Wrath of the Lich King: October 2008 Archives

I thought I would post a medley of thoughts on this, an All Hallow's Eve, seeing as you get a mix of the interesting and the odd in your goodie bags on this day, and I may as well keep the tradition alive.

I am a long time lover of weapon buffs like oils and stones that increase the stats of a weapon. My Druid keeps a healthy stock of Superior Wizard Oil, and Medros and Telaan both stock heavily in the sharpening stoned, since both use axes now. According to Verimonde on the forums these temporary enchant items will no longer be made, since they take some of the unique aspects of certain classes away. I will say I hope to see them buff the weapons we get by those often useful and critical stats.

I am one of the many people who, even though I do not play Feral, is eager to get new feral form art. I may not be in those forms, like cat, travel, and bear, much, but I do like to go into then often enough that I would welcome new forms for the feral side of the shapeshifters. Blizzard has always, and remains cagey about when this might come, but it seems to be coming more assuredly now, eventually at least.

Blizzard long ago gave up the notion of handing out game time credits whenever there was a hiccup in a realm, but they have continued to be fair when major disruptions happen in game time, and the 3.0.2 patch, along with it's related server instability and 18 hour down time, is one such case. Therfore, says Nethaera, all accounts in North America and Europe will receive a 3 day game credit.

In the wake of the news we will get credit for the extreme state of the servers after the 3.0.2 patch hit, I have begun to ponder a bit what we might expect on the 13th, since this will not only have new old world content, but Northrend and Acherus content as well,which might well kill off the realms. I am thinking I might get a toon or two to Northrend and roll my Death Knight, Connroe, and then stick to Outlands for a bit. Wait, ok, I can't even say that sincerely. Of COURSE I will go to Northrend and venture amongst the hordes of players on the continent!

Blizzard did a waffle manuever yesterday, first announcing they were scrapping the class forum arrangement, and instead going with a role based forum arrangement. Then, because they got untold flack for bringing the worst trolls of the game into their flame filled heaven, they waffled and announced they will keep the class forums and merely add the role forums, organized as Damage, Tank, and Healing classifications, in order to enable the most productive forum discussions. While Blizzard did say why they made the original change, the biggest outcry, and the most reasonable, was that forcing people into role based forums would give all the the 'stfu, you don't know shit' type trolls an easy to find location for their many targets. Ret nerf incoming? Better hit the damage forums so we can mock the reasonable and valid complaints for no reason other than shits and giggles!' Thank you Blizzard, for keeping the sanity and the signal to noise of the forums to a tolerable level.

Lastly, and the biggest news, is that World of Warcraft has now reached 11 million(11,000,000) players worldwide. I have predicted, in the past, both that WoW could reach 15 million by the end of 2009, and that they might lose a lot of players due to mistakes surrounding this patch. Both could potentially come true, but congrats Blizz for reaching this momentous milestone. I look forward to your 12 and 13 million announcements in the coming months!

Wrath is approaching quickly, and the plans that many bloggers, sites, even Blizzard themselves are arranging for the launch night have begun solidifying into events. While Blizzard is planning many events, from Austin to Anaheim, San Francisco to New York, the more numerous events are from bloggers like Mania and BRK in Florida, Mike Schramm of WoW Insider will be partying it up in Chicago, and my own live podcast after the launch.

I have pointed out on the show a couple weeks now that my co host and I, Graece, will be doing a live recording of All Things Azeroth as each of us installs our copies of the expansion. The show, as always, will be live on Stickam, and should go live about 12:30 am Central time. I will have the channel live early, likely when I leave for the line, so if you hop in and see Graece chatting up, say hello. I will be getting my copy from the EB Games on Empress and Ellice in Winnipeg, so if you can make it out, I hope you'll come up and say hello to me. It's only 13 days to go now, and the excitement is building!

On another note, the new episode of All Things Azeroth, Episode 59, is out. Enjoy!

Sorry for the tardiness on this post, but yesterday was a big recording day for me, getting some All Things Azeroth episodes pre recorded for the upcoming NaPodPoMo, and just ran out of time before bed that would allow me to write this post. If you'll recall the last couple of posts I have showed you the mods that went bad, the new mods I found to fill the roles I needed, and today I am going to go over the mods that, like a rock, stayed by my side like a good friend.

