Filed under: Druid, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Features, Guides, Classes, Wrath of the Lich King

The above headline is a polite, succinct means of saying “I went AFK for a few hours yesterday and returned to 2/3 of the Druid class wanting to throw itself in front of an oncoming train.”

Additions to the latest PTR build aren’t extensive for Druids but include a 10% nerf to stamina returns from Heart of the Wild in the feral tree, and a doubling of Lifebloom’s mana cost (and reworking of its bloom mechanics) in the Restoration tree.

Well, no point checking our watches waiting for the next harbinger of welcome death by way of light commuter rail. Let’s take a look.

HEART OF THE WILD: Stamina bonus changed to 2/4/6/8/10%.

Ouch, baby.

Before I write anything else, a quick note to the people spamming the Tanking and Druid forums with End-of-the-World proclamations; it’s the frigging public test realm. None of this is set in stone. Calmez-vous.

I can finally stay on the PTR without disconnecting every 5-10 minutes, so I hopped on and started comparing the character sheet to my main’s live version. The biggest problem right now is that the HotW change (in addition to the Survival of the Fittest armor nerf) has gone live on the PTR without Savage Defense going live alongside it. If you get any toons copied to the PTR or can just finally log on successfully, you’ll find yourself down several thousand armor and several thousand HP without Savage Defense active to compensate.

Continue reading More Druid changes on the 3.1 PTR

More Druid changes on the 3.1 PTR originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 28 Feb 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Cooking, Engineering, Leatherworking, Tailoring, Enchanting, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Features, (Professions) Insider Trader, Wrath of the Lich King, Inscription

Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.

Although patch 3.1 is still a few months from going live, it is already shaping up to be a positive force on the professions front. So far, we’ve been made aware of the following changes:

• Two new Engineering enchants (attn: tanks and spell power users).
• An engineered bind on equip blue trinket.
• A +hit elixir for the level 19 twink community.
• A deliciously ridiculous number of new glyphs, along with glyph changes.
• New Blacksmithing bind on equip epics covering spell plate, dps plate and tanking plate, as well as a spell dagger.
• New juicy, expensive enchants.
• Finally, a productive use for Black Diamonds.
• A new Jewelcrafting trinket.
• Lots of new Leatherworking goodies.
• Several Tailoring items, including a 32-slot herbing bag.
• Many current recipes, including Old World and Outland ones, are being rebalanced and updated.

For details and analysis, follow me through the break. Keep in mind that these are subject to change, and that we will likely see even more developments in the future.

Continue reading Insider Trader: Your livelihood after patch 3.1

Insider Trader: Your livelihood after patch 3.1 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 28 Feb 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, News items, Lore, Wrath of the Lich King

We’ve been wondering for a while how exactly the Ulduar storyline plays out in 3.1; this may seem a bit silly or lorelol, given how much time is going to be spent running the instance itself or its myriad of raid bosses and hard modes, but I like to know what’s driving me to complete an instance beyond phatty purpz.

You can obviously infer a lot from the instance itself and the names of each respective room, but for those seeking a little more information, Wowhead’s PTR page has you covered. There were a few quests added in this most recent PTR build that give us tantalizing bits of Ulduar storyline and show Blizzard’s intention to create clear progressions — not only in the 10- and 25-man versions of Ulduar, but a reward and progression path for those blazing a trail in the hard mode versions of each instance. A fine notion indeed.

Oh, and if you wanted to know just how to forge that new legendary mace…

This writeup will be spoiler-heavy! If you don’t wish to know anything about the secrets that lie within Ulduar, don’t click the link below. You’ve been warned.

Continue reading PTR quests show hard-mode progression, Ulduar storyline, Val’anyr

PTR quests show hard-mode progression, Ulduar storyline, Val’anyr originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 28 Feb 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Wrath of the Lich King, Inscription

One of the things Patch 3.1 is supplying in spades is glyphs and glyph changes. Every class is getting a ton of them, and it’s really hard to keep up with them there are so many. Priests are coming out alright so far through the whole process, with a lot of our current glyphs being improved and our new glyphs being legitimately useful, if situational. Let’s see what’s new, shall we?

Glyph of Fade - Reduces the cooldown of your Fade spell by 9 sec. (Old: Increases the duration and cooldown of your Fade spell by 50%.)

This is massively better than what it was previously, and I suspect that this will become a popular Shadow Priest glyph in PvP. Two points in Veiled Shadows plus this glyph means a 15 second cooldown on Fade. Every 15 seconds, a Shadow Priest will be able to clear all movement impairing effects, assuming they have Improved Shadowform. That’s pretty friggin’ sweet.

Continue reading Patch 3.1 PTR Priest glyph changes thus far

Patch 3.1 PTR Priest glyph changes thus far originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Warlock, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Instances, Raiding, Phat Loot Phriday, Wrath of the Lich King

We said we’d do a Warlock item this week, so here you go.

