just low enough to not touch the ground.

I turned around, and saw my fellow members too high, and shouted for them to get low. The orbs adjusted, going low, and when it looked like they were just right, I swam in, and got down again just low enough to DPS. I fell to the ground when Kael was at 25%. I kept hammering him, and then he summoned orbs. I saw he was at 10% and decided to try to do it. The orbs got our healer, 5%. Everyone laid it on, all the cooldowns, all the abilities, and just as the orbs looked like they would take us, Kael died. No good loot, but damn it feels good to get a boss like Kael'Thas Sunstrider down.

When is the last time Blizzard brought in a 5 person(thanks Drysc for the politically correct version) dungeon outside of an expansion or launch of WoW? Was it Maraudon? Dire Maul? That was three years ago, and it was still for the most part 'Vanilla WoW' as they call it. That was almost launch version as they were still working on the server issues until May.

This question was brought up by a post from Lavata of the Sentinels US realm. She asks why Blizzard made the Magister's Terrace so damned hard. With mobs that "are worse than trash in Kara" and Bosses that are easier than some of the trash pulls, Lavata says that it is far too difficult for your average 70. "MaT fails to fill the spot it is meant to in progression" to paraphrase.

I think that Lavata, and many others who eagerly fly their way to the Isle of Quel'Danas in anticipation of a run through MaT(for lack of a better abbreviation), are making on mistake in assumption. They assume that this will be just another 5 person just like the rest we got with TBC. It isn't. Why would it be? It is a dungeon we get as we all near the next phase of the game, Wrath of the Lich King.

Look at this like... the baby Naxx of the TBC era. It's not the big raid instance, as Sunwell Plateau fits in there. It's the baby one for the non raiders or those just looking to get more gear from rep rewards. It will be hard. Harder than any of the other 5 person dungeons we have so far, and that is fine because it should be hard.

Another thing to consider is something that Drysc points out in the thread. When TBC came out, people were even at the high ends of the dungeons still banging their heads on the wall of the low TBC dungeons like Blood Furnace and Slave Pens. Hell, some people still haven't done those dungeons because of their earlier troubles. Only one of my 3 70s has ever fought his way through the Slave Pens dungeon.

This is the early head banging phase of Magister's Terrace. It's the point were we try out the strategies, attack fights from different angles, and see what works. We also see what doesn't work and how we can fit in those classes who are the outsiders of the dungeon sets, the Ret Paladins, the rogues, the hunters and more. Give it some time, Lavata, It'll come.

Of course, as always, your mileage(and gear) may vary.

I am sitting here at work, and I popped over to WoW Insider on my phone during a slow period. I read this article with interest. To sum it up, the former top raiding guild, Risen, who was well know in the pre TBC days, has decided that they are going to kiss raiding goodbye until the next expansion Wrath of the Lich King.

While I have been off doing a very different kind of writing as well as working, Blizzard has slowed a bit their new info from the PTR. Our first link of the day is for a WoW Insider post about the new Isle of Quel'Danas. Well, actually, we have a few about that. The big thing, though, is that this will not be the walk in the park that many Level 70 zones are these days. Netherstorm and Shadowmoon are usually not a big problem unless you get overrun like Khadgar in his dream.

The Isle will be tough. We also have new info on the third phase of the opening of Quel'Danas, Sun Reach Harbor. I love that WoW Insider is detailing these things, but I worry about how many quests and accomplishments I hear are only available during certain phases. It would almost encourage an addiction like playstyle for the duration of the opening. I guess we will have to see what happens once stage 4 is reached.

Along with the opening of the Armory, we had the pleasure of meeting the new gear for badge vendor, and boy is it interesting. Ranging in cost from 45 for off hand weapons to 150 for two handers and the crossbow, the items on the vendor are said to rival Black Temple loot, which will no doubt anger many BT raiders. WoW Insider did do the math and figure out how many badges the average player will need, and if you've been a good little player, saved up over 600 badges before the next patch hits, you too can be Sunwell ready, or at least over geared for Kara and Zul'Aman, when Phase 3 hits.

While WoW Insider points out Razorthorn Rise is not a new area, as it is just sitting there taunting us with emptiness like the Barrier Hills did pre 2.1, but in 2.4 the area will be newly populated and farmable for a Shattered Sun Offensive daily quest, or so we are informed. Of course the links above aren't the only changes, just the notable one. We also have a PTR Patch Notes update with some class changes, new daily quests that indicate they may be related to Alchemy and Jewel Crafting respectively, and which might just lead to new recipes for those professions.

MMO-Champion, always a great resource for the raw details of items from the PTR, have a fair bit of info from the realms today, including an interesting similarity between a Demon and the Dark Naaru in the Sunwell Plateau, Entropius and M'uru, as well as theories about how M'uru became Dark(though wouldn't having your light sucked out of you be enough?), as well as some Relic and weapon changes. The site was also the source of the information about the upcoming Horseman-like Midsummer Fire Festival event boss, Lord Ahune in Slave Pens, and also the source of the discovered skin in the PTR data files for what might be a true Sylvanas look, instead of the tired Night Elf model we have now. Stay tuned for more including a discussion of farming!