I wouldn't say WIM was a rock, more a strong tree, but still it's there, and it does work well enough. It feels like it's lost some of it's features, like tab to move to the next window, but for now it's working enough to be useful. One mod that remained strong, though feeling incomplete, is Titan Panel. Like it's bar based competitor, FuBar, Titan Panel allows mod authors to write plugins for it, and that is there I have found Titan falling short. Many of the plugins I most cherished have not been updated, and therefore do not work as well as I would like.

I was pretty sure when I saw Ark Inventory available for use in the beta, I would be able to upgrade to it when the patch hit, and I was dead on. The patch showed that AI was fully functional and ready to go on patch day, and I rejoiced in the knowledge I would have that small piece of comfort. Auctioneer is another one that works, though I have not spent much time in the auction house to do testing to ensure all of it's features are where they should be in the mix.

When it comes to raiding, Deadly Boss Mods was a mod I knew would need to be done, because many raid groups count on it to be polished and working or wipes can, and often do ensue. Thankfully DBM didn't even hiccup in the face of 3.0.2, in fact it did better than expected in game queues for boss events like the rain in Zul'aman. Omen, likewise, is essential to any good raider and was updated, with a new parchment look, for the patch, and hasn't showed a bit of hesitancy since. In fact, I like the new config interface better, as it clearly shows me how to change that horrid 'you're getting aggro' sound off.

Chatter is working, though it was copied from the old install, so I can't say it's a rock, since it hasn't stayed strong, just stayed functional. The quest log combo of DoubleWide and Lightheaded were updated within a few days, allowing for useful and happy questing throughout my WoW time. Pally Power is working nicely, though I am still grasping how it works and how to customize it properly. I am using AlphaMap again, which is a cute little map mod that shows on mouse over the current zone's map. Minimap Button Frame is also working, thought here is not a lot to the mod other than clearing up the minimap from the clutter of buttons that seemingly every mod tosses up there.

Gatherer was a mod that many in my guild were worried might not be fixed for the patch, and while it was not on day of, a couple days later it was updated and working, once again recording herbs and mineral spawns found in my travels. Lastly Statusbars, a mod I find essential for keeping my eyes on the action instead of wandering to the edges of my screen, was updated quickly, cleanly, and without any problems. I am loving the ability it gives me to see what's going on in front of me, and know if I need to run, heal, bubble, or push my DPS to the max in a fight if it is close.

That's about it. There was a couple of new mods I forgot to mention yesterday, like Class Bars v3, The Collector, and Mapster. The first I find invaluable to my play style, giving me more of my bars with which I can use for more critical abilities. The second helped with the pet and mount achievements by easily showing you what you do not yet have. the last is a replacement for the MetaMap mod, which I always found hogged my resources more than I liked. And there we have it, my mods in a nutshell. Below you can see a peak at my UI.

I wrote yesterday about the mods I sadly had to abandon from my post 3.0.2 world, well today I will talk about the mods that I have found since patch day and have fallen in mod-whore love with. Enjoy this list, and look forward tomorrow to the next in my impromptu series on mods; the mods which never went bad.

As I mentioned yesterday, Skillet is my new mod for crafting my items, be they gems, armor, or potions. Combine that mod, which allows me to search and craft based on a number of parameters, with TradeTabs, which puts a tab for every crafting profession that you know. This is a really simply, very useful way to keep all of my professions easily accessible and usable. I do not know if either of these are, or need to be updated for Inscription, however comments are down below if you want to test them out.

I fell in love, or back in love with TrainerSkills in the beta. I used to use this, or a mod like this, ages ago. It basically tells you when you can learn something and what that is. Whether it be a new class skill on ding, or a new profession item on reaching a certain point, these things are all clearly pointed out to you in the chat window of your choice. A long lost mod, come back and just as awesome as before!

Since I am trying to avoid the crutch of CT Mod, I have been forced to go elsewhere for a few things I loved about the package. TipTop takes care of the tooltip placement problem, though it admittedly took a bit to get the tooltip right where I like it, which is to say center of my screen right below TitanPanel. oRA2 is a mod recommended by a guildie as we prepared for a post 3.0.2 raid, and realized that CTRA had been abandoned. I replaced the bar mods part of CT Mod, which was always more broken than fixed, with Dominos, though I have a Druid in Cat while Prowling bug I had to fix. Lastly I have not yet found a fix for the mail mod, but I am working on it and have a few leads.

