Are Moonkins the New Mages?
Having decent moonkin gear myself (half restoration though, but still decent; if you really must know, 1050ish spell damage), I know we can pump out serious damage (6k+ Starfire crits in Karazhan is serious business). High threat is also an issue now, but Nature’s Reach will also reduce threat caused by balance spells by 30%. Paired with Subtlety talent in resto tree, that’s a 60% decrease in threat - 60% because the talents will be reduced to 3 points, and reduce threat by 10% for each point. It sounded too good to be true - Subtlety will be changed to only decrease threat caused by healing spells, not balance.
It’s pretty much impossible for me to get into heroics today as a moonkin. First of all, there’s people who know shit about the class and think we’re some undergeared shadowpriests, without the Vampiric Embrace/Touch. It’s not even so far from the truth - most moonkins I see are just playing it for fun with some quest greens & blues - thank heavens for the armory so we can see that before we get to the instance.
My guess is, in Wrath it’s gonna change.
Crowd Control
According to the leaked Wrath patch notes, one of the things druids will be getting - and it’s about damn time - is a change to Entangling Roots spell, which will finally be castable indoors. We rarely get to use the spell nowadays outside of arenas - maybe you used it a couple of times in Zul’Farrak or Zul’Aman but that’s about it.
Another great spell is Hibernate, a 40 second sleep, which I use in Slave Pens and … nowhere else (forget PvP for awhile ok). Although it’s limited to only beast and dragonkin, it’s still there, and with the new roots it will be easy to keep two mobs controlled.
The dreaded Cyclone, a subject of many discussions when it comes to PvP, will have its diminishing returns removed, and will be spammable in PvE. Although it’s a 6 second duration, in tight situations we can easily cast it and control 3 mobs at a time.
While this is not a CC type spell, Soothe Animal can actually be useful sometimes - rarely, but still deserves a place on your action bars; will be changed to instant cast in the expansion.
Group Buffs
We all know casters love our Moonkin Aura, a 5% bonus to spell crit chance is nothing to laugh at. Improved Moonkin Form will also give a chance for you and your party members to gain 20% spell haste, so that’s another great reason to stay furry bird form.
Mark of the Wild is hardly the best buff around, but better than nothing. Casting Thorns is a waste of mana on anyone other than the tank - some druids are even crazy enough to spec into Brambles - those precious three talent points can be used much better, but to each its own I guess.
Improved Faerie Fire will in addition to its current effect also increase spell hit chance, that’s another 3 points you can use to help out your fellow players who aren’t hit capped.
Innervate… should I say more?
Healing
Moonkins are more than capable of healing in tight situations - with a decently geared tank you could probably even be a main healer in a heroic.
Tranquility is an amazing AoE heal - you will be able to reduce its cooldown to 5 minutes in WotLK if you pick up Improved. Even without restoration talents, it’s ticks for over nine thous… err two thousand.
Resurrecting
The one and only, Rebirth. Saved me from running back to my corpse a bunch of times. Currently the only
resurrect castable in combat, its 20 minute cooldown is not a lot.
Revive is the new out-of-combat resurrect for druids - we have waited long time for this baby, now just a little bit more. In my experience, this is one of the main reasons other healers are preferred for 5 man instances.
AoE
Currently, we only have Hurricane - it doesn’t do much other than help the mage or warlock while they do their thing.
Typhoon is the new spell on the block - it will do an unknown amount of damage (520 damage keeps popping up but don’t take my word for it) when it comes in contact with your enemies, and knock them back 5 yards. The details about the spell like mana cost, duration etc. are not available at this time, but sounds pretty slick.
I’m positive I heard something about Starfall, but can’t seem to find anything about it right now. Basically, it’s like Tranquility but doing damage and possibly has a chance to stun enemies. But why the hell can’t I find it now. The spell linked is from some mob in The Eye.
Survivability
A 400% armor bonus in Moonkin Form is nothing to laugh at, we’re more than capable of surviving some unexpected damage. If you pop Barkskin, you’re pretty much a walking tank for 12 seconds - more than enough to finish off the mob or your tank to pick up aggro.