Name: The Soulblade (Wowhead, Thottbot, WoWDigger)
Type: Epic Main-hand Dagger
Damage/Speed: 87-258 / 1.80 (96.0 DPS)
Attributes:

• +39 Stamina, +44 Intellect, +42 Spirit
• And yes, that Spirit makes this about as Warlock as daggers come, nowadays.

Continue reading Phat Loot Phriday: The Soulblade

Phat Loot Phriday: The Soulblade originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Warlock, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Instances, Raiding, Phat Loot Phriday, Wrath of the Lich King

We said we’d do a Warlock item this week, so here you go.

Name: The Soulblade (Wowhead, Thottbot, WoWDigger)
Type: Epic Main-hand Dagger
Damage/Speed: 87-258 / 1.80 (96.0 DPS)
Attributes:

• +39 Stamina, +44 Intellect, +42 Spirit
• And yes, that Spirit makes this about as Warlock as daggers come, nowadays.

Continue reading Phat Loot Phriday: The Soulblade

Phat Loot Phriday: The Soulblade originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Events, Wrath of the Lich King, The Queue

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. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

Hey, everybody! How’s your Friday afternoon so far? Mine is full of rain and Vanilla Coke. Mmm. Delicious Vanilla Coke. You know, I’m definitely a Mountain Dew man, and Voltage is my lifeblood, but some days you just want something else. I couldn’t drink Vanilla Coke every day, but cracking one open now and then? Caffeinated heaven.* Now, if I can just find my dentures, I’ll start answering your questions…

Hellscreamy asked…

A few days ago I read in one of the posts that Noblegarden would be getting new achievements, items and events. Is there any indication at the moment (PTR or otherwise) that this will count towards the ‘What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been’ achievement?

Continue reading The Queue: Vanilla Coke edition

The Queue: Vanilla Coke edition originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Events, Wrath of the Lich King, The Queue

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. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

Hey, everybody! How’s your Friday afternoon so far? Mine is full of rain and Vanilla Coke. Mmm. Delicious Vanilla Coke. You know, I’m definitely a Mountain Dew man, and Voltage is my lifeblood, but some days you just want something else. I couldn’t drink Vanilla Coke every day, but cracking one open now and then? Caffeinated heaven.* Now, if I can just find my dentures, I’ll start answering your questions…

Hellscreamy asked…

A few days ago I read in one of the posts that Noblegarden would be getting new achievements, items and events. Is there any indication at the moment (PTR or otherwise) that this will count towards the ‘What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been’ achievement?

Continue reading The Queue: Vanilla Coke edition

The Queue: Vanilla Coke edition originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, News items, Wrath of the Lich King

Last night was an exciting night — the first night of Ulduar encounter testing on the 3.1 PTR. Lead Encounter Designer Daelo, a.k.a. Scott Mercer, was on hand to open up the instance portal and guide us to our intended boss (the only boss in the instance for that night) — Hodir.

I’ve talked about Hodir a few times; he was featured in my Ulduar boss speculation post (and I was right), and I went through some of his datamined abilities a few days ago. Getting to finally test the encounter was exhilarating, and getting back into the process of learning a strat by hitting the ground running was something to which I’ve been looking forward for a long time.

I brought my Elune guildies and a deadweight coworker with me for a 10-man attempt.

This writeup will be spoiler-heavy. If you don’t wish to know anything about this fight, don’t click below. You’ve been warned.

Continue reading Ulduar on the 3.1 PTR: Hodir

Ulduar on the 3.1 PTR: Hodir originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Classes, Talents, Wrath of the Lich King

Just in case you haven’t been following what people have been saying about the dual spec system lately, Slashhug has a terrific post up covering all of the concerns and thoughts about the new system and how it will affect groups and raids. It’s long, but he covers all of the bases, from how hybrids with two specs will affect which players get chosen for groups, to loot and how that will work (the same — main specs first, offspecs if needed), and even soloing and why dual specs will be a blessing for classes who are normally built more for group play.

There’s not a lot of new complaints or answers in here — lots of it has already been discussed on the forums and in our own posts. But Slashhug does a great job of wrapping it all up into one big tasty dual spec sandwich, so you can catch up on all the thinking about dual specs so far. The bottom line, in terms of player reaction, is that dual specs will allow you to do more with your class than you can with just one spec. If you want to heal, you can still heal, or if you’re built for tanking, you can still do that. But in groups where things don’t quite fit (you’ve got a few tanks and your DPS is a little low, or your Priest could use a little extra help healing for this boss fight), dual specs will let you make the necessary tweaks right then and there, and excel that much more.

Player reactions to dual specs originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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