The last batch of mods I have come across is the Achievement mods. Overachiever is a nice mod that helps me track where I am on an achievement, and it also changes exploration tracking based on zones and the /love you've given, or need to give to critters all over the world. AchievementSS is a cool mod which takes a screenshot whenever you complete and achievement, no matter where you are. Lastly, we have Urban Achiever, which is accessed by /ua and allows you to search for any achievement, text for an achievement, or criteria in order to find an achievement.

So there you have it. A few of the neat new mods I have found in this, the post 3.0.2 mod world. Like I said before, check back for the strong and true mods that never, or barely faltered for me when modpocalypse hit. [Update: Dominos not only allowed me to turn off the bar changing in prowl mode, but also turn off the moonkin bar change! I have more bars now!]

As we all know, there comes a time, once or twice an expansion, when we go through what is lovingly called a Mod Apocalypse. No, the moderators in the forums do not suddenly begin banning people en masse until only the CMs and MVPs remain. No, this is when all of our beloved mods cease functioning and have to be recoded, redone, or dumped in favor of fresher code. It is because of this apocalypse that I have had to dump a few mods. Now while I have added some back in since the first writing of this, specifically WIM, there was a time when I had to dump the mods cause of problems that were game breaking.

WIM was on the chopping block for the last week and a half because, unlike in beta, the chat windows and confg interface were transparent. Thankfully 3.0.3 version fixed that, and I am now using it again. Advanced Trade Skills Window(and the Levels plugin) was an awesome mod in the pre patch days, but I got very annoyed with error messages every time I tried to link a recipe or skill in chat, so I ditched it for Skillet, and that one combined with Trade Tabs makes for an awesome, and light weight crafting package. I am still looking for an updated CraftList2, but I can do without for now.

Another mod I am saddened to set aside is Fizzwidget's Linkerator. For some reason every time I tried to link something, even when I tried to hit the [ to start a link guess, the mod would spawn multiple errors and lag my machine for 5-25 seconds. Clearly the mod is not ready for 3.0.2, though to be honest FactionFriend and other Fizzwidget mods are working fine. I tried Talented, which just gave errors, and like the Classic DK frames mod, with two different era DK player frames, but I dislike mods that cannot check for class and automatically disable themselves for those who don't count, which meant this mod gets relegated until Wrath hits.

I did try to look into some new mods, like a few in the Easy* series, EasyPanel, EasyCopy, and EasyDaily, but the panel was not movable that I could tell, and the Daily one choked on the Ata'mal Armaments turn in, making my whole client freeze hard. This will essentially be a 3 part series covering the mods I put behind me, the ones I still use eagerly, and new ones I am loving my experimentation with, ending with current working macros I rely on. Keep reading for the next ones!

I want to preface this with the disclaimer that what I am about to mention is beta info, and may not actually go live. It also may not reflect the state of Ret when the 3.0.3 patch goes live. That said, these are my opinions, and I stand by them.

So a new beta build was pushed up to the beta realms tonight, 9138, and the expected nerfs to Paladins have come in, and they are hurting. Let me point out that the changes that Blizzard said were coming for Retribution Paladins was intended to impact on their performance in PvP, as everything was said to be fine in PvE. Right. Divine Storm is now physical. Yup, PvP. Armor now takes some of the oomph of the spell when used in PvP. Seals and Judgements are down, in fact there is almost all 'down from' numbers on the MMO Champion site when going through the ret spells.

Judgement of the Wise now grants the paladin 15% of his base mana. (Down from 33%)

Wait! What?!? This isn't a strictly PvP thing. This is almost more a PvE thing, cause you generally won't last long enough, if you are going to run out of mana, if you don't have time to drink. This is almost entirely a PvE nerf, and one I can't say I like too much. This hits both my Paladins right in the mana bar, something that Ret has always had issues with before. Based on my math, Med has a mana pool right now of 5658, and the JotW gives back 975. In the current iteration, that same proc would give me less than 500. 443-444 mana, to be exact at a 15% broken down from 33%. Blizz, my friends, I understood the PvP, but this? This is a snuck in ninja to what was supposed to be the solution to the mana problem.

The Lich King, enemy of all who live, has begun the invasion that has long been feared, with all major cities under attack by waves of zombies. The worst news, brought to us be those brave souls, is that these zombies are infecting other citizens of Azeroth and Outlands with a plague that, if not cured, turns the infected into a Zombie within 10 minutes or less! Be warned, there are reports also of citizens of the Horde and Alliance grouping up to become infected, simply to infect their fellow people.