Interrupts
Maybe you’re a special snowflake like me and sometimes pick up Feral Charge in feral tree - if you’re not that’s ok, means you’re normal. Maim is limited to feral druids, so don’t expect a moonkin to go cat form and use it. That leaves us with Bash, a 4 second stun (non-talented) with a one minute cooldown. Usually the mob will already finish his casting by the time you shift into bear form, get to the creature and use the spell. Rumors say Feral Charge will be moved lower in the feral tree so it will require 21 points. A Counterspell-like talent deep in balance tree would be freakin awesome - however I haven’t heard anything about something like that - we can only dream. If you’re a tauren like myself, you got War Stomp though, but again, if you’re 30 yards away it won’t do you much good.
Conclusion
Durids are for fite! With all the amazing changes to our talent trees and spells, we’re going to be kings of heroics and even raids. More than enough ways to crowd control creatures, great damage with low threat and group buffs will be our ticket in. Throw in the mix an extra emergency healer plus weak (but not that weak) AoE damage and you’re more wanted than a tank. Moonkins will be a true hybrid class.
All we’re missing now is some biscuits!
New Hunter Pet Abilities in Wrath
I’m pretty excited about most of this stuff coming in about WotLK so I’m on a posting rampage. Thanks to Wotlkwiki, we now have a preview of new hunter pet skills, which if real are seriously sick.
- New line of pet spells called “Smack“. Equivalent to Claw except with different name.
- Tendom Rip (Rank 1) - 25 focus, Next melee, 20 second cooldown. “Damages an enemy for 3 to 5 and reduces movement speed by 25% for 8 sec.”
- Spore Cloud (Rank 1) - 50 focus, 10 second cooldown. “Inflicts 2 nature damage to nearby enemies every 2 sec for 6 sec and reduces armor by 15%.
- Dust Cloud (Rank 1) - 50 focus, 20 second cooldown. “Kick up an obscuring cloud of dust, lowering the chance for enemies to hit by 30%. Effects last 8 sec.”
- Serenity Dust (Rank 1) - 75 focus, 2 minute cooldown. “Heals the pet for 510 over 15 sec.”
- Bad Attitude (Rank 1) - 25 focus, 3 minute cooldown. “Snap back for 5 damage at any target that strikes
you for the next 2 min.”
- Nether Shock (Rank 1) - 30 focus, 20 yard range, 6 second cooldown. “Instantly lashes an enemy for 17 to 19 Shadow damage. Also interrupts spellcasting and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 1 sec.”
- Ravage (Rank 1) - 80 focus, 1 minute cooldown. “Violently attack an enemy for 4 to 6, stunning it for 2 sec.”
- Sonic Blast (Rank 1) - 80 focus, 1 minute cooldown. “Emits a piercing shriek, inflicted 4 to 6 physical damage and stunning the target for 2 sec.”
- Wing Buffet (Rank 1) - 40 focus, 30 second cooldown. “Blasts the target for 4 to 6 damage and knocking it back.”
- Snatch (Rank 1) - 40 focus, 1 minute cooldown. “Grab the enemy’s weapon with your talons, disarming them for 10 sec.”
- Pin (Rank 1) - 80 Focus, channeled, 20 second cooldown. “Pins the target in place, and squeezes for 20 damage over 12 sec.”
We don’t know yet how exactly will pet talents work, but some of these abilities look 100% imbalanced - 6 sec Earth Shock for hunters? Mages won’t stand a chance.
Both warlocks and hunters want pet scaling (mostly with resilience) for months now, and according to my last post about PvP changes in Wrath, Blizzard is quite happy with the current scaling.
WWI PvP Panel - What Awaits
General
- The point is to keep arenas simple, while leaving room to innovate.
- Stream lost at this point, will update later.
- The battleground reporting system is being tuned to let player police themselves easier.
- A spectator mode is planned.
- There are no new racial abilities to to be added.
- PvP rewards won’t be changed.
Arenas
There’s 2 new arenas, Dalaran and Orgrimmar.
- Keep the new ones simple but still innovate
- Moving objects in the arena - dynamic LOS. Can be timed, can be set random. Helps focusing on player skill.
