Feats of Strength

NAME the Diplomat - exalted with Timbermaw Hold, Sporeggar and Mag'har / Kurenai
Seeker NAME - completed 3000 quests
Arena Master NAME - completed the arena achievements
Salty NAME - completed the fishing achievements
Chef NAME - completed the cooking achievements
NAME the Supreme - first to reach 80
NAME of the Ten Storms - first shaman to reach 80
Arch Druid NAME - first druid to reach 80
Crusader NAME - first paladin to reach 80
Prophet NAME - first priest to reach 80
NAME the Malefic - first warlock to reach 80
Stalker NAME - first hunter to reach 80
NAME of the Ebon Blade - first death knight to reach 80
Archmage NAME - first mage to reach 80
Warbringer NAME - first warrior to reach 80
Assassin NAME - first rogue to reach 80
Grand Master Alchemist NAME - first to reach 450 alchemy
Grand Master Blacksmith NAME - first to reach 450 blacksmithing
Iron Chef NAME - first to reach 450 cooking
Doctor NAME - first to reach 450 first aid
Grand Master Herbalist NAME - first to reach 450 herbalism
Grand Master Angler NAME - first to reach 450 fishing
Grand Master Enchanter NAME - first to reach 450 enchanting
Grand Master Engineer NAME - first to reach 450 engineering
Grand Master Scribe NAME - first to reach 450 inscription
Grand Master Jewelcrafter NAME - first to reach 450 jewelcrafting
Grand Master Leatherworker NAME - first to reach 450 leatherworking
Grand Master Miner NAME - first to reach 450 mining
Grand Master Skinner NAME - first to reach 450 skinning
Grand Master Tailor NAME - first to reach 450 tailoring
NAME of Quel’Thalas - first blood elf to reach 80
NAME of Argus - first draenei to reach 80
NAME of Khaz Modan - first dwarf to reach 80
NAME of Gnomeregan - first gnome to reach 80
NAME the Lion Hearted - first human to reach 80
NAME, Champion of Elune - first night elf to reach 80
NAME, Hero of Orgrimmar - first orc to reach 80
Plainsrunner NAME - first tauren to reach 80
NAME of the Darkspear - first troll to reach 80
NAME the Forsaken - first undead to reach 80
NAME the Magic Seeker - realm first Malygos kill
Twilight Vanquisher NAME - realm first Sartharion the Onyx Guardian kill
NAME, Conqueror of Naxxramas - realm first Kel'thuzad kill
NAME, Hero of Northrend - realm first exalted with Argent Crusade, Wyrmrest Accord, Kiron Tor and Knights of the Ebon Blade
NAME the Hallowed - completed the Hallow's End achievements

Wow, I found a nice site for Rep display

http://www.wowjuju.com/index.php?page=6#EU_Neptulon_Andox

My current reputation ranks, displayed in a very nice format. It´s also possible to show the quests that give reputation, aswell as the mobs that give reputation.

A sandbox site for Wotlk

I´m looking for a site where there is a Sandbox, much like the http://www.warcrafter.net/ one. In short, a site where you type in the level you want the character to be, pick the gear, pick gems and enchants (Those that are avalible in the beta) and of course, the talents.

Would be pretty good to be able to test the different gearsets on, and then see if you need to upgrade the old TBC gear to the new Wotlk blue BS stuff.

Utgarde Pinnacle, DK PoV

A very nice instance indeed. I can´t wait to steamroll it!

http://files.filefront.com/UtgardePinaclewmv/;11655254;/fileinfo.html

A short movie with the new BoSanc

Nerf this. It´s really really good in it current statte, if you like to solo SM, I hope it´s just as good when you raid in Wotlk ;)

Blacksmithing and socket slots

The bracer and glove sockets are Blacksmith-only and both add uncolored sockets that accept any color gem. They will add the socket even if the item already has a socket. Currently I have not tested if you can use these sockets to meet socket bonus requirements, however I have verified they do not cause problems if you have already met the requirements. The tradeable epic belt socket, Titanium Belt Buckle, is bugged and not currently applying the socket to your belt despite consuming the item, but it is safe to assume it will add an uncolored socket as well though.