What you can do, if you are a Priest, Paladin, or Shaman, you can cleanse this poison from the bodies of those you find infected, but be warned, if they are a Zombie already, they will need to be killed to be cleansed of this poison. If you take this job in your hands, you may put yourself at risk of being infected yourself. If you do, head to your nearest Argent Dawn Healer for a quick heal, removing the poison from yourself. If you are faced with an agitated infected citizen, unhappy with their cleansing, just know the person is not in their right mind, and likely needs to be taken to the healer, or perhaps to the Stockades.

-Medros

The patch 3.0.2 has been out for about a week now, and I have taken a close look at the trends of what people have been doing since the patch hit. I think I have discovered what the 1 month between 3.0.2 hit and the expansion comes out will be for. I have seen guildie after guildie heasd back to the old world, you know, that content that is dead and gone? Yeah, the Achievements, the Inscriptions, the Hallow's End, and eventually I am sure in a few weeks we will see the Wrath events lead us back to the old world of Azeroth and Kalimdor to face off against the Lich King as has been hinted to in the sound files.

True, the patch did bring us new talents and some new profession abilities, but even those brought us back to the old cities to train. I am really beginning to be convinced that all about this, these events, are a ploy to push us all back into the old world content. Sure, there are Outlands acheivements, but there are more people running pre BC dungeons, for acheivements, for events, for exploration, than I have in the last two years. What do you all think?

I have been growing incredibly frustrated with WoW of late, since I had grown really comfortable with questing and farming on my characters. I blogged about all of this, hoping that someone in the community would know how to fix all of this. To remind you, I have a general macro, and a Paladin macro, both of which uses the bird in Outlands and my cat in the old world, where flying is not allowed. The Paladin version has the added code to swap my aura's between Crusader and Retribution, so that I am always able to fight and fly to my best.

The old macro, posted here, was:

/cast [nocombat, nomounted] Crusader Aura; [mounted] Sanctity Aura;
/stopcasting
/use [flyable]  Cenarion War Hippogryph;
/use [nomounted,noflyable] Reins of the Swift Frostsaber
/dismount

As I explained, the aura's and the mounts are all on the GCD, which prevent them from being used one after the other. For some reason, though, even removing the aura bits still didn't actually do what I needed. The new, and working macro, is as follows:

#showtooltip
/cast [flyable] Swift Blue Gryphon; Swift Mistsaber

As you can see, the new macro, even being the extra line for the tooltip, is much shorter and more concise, but also does exactly what I need. It summons the right mount based on location, dismounts, and works perfectly after much testing. I do not see any reason, when patch 3.0.3 hits, why the following will not work.

/cast [nocombat, nomounted] Crusader Aura; [mounted] Retribution Aura;
/stopcasting
#showtooltip
/cast [flyable] Swift Blue Gryphon; Swift Mistsaber

I will, of course, let you all know when I have had a chance to test 3.0.3 for that macro and see if it truly does work as well as it does in text on the blog. Cheers!

Patch 3.0.2 has been out for mere days and already we have word of tweaks and hot fixes incoming. Based on the list compiled by MMO Champion, every class including the Death Knight are getting tweaks in coming builds/patches, with 3.0.3 coming out this Tuesday or next. Some of my favorite tweaks are Paladin Auras no longer activating the GCD, instead having a built in 1 second cooldown, Moonfury and Earth and Moon down to 3 ranks from 5, but keeping the same overall benefit. That buys you 4 extra talent points to get more utility or fun talent, ans Instead of getting new ranks of Hawk at level 75 and 80, you now get the new Aspect of the Dragonhawk, not to mention Hunter Aspects coming off cooldown as well. This powerful aspect combines all of the effects of Hawk and Monkey. These will help all 3 of my played classes, and I hope make the my playtime more enjoyable.

The last time I recall getting the Queue box on login to Argent Dawn was about 18 months ago, shortly after Burning Crusade hit. It began, interestingly, around when the pre expansion patch hit, and got as bad as to have 1000+ person queues on some nights. Blizzard did some free transfers, some players re rolled, and in the end they went away. Well, Folks, they are back. Oh, no, not 1000 person, not yet, we only have a few hundred so far, but that is how it began last time, too. Will we see thousand person queues again? Probably, but I hope Blizzard will respond quicker this time, especially since AD has always been a High population realm as far back as I can recall.