- Unique starting areas, that might be very close to each other
Dalaran Arena
- Based on the new lore of the city
- Arena map is located in the sewers of the flying capital city of Northrend
- No mounts allowed
- Similarly sized as the Blade’s Edge arena
- The dynamic element is a pipe, a wall of water flows out of it sometimes, that is a complete LOS block
- Only a few ramps to the center area, player-height ledge on the sides
- Water shoots players out of the starting area, players can’t stay or return there
Orgrimmar Arena
- New area in the old world
- Dynamic objects that do damage to players (spikes)
- Moving pillars on timers, players will see a wheel spin up before that happens
- Extremely close starting areas - elevators bring players up to the center of the arena, only 10 yards away from each others, the spikes drop and the fight begins
Mounts are allowed - Bigger than Dalaran Arena
- Orcs like watching fights, so there are NPCs on the edges who make noise too!
- Players can stand on the pillars that sometimes move up. Still vulnerable to ranged damage there
- When the pillars go up, the spikes come out of the ground so the player has to decide what to do.
- Take the damage when moving across the area? Stay separated from the group?
- No other LOS objects
- Players have a couple of seconds to check out the opponents before the spikes go down and the fight starts
Lake Wintergrasp
- PvE elements are being added to this PvP Zone, for example the equivalent of Elemental Plateau in Outland is in Lake Wintergrasp.
- Siege Combat will be in both Lake Wintergrasp and the new Battleground (see below)
- Siege vehicles incude air combat with flying vehicles.
- You can destroy the buildings within Lake Wintergrasp and in the Battleground.
- Lake Wintergrasp will feature an attack/defend game type. Just like the Auchindoun Spirit Towers, when your faction holds a tower it will keep it for a certain amount of time and retain all the advantage for a few hours.
- Northrend “Spirit Shards” will be used to reward players. When your faction controls Lake Wintergrasp all the bosses in Northrend will start dropping them. You can then use these shards to buy rewards from a merchant, they won’t be more powerful any other reward but just an alternative to other sources of equipement (like gearing up for PvP very quickly).
- “Wintergrasp Marks of Honor” will drop as well and will be redeemable for items through the honor system and other NPCs.
- Bridges will be used as “choke point” in the map, siege vehicles can’t travel through water.
- The goal of Lake Wintergrasp is to capture the “Wintergrasp Keep”, everything in that keep is destructable and you will have to break into the keep to capture the point.
- Players will be able to control stationnary cannons on each tower to defend the keep.
- Bridges are very large and very tall, players should be able to see them from anywhere in the map. They’re also totally destructable as well.
Siege Vehicles
- The Demolisher
- The Demolisher has both short and long range attacks
- It is meant to bombard players and buildings from a long distance, it’s also equipped with a ram to siege buildings.
- It can hold up to 3 passengers, passengers are exposed and can be targeted individually. However, players can cast while the vehicle is moving if they’re in it.
- Forsaken Catapult
- The catapult is faster than the demolisher but its range is slightly lower.
- It does slightly less damage.
- It cannot hold any pessenger.
- The Siege Engine
- This is the siege weapon with the longest range.
- The gunner is sitting in the turrent and has full control of the turret.
- The driver is only moving the vehicle.
- The passengers in this vehicle are fully protected but can’t shoot other enemies.
- It’s also got a very powerful ramming attack
- Flying machine
- Can bomb enemies, they’re swift but very vulnerable to anti-air attacks.
- Goblin Shredder
- The shredder is an anti-air vehicle.
- It will use anti-air rockets, they’re long range homing missiles.
- This is a personal armor suit, if the vehicle is destroyed the player just jumps out and keep fighting on his own.
- You can use your sawblade as close range melee attacks.
- The shredder can jump into the air just like rocket boots for players. This can also be used to jump over walls.
- The shredder is very vulnerable to siege damage.
New Northrend Battleground
- This battleground is located on an island south of Dragonblight
- This is also an attack/defend game type battleground.
- One team will attack and the other one defend, you will have a specific amount of time to succeed. After the end of the round teams will switch sides.
- Attackers will come from boats and defenders will start in the middle of the beach.
