6/28/08

Noteable Info from WWI

Some of the information coming out of the World Wide Invitational in Paris (as reported by WoWInsider and MMO-Champion) -

There is a lot of information being posted at the sites listed above, they have people at the Invitational that are getting the information to the masses. I'm not going to list all of it, just make comment on the stuff that I see as most interesting to me. Visit those sites to get all the info for your self.

  • There is a plan to give player access to two talent specs to switch between them without having to respec all the time. More details in the future.
  • Raiding armor sets and PvP rewards sets will look different and won't share the same model anymore in Wrath of the Lich King

The first one here - great news if this comes to pass. Being able to switch between two specs, if you don't have to visit the trainer to do it, is wonderful. Then you could have a grinding spec and a raid spec, or a PvE spec and PvP spec, or tanking spec and DPS spec. Man, that would be really nice. Coupled with the proposed spell power change, you could easily switch from DPS spec to a healing spec without changing gear - holy crap. Could you imaging Druids going from Tree of Life to Boomkin in the span of a few seconds...it makes me giddy just thinking of it.

Second - a cosmetic thing to be sure, but I like it. Now you'll easily be able to see whether a player is focusing their time and energy in PvP or raiding. At the present time you have to inspect someone to see if that gear as Tier 6 or Season 3 reward.

Shaman Info from WWI

Some of the information coming out of the World Wide Invitational in Paris (as reported by WoWInsider and MMO-Champion) -

  • Totems are being "condensed" into a smaller amount of totems, for exemple Strength of Earth and Grace of Air totems will be merged into the same totem
  • A new weapon enchantment will be available "Earthliving Weapon". It will increase the healing power of the Shaman.
  • Flametongue will give spell damage bonus to the Shaman.
  • Totems are being moved to physical school, you can't counterspell anymore.
  • Totems will also affect raid members, not just the local party.
  • Shamans are getting "Hex", a polymorph-like spell on a medium cooldown allowing them to turn an enemy into a frog. The enemy cannot cast or attack but is still in control of his character.
  • Windfury won't be a weapon enchant anymore and will be changed to a buff. You will be able to use it in bear form or with poison.

If I understand this correctly, more people are going to be asking us Shaman to buff them - this will be more requested than Mark of the Wild for the melee DPS folks. It also means that we can add another temporary enchant to our weapon and still keep Windfury up. Wow. That could be awesome, can you imagine having Frostbrand on your main-hand, Flametongue on the off-hand and Windfury going as well (potentially affecting both)?

Hex will be fun to use - and give us a little bit of CC utility, only last 8-10 seconds, but better than nothing and can help when you need to stop a healer or caster for a bit to let your DPS get ahead on a mob or boss.

Druid Info from WWI

Some of the information coming out of the World Wide Invitational in Paris (as reported by WoWInsider and MMO-Champion) -

  • Entangling roots will be useable indoor.
  • Nourish will be a new healing spell, healing for more hit points for each HoT effect on the target.
  • There isn't any plan to change cyclone
  • There will be a new model for the Druid's Dire Bear form and the Dire Cat form will be introduced.

Not a huge amount of detail and changes here. But the ones that are here are pretty cool.

First - Indoor roots - this is awesome. Not as good as some CC abilities, casters and reanged DPS can still do their thing while rooted, but does some damage and when talented can be a bit more than trivial. Along withe the rumored Alpha change to make it tick every second, this could be very helpful, especially against melee class and physical DPS.

Second - Dire Bear model change, that's pretty cool. But, the one all the Feral folks will be loving is Dire Cat form. Not many details on it yet, as with most of these announcements.

6/26/08

How much is your account security worth?

Is it worth $6.50 to make your account almost uncrackable? Are you ready to stop worrying about a keylogger getting your account information?

Well - check this out, the Blizzard Authenticator, "an optional tool that offers World of Warcraft players an additional layer of security to help prevent unauthorized account access. The Authenticator itself is a physical “token” device that fits easily on a keyring."

That's right two-factor authentication is coming to World of Warcraft and that is great news for anyone concerned with account security. As a technology geek, I am impressed that they have taken the security of the game so seriously.

Now let's hope these come in multiple designs, or at least a separate one for Alliance and one For the Horde!

6/18/08

Big news of the week

We have patch notes for the 2.4.3 patch that is up on the PTR - you can find them here. One of the most interesting changes is "Mounts at 30?! Yes, it's true: Apprentice Riding and mounts are now available at level 30. Training costs 35 gold."

Also there is an undocumented find - the Brewfest Kodo! As a Tauren, I'll have to get one of those - it's my tribal duty.

"Time Management features have been implemented! These features include an alarm clock, stopwatch, and viewing your computer’s local time." That might be nice to set alarms to remind me to go to bed at a decent time, or when raid time starts.

6/14/08

What's been happening...

Druid - Working on the Onyxia attunement with the guild's main tank, and a few others coming along for different stages, for the fun of it. We ran with a 65 shadow priest through the first part of UBRS and then he had to leave. So a Resto Druid and Prot Warrior cleared the rest of the instance. We couldn't quite down the final boss, but we got one more stage of the attunement quest done. Then fly all over the dang place and got sent right back into UBRS. We'll do that again soon.

Shaman - I hit 55 on the Shaman, finally can use all the potions and elixirs I can make with the Druid. I'm still specced as Enhancement, but that may change. We still don't have a lot of healers in the guild, and I enjoy the healing role, so I might spec to Resto. We will be getting back into raiding with WotLK so I'll assess the situation further later on.

Hunter - this guy is my level 60 bank alt lately. Making some money with enchanting/disenchanting and tailoring. Not much else to say.

6/7/08

Attunement? Yes, attunement.

It seems like a lot of people are in a holding pattern lately in game. I'm not really sure why, but it is a common theme in a lot of blogs I read. My guess would be that many folks are just going into a lame duck mode waiting for Wrath of the Lich King to be released or trying out Age of Conan, or just busy with family and friends now that Summer has arrived.

In addition to a lot of the guild leveling their alts, a few of us have decided to pick up some old world attunements just for the nuts of it. We are working on the Onyxia quests now, I don't know if we will ever try to down her or not, but it gives us something to do. We will probably be working on Molten Core and Naxxramas as well just to round out the major attunements in the game. Along the way we will end up with Upper Blackrock Spire and Blackwing Lair attunement and we are thinking of running out to get the Scholomance and Stratholme keys as well.

Sometimes I think it's more fun to 3 man those high end old world instances with your friends, when you are bored and looking for something to do, than it is to try to PuG Karazhan or fill a raid spot for Mag or Gruul.