Another side of the patch is what I have come to call, not at all affectionatly, Wrath-flation. With the patch came the Inscription profession, and all those folks who didn't have the foresight to farm their own herbs are now running around trying to pick them, and when they find they have been picked clean, likely by Auction House profiteers, they go to those very same Auction Houses, and pay exhorbitant rates for their herbs. I have heard numbers as high as 70g for a stack of herbs that haven't been in demand in 3 years. Sadly, this will only continue as we reach November 13th and beyond, because simply put, there is nothing more attractive to the greedy than a bit of increased demand, and the chance to choke off the supply.

I thought I would write a few thoughts on my experiences this lovely October patch day because my realm is not up yet and I am bored. I guess my first thought is on the admission by Blizzard that there are some balance issues with some talents and those were excluded from this patch, unlikely to return until closer to, or the day of Wrath's release. I am disappointed by this. That means that either a) they are pushing an unfinished patch or b) they intentionally held back this information until well into the patching process, knowing the fans would be furious. The first denotes a significant amount of proof that things have changed at Blizzard since the merger, and the second shows a great lack of respect for their customers.

My day, odd as it was, started at about 5 am my time, which is to say Central. I had taken a nap, and slept longer than planned, missing the entirety of the few hours before the realms went down. I went ahead with my plan and blew away my install of WoW after backing up a few of my favorite folders, and began the process of installing the client from scratch, since my client felt really sluggish of late. I went through the entire patching system all the way up to 3.0.2, and, knowing the beta realms were down, I decided to launch my beta client since I had word through Twitter that those were still up. I got about as far as 2 or 3 seconds after click and I got an error message saying there was an error in one of my beta files. I have since narrowed this down to the Wrath beta looking for files that are not there.

The likely culprit is that during the install of 3.0.2, the patch asks if it can move my install to Public folders, cause Vista's User Access Controls or some such don't like it in the Program Files. I think this is bogus, but I did it anyway. Now, though, there was a problem. I run over and begin downloading the beta client again, and load up the beta and live forums to look for an answer. 503 Service Unavailable. Uggh. So I go out for a bit while my client downloads, and come back to the beta installer saying it cannot install since I already run a WoW.exe that is in the 3.0.2 generation. /facepalm. The servers are slowly coming back up now, and I am dreading seeing what patch changes didn't make it, and worried what we will all come to see, some day, that this is not the Blizzard we are looking for.

While many of watch the crawling progress bar of our installs for patch 3.0.2, I thought I would let you know what talents I recommend for a couple of my classes. These will be for the specs I choose to play, and are not necessarily going to reflect what you will, or may choose to select for your characters. Next up, I am going to shift to my roaring Doomkin Druid, and their Ret build. This will be a 61/0/0 build.

Let me start off by saying that, while I thought Ret was hard to choose, this tree is so full of the awesome talents I have always wanted, there is too many for a mere level 70. Hell, there are not even points at 80 to get everything, though I suppose that's the point. I would have loved to take Improved Paw, but I think it will be a struggle at 80 to scrounge 2 points to fill that one out, so at 70 I had to ditch it. In tier 1 I chose Starlight Wrath over Genesis because I don't often find myself using moonfire spam to bring something down. If I have that much mana, especially now that pushback is better, I will just Wrath or Starfire something to an early grave.

There were a total of 4 empty talents and 1 partially full talent left in my Balance tree when I was hitting on 70; Genesis, Improved Faerie Fire, Wrath of Cenarius, and Eclipse. Earth and Moon was the one talent only partially filled up in my level 70 tree. At 80 I will only have the first 2  empty, as I will fill out Earth and Moon, and pop the rest of my points into Wrath of Cenarius and Eclipse. I may scrounge a point here or there in the tree, like I said to improve my paw, but at this point I am not sure I really need to do that, especially with the diversity the trees get and the ability of a Resto Druid to actually stay Resto through the leveling process.

Some of the key talents I hit on were Brambles, Dreamstate, Owlkin Frenzy, Typhoon, Gale Winds, Earth and Moon, and of course, Starfall. All of these abilities either boost my DPS or lower my threat, which will only help me as I level through Northrend, and in the pre Wrath month it will help me a lot in raids. Typhoon has a nice knock back which, while it won't give me time to do a HoT or two before going back into Moonkin, might just keep those mobs off me that one or two seconds I need to use a Fel Blossom and Wrath them down.