- There are 3 sections of walls in the Area, after each wall there are capture points and graveyards to make the attack on the next points faster.
- Attackers will get more siege vehicles depending on their progression throughout the siege.
- The battleground will be either 10vs10 or 15vs15, this isn’t decided yet.
Here’s some interesting Q&A, most importantly changes (or lack of them) to pet scaling:
Q: Now we have one source of honor, Alterac Valley, and everything else is a source of marks. Some people lose on purpose to get marks quicker. Is there anything being done to solve this problem?
Chilton: It’s a very very difficult problem to solve. We find that if we give no rewards for losing a battleground, it’s very punishing. That’s why we have systems to report players for not participating and we’ve lowered the number of players who need to report someone. (There is a certain point where the system can’t determine how hard you’re trying.
Q: Do you have plans to implement a spectator mode?
Chilton: Definitely on our list of things we want to do. To add to that, we also have the idea of using that spectator mode to extend to other things, in raids for example
Q: Unique (racial) combat moves?
Chilton: We don’t plan to add any more racials.
Q: My girlfriend and I love PvP, but since the Burning Crusade, we feel like we’re forced into arenas
Chilton: We do plan to keep a pretty similar sort of reward items.
Q: For the frost mage, some crowd control talents seem to be PvP-oriented, don’t you think this could cause unbalance?
Chilton: It’s always going to feel that way because bosses tend to be immune to crowd control, but we’re trying to open it up.
Q: What do you plan to fix Warlock pet scaling?
A: Right now we’re pretty happy with pet scaling. It should be a viable tactic to spend some time attacking the pets. A player has to make a choice. We feel like if that scales very well, it’s going to be a viable tactic to just focus on one.
Sources: Game-say.com, Wowjuju.com, Wowinsider, Mmo-champion
WWI Developer Panel - Class Changes in Wrath
We already know about many new spells and talents coming in WotLK, but none of that info was official until now. The stuff in gray is my comments.
Death Knight
- Developers don’t want talent trees to be pigeonholed into specific roles. Each tree will be functional both roles.
- Runes have a 10 second separate cooldown
- Army of the Undead will make players feel like how the Lich King feels when he commands the Scourge to attack
- All races are confirmed to have Death Knights. The Lich King wants them all
- Draenei female, gnomes, Night Elf female Deathknights… omfg. I was still hoping they would reconsider but I guess not.
Hunter
- Steady Shot will no longer clip Auto Shot, meaning it won’t have to be timed, just spammed - Lets change all the things which require a bit of skill so all hunters will be like zombies just mashing two buttons
- The skill point system of pets will be replaced with Pet Talents, one tree for utility, one tree for tanking and one tree for DPS - Pretty interesting change, I’m sure many hunters will be drooling over this
- A new ability will make the pet deal extra 20% damage when on 20% health
Mage
- Mage Armor will be reworked to reduce harmful debuff durations
- New ability: Frostfire Bolt. In itself it’s not as good as Frostbolt or Fireball, but when the player talents into both Frost and Fire, Frostfire Bolt will be better.
- Devs will make sure Mages are kings of AoE damage, and scaling up their damage to be viable - I feel bad for mages sometimes, Seed of Corruption is really sick
Shaman
- Totems will affect the entire raid! - Cool but what about Tranquil Air?
- Strength of Earth and Grace of Air will be merged - Awesome!
- Windfury will be changed, so that druids are affected by it too. It’s no longer a weaponbuff, but a buff. - Another buff for feral druids; with all the great changes coming DPS will skyrocket
- Rockbiter Weapon will be replaced with Earthliving Weapon which increases healing done
- Flametongue Weapon will increase spell damage - Since Rockbiter will be removed and Flametongue changed to spell damage bonus, it might be a bit harder to level up till you get Frostbrand (level 20)
- New ability: Hex. Emergency CC spell that leaves movement control for the hexxed player, but is unable to cast spells. 0.5sec casting time, 8-10sec duration - Much needed CC is here
Rogue
- Sap will work on not only humanoid targets, but on pretty much everything that has a brain - Don’t have anything against it
- New ability: Fan of Knives. Similar to the Warden spell in Warcraft 3. Short AoE
Warrior
- New talent: Titan Grip is now confirmed. Allows the Warrior to wield Two-Hand weapons in both hands. - In theory it sounds amazing, but we’ll just have to wait and see; dual Stormheralds ftw (well WotLK version of it)
- New ability: Shockwave. Helps prot warriors dealing damage
- New talent: Bladestorm. Similar to WC3 spell - In W3, you start spinning around and dealing damage, and you’re also immune to all spells
- Devs want warriors to feel more like the warriors in Warcraft 3 - We had warriors in W3?