I will point out that in beta I have done almost no work on my Druid, choosing instead to focus my early beta days on Medros, since I have two characters who use his leveling spec, but from the stats alone this spec should rock the house. It boosts just enough for other classes to make a Balance druid worthwhile in raid, and much nicer in soloing. We will see what happens in the coming hours, days, and weeks as we learn the new way of things in the Wrath era of Warcraft. Patch progress: Complete. 

The story you are about to read comes in five parts. The story is that of my upcoming Death Knight, Connroe Isen. You will see familiar people in this story, and I hope to see some of you in game to Role Play with my Death Knight when the expansion launches.

Within a few hours several members of the order are gathered, those who are willing to travel to Northrend at the same time as Connroe in order to plant the packages, even though they may die, and the final instructions are given to the gathered soldiers. A few minutes later, Medros and Connroe are given a few last minutes to talk before his return to Northrend. Medros takes out a small knife with the Isen family crest on it, and raises it.

Connroe looks on in horror as Med cuts off his long hair, hair he was always so proud of when he was growing up, hair grown in their father's image. Medros then follows this by cutting his own hand, and sprinkling a fair amount of blood onto the strands of hair he cut off. He then hands both the length of hair and the bloodied dagger to Connroe.

"These will be your proof to your 'master' that I am dead at your hand. You must be detailed in how I died and not show any concern if he mentions our relation. If this goes as planned we will soon be reunited once the Lich King is killed and the world freed of his terror. Perhaps..." Medros pauses, "perhaps we can even return to Westfall at some point, and look at reclaiming the old farm, Conn"

The brothers quickly embrace before Connroe is led to the upper floor of the structure, Medros following hesitantly in the wake of his escort. Lord Fordring offers Connroe the dais, where a similar stone to the one that Medros threw him in Northrend sits, except this one is much larger, almost as if the smaller was formed in the image of this, but more portable.

"This will return you to the place you came to us from. In the bundle at your feet is the body of one of our fallen soldiers who died valiantly. You should bury him in the ground of Northrend and take the Lich King the evidence of your brothers death. By the time anyone can check, the body will be merely a skeleton in the ground. You have been told where to go for the means to communicate with us. We only ask you tell us where we might intercept the Lich King's forces and beat them back where we can. Are you ready Connroe Isen?" Fordring asks

"I am, but I just need to ask one thing..." Connroe requests, receiving a nod from the leader of the Order. "What is in this place, the feeling here... it is as if it were pure light..."

"Yes, as if it were pure..." Fordring says, not finishing the thought. "Safe travels, and may the Light protect you when only darkness surrounds you, Connroe."

Those were the last friendly words Connroe heard before his first communications from Northrend. The Lich King was most pleased with his accomplishment, but he could feel his glowing orbs on him for weeks after, likely watching for signs of change after being order to kill his last remaining family. As the months go by, Connroe feels the watch of the Lich King wane, and eventually he feels it safe to report in. He gives reports as he is able, some are empty, some full of troop and vessel movements.

It is not until he hears of two significant changes that he knows something is planned. The first is that the vessel Acherus has been ordered to move to the sky above the Eastern Plaguelands, where a group called the Scarlets are forming for attacks on the Scourge. The second is the shocking news that the Death Knight Morgraine was freed from the service of the Lich King in Naxxramas by his last remaining son, Darion, who had now become a new Death Knight himself in the act of freeing his father.

As various servants of the Lich King vied for the valuable place as leader of the necropolis, Connroe gratefully accepts additional training aboard the vessel in order to take a leadership role over other Death Knights in time. On the day that Highlord Darion Morgraine is named the new commander of the Acherus, and the day before it departs for Azeroth, Connroe reports to the Order this news, and also that of the recall of the necropolis Naxxramas, taking with it notable figures of the Scourge.

Connroe is only relayed four words in response to his last communication with the order from Northrend, "See you soon. Med."

While many of watch the crawling progress bar of our installs for patch 3.0.2, I thought I would let you know what talents I recommend for a couple of my classes. These will be for the specs I choose to play, and are not necessarily going to reflect what you will, or may choose to select for your characters. First up, I am going to start with my beloved Paladin class, and their Ret build. This will be a 0/3/58 build.

I feel this build maximizes crit rating while still giving some points into the new lower tier and more accessible Blessing of Kings in Protection tree. Admittedly this does not have the full 5 points in Kings, but it gives us some, and can always be changed if the majority of players you group with have the full one, or just wait five weeks and hit 72 so you can go full in. As with before, I have chosen to ignore Pursuit of Justice and Eye for an Eye, as I do not feel they are worth those essential points for the next month before Wrath goes live.

I also left Divine Purpose out in order to get those 2 extra points in Improved Blessing of Kings, and these points can be added back in later if you feel the need. Crusade, while potentially nice, will not, I think, improve the damage output enough to go 3 in for this talent. Maybe at 80. Essential talents from my time on beta are Repentance, Improved Ret Aura, Art of War, Judgment of the Wise, and Divine Storm. That last one, of course, is why we limit the diversity of our talents. Sheath of Light is a good one, giving your heals a much nice kick to them. Flash of Light can heal for enough to keep you alive in a pinch, and with the new push back changes even a Holy Light can be hit for almost a full to top heal.

The big thing about the new Ret tree is that it seems to focus in two areas. First it boosts crit rating. With a crit rating of 205 before, I had a chance of 23.5%. I will be sure to add in my new crit rating here ____% when the servers go live, and with all the bonuses to crit, I am sure that percentage will get a bump. The second focus is on mana. Ret gear is well known for it's lack of int and mp5 points, and as we of the Light use mana for a lot of put spells, we have long been those of the oom. This tree will fix that. Judgment of Light being used alongside the Judgment of the Wise talent and Divine Storm triggers, a ret Paladin should have little to now trouble staying healthy and mana filled for a long, long time.

While this isn't the idea spec, it is what we can do with the points we have and the month that spans between this patch and Wrath. Remember, we heard at Blizzcon that there will be a 3.0.3 patch coming in a week or two, and that might in itself bring us more changes still to the live game. I would love your thoughts on this spec, and even your thoughts on other Paladin specs. For now, I am off to look into the Druid trees, and get a refill of my drink. 32% done installing...

I was playing over on the Beta realms tonight, in preparation of a neat NaPodPoMo episode I am planning, and was working through the early part of the Death Knight Starting Experience. Some of the more notable quests, some that made me hate myself, and one that made me laugh, inspired this post.

If Chaos Drives, Let Suffering Hold The Reins is a quest that has you going down into the human areas of the Enclave and killing some of the human inhabitants. While the Scarlet side does not require you kill and innocent bystanders, even though the helpless Scarlet Peasants are the easiest to slaughter, the Citizens of Havenshire part of it is pure evil. These citizens are fleeing the carnage and the Scarlet's behind them. The Lich King, evil bastard that he is, not only has you slaughter them, but even a moments hesitation has him telling you to finish them.

Abandoned Mail is on the funny side of things. First off, I love that there is a fully functioning mailbox in this place, so that if you mail your Death Knight stuff, like bags or the like, they can retrieve them in the starting experience. Also, the fact that you, as a Death Knight serving the Lich King, are so low a person that you have no qualms of searching from and potentially stealing the mail of your victims. Now I am sure this quest is there to make the Death Knights notice that there is something they need to look at, and thus find their mailbox, it is still a quest that made me laugh at the dispicable nature of the Death Knight pre Light.

I am happy to announce there is a new episode of All Things Azeroth, Episode 55, released now. Also, if you are reading this live, you can go to http://www.stickam.com/medros to watch live as myself and my new co host react to the events at Blizzcon. Enjoy!

I am in need of some help. I am trying to make my mounting macro for my Paladins work in Wrath like they do in live TBC realms right now, and it's not working. The live macro right now is:

/cast [nocombat, nomounted] Crusader Aura; [mounted] Sanctity Aura;
/stopcasting
/use [flyable]  Cenarion War Hippogryph;
/use [nomounted,noflyable] Reins of the Swift Frostsaber
/dismount

Now changing that to be the new aura I am using, and the 2 new mounts, and nothing else changing, I get this.

/cast [nocombat, nomounted] Crusader Aura; [mounted] Retribution Aura;
/stopcasting
/use [flyable]  Armored Snowy Gryphon;
/use [nomounted,noflyable] Reins of the Swift Frostsaber
/dismount

The problem, my friends, is that using the aura triggers the Global Cooldown, which means that the now casted mounts cannot be used. The only point when I can mount up is when the Crusader is being dispelled on a second macro execution. Now the only thing I can think of is that mounts, before the recent change, were not on the GCD, but as they were items had no cooldown. Anyone have any suggestions on this? Thanks!