Warlock
- New talent: transforms the warlock into “Illidan demon form”. One of the available spells in demon form is an AoE shadowbolt that can be spammed! - Like we’re not spamming Shadowbolts enough in raids nowadays, they’re giving us AoE SB. Jeez…
- New ability: Demonic Circle. Small area where the warlock can teleport back into and decreases pet summoning time - God knows warlocks need escape abilities, will this one be enough only time will tell. I don’t want a decrease in pet summoning time, I want proper scaling
Paladin
- Retribution itemization will be moved even closer to Warrior and Death Knight itemization
- New ability: Hand of Purity. Reactive healing spell
Priest
- New ability: Divine Hymn. New holy spell that allows the priest to heal the entire party. When a partymember is struck they go into a trance.
- New 51 point shadow talent: Dispersion. 90% incoming damage reduction, 6% health/mana regen. The priest can move, but cannot cast spells. Allows a new form of defense against melee to make Shadow Priests more viable in highend Arena PVP - With all the changes to Shadow tree, it will be pretty viable
- New talent: Guardian Spirit. Prevents friendly target from being killed. A pet that gives “Cheat Death” to the target, if the player would die, the spirit pet dies instead
Druid
- Entangling Roots will work indoors as well, to help druids get into heroic groups
- New ability: Flourish. 1.5sec casting time healing spell, its effectiveness depends a lot on what HoT effects are on the target
- Cyclone won’t be changed
- Potions, on-hit effects and items will work in forms. - If a bear can mash their paws on some drums then he can drink potions as well.
Diablo 3 Announced
Hell yeah. As long as there’s no daily quests, I’m in.
Blizzard.com/diablo3 for the official things, mmo-champion for the rest.
PvP For Skills
Taurack has some excellent points in his why you should PvP post, which I really recommend reading.
His main point is, even if you’re a dedicated raider, you should do battlegrounds from time to time, and for the most part I agree.
The problem with 90% of PvPers is that they dont know how to PvE; they don’t understand aggro, they’re not geared toward PvE.
Gear is of course not the best, since PvPers often lack enough hit rating or some other stats, however I do believe you will teach a PvP player how not to pull aggro quite easily - just let him die a couple of times.
PvPing is a different game all together, hence it will force you to use other skills/spells, it’ll teach you to LoS (line of sight) quicker and better and it’ll teach you how to use some spells in new ways, or get you using them period.
One of the things I learned from PvP is warlocks don’t only have Curse of Shadows and Curse of Agony. For example, in Magister’s Terrace, instance which is unfortunately going to be nerfed soon, I find Curse of Tongues extremely helpful vs. those caster mobs, and there’s plenty of those. Most warlocks I meet in battlegrounds, and even arenas at <2000 rating, don’t use CoT - it is without doubt the best curse warlocks have, even versus mages: sure, they can remove it, but it still takes one global cooldown from both you and the mage, but your DoTs can tick in that time, while he won’t be damaging anyone. Against paladins, shaman and priests it’s… maybe even a bit overpowered.
PvP also greatly increases situational awareness. PvEers are horrible for getting tunnel vision, they stare at the boss, stare at their buttons, they’re trying to execute their rotations…
One of the reasons I find PvE boring is because it’s so damn predictable - with all the addons available, you pretty much know what the boss is going to do each second of the fight. Sure, you can guess when that mage will Ice Block or when the paladin will bubble, but every fight in arena is completely different and a lot of things can go wrong and unexpected. A paladin buddy of mine is always wondering why he can’t get past 1600 rating, and doesn’t really listen to my advices: I often tell him to get rid of Healbot for PvP, it’s an awesome addon for PvE healing but he barely even know what’s going on around him most of the time - he just stares at those bars and nothing else. You need to learn how to bind your keys (upcoming post here) and watch what’s going on around you. Megan wrote a couple of good posts about tunnel vision awhile back, I recommend reading both posts.
Addons like Proximo or Afflicted can also help a lot, if you’re trying to do arenas get them.
On any given day, I’d rather take a PvP player in a raid or instance than someone who cleared half of Sunwell, obviously not because of the gear, but because I know he won’t panic if the tank dies, because he will know how to line of sight casting mobs (again, Magister’s Terrace really shines there), he will react quickly with Ice Block or Vanish, or know how to chain fear, or even seduce and fear and banish (again, MgT) in the same time without whining; a PvP specced druid who will HoT up your tank and Feral Charge into mobs to break heals, or cast Cyclone or Hibernate when needed.
The list goes on, there’s a bunch of stuff you do in PvP which are taken for granted in arena environment, but learning it will without doubt make you a better player.
And a question for you now: do you prefer doing instances with PvP geared players or PvE? Did a PvE player ever surprise you with something?
Pure Evil, Trust Me
It can’t get more evil! Frostscythe of Lord Ahune with what is proved to be the most evil looking warlock set is absolutely amazing.
It’s now mine, and since I can’t disenchant it and it’s soulbound, there’s no way you can take it away from me. Mwahahahahaha. Now I want those brooms back please. Only problem - I got the Scythe on my druid and not on warlock.
Go get your own scythe: Wowinsider’s strategy should be enough even for those who aren’t evil enough. All you have to do is visit Slave Pens in either normal or heroic difficulty, and hope for the best. I’m not sure about the drop rate, but you can check Lord Ahune’s loot table here. Good luck!
2.4.3 Update - Bear Mount, Gems for Arena Points
Looks like yesterday’s 2.4.3 patch notes were missing a few interesting additions, worthy of an update.
The following gems are now available for purchase for 800 arena points each:
- Gleaming Ornate Dawnstone
- Smooth Ornate Dawnstone
- Bold Ornate Ruby
- Runed Ornate Ruby
- Inscribed Ornate Topaz
- Potent Ornate Topaz
Whether they will be linked to the ones purchasable for honor points currently on live realms is unknown, but it seems they are not unique-equipped anymore. It’s actually not such a big deal like some think - those who do well in arenas will be buying gear first anyway, and 200-300g per epic gem is not much these days.
The Mexican (Don Carlos) who puzzled me while writing about Tier 7 armor sets is now located in the desert of Tanaris, and will give you a quest for Old Hillsbrad, rewarding you with a nice hat.
I first thought this might be the new polar bear mount Tigole mentioned awhile back, but the model and corresponding spell name is Summon Big Battle Bear, so I’m totally lost as to where we could get this from. Perhaps Haris Pilton sells it for … 10,000 gold?
Now the best part. Haris Pilton’s new line of bags and jewelry includes this amazing 22 slot bag for an even more amazing amount of (drumroll!) 1200 gold. Talk about yet another gold sink. I know I can afford it, and bag space is something which really annoys me, so I’ll probably get it.
2.4.3 Patch Notes - Something Unexpected
Warlock
- Curse of Shadows: This spell has been removed.
- Curse of Elements: This spell now applies to Arcane and Shadow damage, as well as Frost and Fire.
- Demonic Sacrifice: This ability will now interact correctly with the Spirit Guide resurrection system in battlegrounds. A sacrificed pet will not be resummoned on death, and will not prevent keeping a record of the most recently created pet.
- Health Funnel: This ability will now cancel channeling when the target pet is Banished.
- Ritual of Summoning: The mana cost of this spell will now be properly deducted when cast.
- Summon Felsteed is now available at level 30.
I’ can’t think of any reason why Curse of Shadows will be removed. Sure, it’s a great change and a lot of players (not only warlocks) will be happy about it; it will be much more convenient now in raids and 5-mans also, but I don’t remember convenience ever being a reason for such changes (buffs?).
There’s a few other changes that caught my attention also.