While I am happily blogging the beta, I wanted to let you all know that first, I am not the only blogger in the Wrath beta, nor the only one covering it. I thought I would give you the list of just a few independent bloggers I know of in the Wrath of the Lich King beta:

First we have Matticus and Wynthea, both of whom write at World of Matticus, though I do not know if the newest addition, Sydera, is in the beta, or blogging about it. I have had the chance to beta alongside Lassirra over at The Hunter's Mark, where you can find many details of the Hunter side of the beta test, from exotic pets to auto shot. While admittedly evil, you can still trust the word of Saresa at Destructive Reach on all things Warlock in the beta, but don't let any Paladins or wielders of the Light near her, since she is liable to do what warlocks do to those they do not like: make them into pet food.

While there are a number of other bloggers, the ones I have heard from in regards to this piece are Dechion, who is blogging the live and beta games with interesting thoughts and perspectives on coming and present situations. I heard from Kree, a feral tank Guild Master who is covering some beta stuff, but a lot of the opinions that present themselves to a GM of a raiding guild. We have Drotara of Less QQ more PewPew, who is doing a new podcast called Locked and Loaded with Lassirra of The Hunter's Mark, and blogs about the life of a hunter in beta and out. Lastly on my list is Makea from Murloc Queen, who blogs the Shaman lifestyle and who was kind enough to link back to me a post about Shaman's Windshock and Paladin's Judgement of Wisdom.

Are you a WoW blogger covering the beta? If so let us all know in the comments and I will be happy to add you to the links people, I hope, will get from this post. If you know of a blogging beta tester, let us know as well, or have them stop by and introduct themselves!

After the popularity of my last posting, I thought I would give you all a peek at the latest screen shots I have taken in the beta.

   
   

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?

I was looking over my gear on the different 70s I have, after a productive set of Kara runs, one of which saw my Druid get Staff of Infinite Mysteries, and the other saw my Draenei Paladin, Telaan, get Gorehowl. Before these drops, I already knew I would have a fair bit of my current gear on all but my Hunter when I hit 75, since Medros has only replaced a few pieces of gear by his current level of 76 on the beta. The one thing which has always perplexed me is comparing raw stats to proc stats. For instance, a trinket that gives me XX stamina, XX strength, and XX to crit, versus something like my Skyguard Silver Cross and Darkmoon Card: Crusade. Which would be better? At what point is the new hotness good enough to replace the old and busted?

Another thing that has been throwing me for a loop as I leveled Medros through beta, id the seeming change in 'Ret' gear. Oh, and yes, he is the only one I have actually leveled, as I do not see a need to spend all my time leveling all my 70s to 80 in a world that will be gone in 40 days. I have noticed a lot of gear I am told is 'Ret' gear(or melee DPS plate gear) has Armor Penetration, and while I am told this was scattered on items from Burning Crusade, I cannot recall it being this prevalent on gear, and I also do not know how to equate it to my Burning Crusade gear, which all have what I call the TBC standards, strength, stamina, attack, crit, and hit. How do I account for this new stat when I am choosing gear, and by sticking to the old stats, am I losing out on awesome gear?

I guess what I am asking is whether there is a site that ranks or explains these stats and how the equate to TBC thinking? I have been playing in the TBC world for 2 years, and I just don't know how to make the switch. Anyone have thoughts? Are there conversions that have you stuck? Let me know in the comments and maybe we can all get some help and clarification for our playtime!

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.

I first heard this analysis from WoW Insider, and while it is connecting two possibly unrelated dots, I have to agree. Yesterday Eyonix posted on the General forums that the current season of Arena's would be ending when the new patch hit, since the new talents and abilities would lead to an unfair playing field compared to the rest of the season. This makes sense, if for no other reason than because Blizzard will likely still be fine tuning the classes after this patch goes live.

Today, in a not unexpected turn of events, Nethaera posted on the forums that not only would the Arena season be ending soon, which we knew, but that it is expected to end on the 14th of October, the Tuesday after Blizzcon. The date may change, of course, but at this point we can almost certainly expect to see the WoW realms go nuts on the 14th, with mods breaking, players respecccing, and so on as the day wears on. I am very excited to see this patch, and eager to take my experiences from beta and apply them to the live game!

Here is my question for you, friends, when will the Wrath lead up events begin, and what would you like to see happen?