ROGUE
- Cheat Death: This talent has been rebalanced significantly. Killing blows are no longer 100% absorbed. If the Rogue is below 10% health, the killing blow is still completely absorbed; if the Rogue is over 10% health, enough damage will be absorbed to reduce the Rogue’s health down to 10%. For the following 3 seconds, damage is not always reduced by 90%; it is now reduced by a maximum of 90%, depending on how much resilience the Rogue has. The damage reduction will be four times the damage reduction resilience causes against critical strikes.
Rogue’s Cheat Death is obviously nerfed, which will probably make about 84% of WoW players very happy. I read about something like this a couple of weeks ago on WoM, and it seems Jasi is either psychic or Blizzard actually listens to their customers (blasphemy!). Will this end the need for rogues to wear PvE gear in arenas, only time will tell. Hopefully the change will go through.
There wasn’t supposed to be any PvP balancing changes till WotLK - who would of guessed, huh.
HUNTER
- Growl: Pets will no longer generate additional threat from this ability based on attack power buffs cast on them. Attack power buffs on their master will still indirectly increase the threat generated by the pet’s Growl
I really hope I won’t have to read any more posts on hunter blogs about Growl after this.
DRUID
- Barkskin: The cost of this spell is now reduced by Tree of Life Form.
More mana is always good.
Magister’s Terrace
- The Stun component to the Sunblade Mage Guard Glaive Throw has been removed and the Bounce range reduced.
- Vexallus and Kael’thas are now tauntable in Heroic mode.
- Vexallus’ damage caused by Pure Energy has been decreased.
- Kael’thas’ Arcane Sphere has had its visual size increased. His Arcane Sphere attack has had its range decreased and the damage/second of Phase two on Normal mode has been decreased. (Heroic mode remains unchanged.)
- Sunblade Warlocks have had their damage reduced slightly.
- Fel Crystals in the Selin Fireheart encounter have had their health reduced slightly.
- Warlord Salaris and Kagani Nightstrike have had their damage output reduced slightly.
I did a few dozen runs in MgT, and while some were simply terrible, I mostly enjoyed the instance since it was actually challenging. Those are some serious nerfs here, which will make this instance more popular and even more profitable. If you ever need Void Crystals, that’s the place to go to.
QUESTS
- Increased the drop rate of Pristine Yeti Horns from Winterspring Ice Thistle Matriarchs and Patriarchs.
It’s probably not important to most of you, but this is THE most annoying quest I ever did. Took like 4 hours of grinding, honestly.
BUG FIXES
- Players will now correctly receive a Battleground Mark message for the marks that are received at the end of a battle.
I’m guessing this has something to do with Mind Controlling players so they don’t receive marks *hint*
OTHER
- Apprentice Riding and mounts are now available at level 30. Training costs 35 gold.
Not saying it’s bad, but why?
- Invisibility Potions: These potions now are on the same cooldown as other combat consumable potions (such as mana potions.)
I heard from a mage buddy about Invisibility potions triggering a 10-minute cooldown on Mana Emeralds - anyone care to shed some light? What do you think, will this affect shoulder size on human male models?
If you want to read the full patch notes, guess where to go.
World’s First Turpster Kill
I bet it scared the shit out of Turpster when he saw a few hundred midgets chasing him.
Since I took a few dozen screenshots it would be a waste not to show at least some, so here they are.
- Someone’s been preparing:
- I got bored waiting so I used my favorite emote! Called upon myself the wrath of hundreds of gnomes but what the heck:
- Thanks for reading Lilock, sorry if I spat on you
- No comment:
After the show was over, we were on our way to the Turpster cave, eager to taste his blood:
And the moment of doom:
After he died, we marched to Ironforge:
And right after reaching the gates of Ironforge:
I was able to log back in and witness the final ding. Seems some people got confused and didn’t know where to go, but most of us was there:
Overall, regardless of few minor incidents, it’s been a blast and I’m happy I was there. It was able to find only one blogger who covered the event, Regis from Wizards & Wenches, who also made a vid if you want to check it out.
Thanks to Lilock and everyone else who was there, and big congratulations to Turpster who made it all happen!