Veteran of the Wrathgate

I heard that when you turn in the questchain "Veteran of the Wrathgate" you get to see a small movie. Will be pretty cool, much like the SWP movie that we saw inside MGT when we did the Heroic attunement quest.

New Glyph

Glyph of Judgement -- Your Judgements deal 10% more damage.

Yes please!

Just saw a movie from The Nexus

And all I can say, great instance, good mobs and boring bosses. The thing is, teh bosses dont hit hard, they hit the Paladin in the movie for about 450 - 600, that is nothing. I guess that the healer was bored during the entire run. It´s like you can get a Ret Paladin that heals you, or a Draenai that heal with their racial.

But the other stuff was fine. I saw a proper tankign rotation, that was great. With SoV proccing off every hit the threat is increased alot, also with the new BoSac. But I truly hope that they are right on the beta forum, that it´s bugged. According to them it´s a typo, it only give 1 rage and 2 Runic Power per D/P/B. Thats the right value according to me, 10 rage and 20 RP is abit OP.

It´s easy for me to loose the thread, but anyway. The XP seems decent, he got 1185 XP per kill, I think he was unrested, and thats a good amount. With a good group the XP/h will be insane if you steamroll those instances.

I can´t wait!

New, improved intro movie

I just chatted abit with the big noobs, Akurei and Baronen on VT. Akurei the slut has a key, and he tried a DK...

Anyway. We thought that the intro movie was fantastic, epic and great. But, it is to short. So my idea is:

In the end, when the Frostwyrm is flying away, make it fly over the continents and to the harbour in Howling Fjord. There the Wyrm will make a fly around, and under it you will see ships. Lots of ships (Matrix ftw!). They will hit the shore and hundreds of Alliance and Horde fighters will storm out of the ships and secure the beachhead.

At the same time, play some speech done by a hero. Maybe Uther or someone like that. Or maybe Arthas, when he said that he would travel to Northrend to find and eliminate the soure of the scourge!

Easier to OT in Wotlk!

Lots of people are concerned that off-tanking might get harder in WotLK with the Potion Sickness debuff being put in the game. I personally think that it will be easier now and I decided to compile a list of why.

Our Abilities

• Hand of Sacrifice - Places a Hand on the party member, transferring 30% damage taken to the caster. Lasts 12 sec. 2 min cooldown.
  
• Seal and Judgement of Wisdom - Now scales. Keeps changing so we don't know how good it will end up being, but scales non the less.
  
• Divine Plea - 50% total mana every 5 minutes. Clearly designed for Holy Paladins, but still a crutch for off-tanking!
  

Their Abilities

• Replenishment (the new mana battery effect) - There are now 3 classes who can fill this and the buff is now raid-wide (effecting the 10 targets with the lowest percentage of mana).
  
  
• Spirit Link (Restoration Shaman 51-point) - You link the friendly target with up to two nearby friendly targets, causing 50% of any damage taken to be distributed to the linked targets. If any target takes a blow greater than 30% of their health, or shared damage would reduce a target's health below 20%, the link is broken. You can only have one link active at a time. 30 second duration, no cooldown.
  
  
• Tricks of the Trade (new level 75 Rogue ability): The current party or raid member becomes the target of your Tricks of the Trade. The threat caused by your next attack and all actions taken for 6 sec afterwards will be transferred to the target. In addition, all damage caused by the target is increased by 15% during this time.

Spirit Link

Spirit Link Rank 1
12% of base mana 40 yd range
Instant cast
You link the friendly target with up to two nearby friendly targets, causing 50% of any damage taken to be distributed to the linked targets. If any target takes a blow greater than 30% of their health, or shared damage would reduce a target's health below 20%, the link is broken. You can only have one link active at a time.

Is it just me or is this earth-moving? Instant cast, 30-second duration. If you have two willing damage soakers, this spell will halve incoming damage to the tank. From my point of view, that means the following for difficult raid boss tanking:

Either (A) Spirit link will become standard for all boss fights, and a raid requirement, or (B) Goodbye insta-gib.

Spirit Link fundamentally changes the way tanks will gear. If insta-gib is no longer an issue, then avoidance gearing will be 100% the way to go. EH is no longer a concern if Spirit Link is up, therefore the role of a tank would be to reduce as much of the incoming damage as possible to reduce the healing load, while producing threat. The new BoSanc provides the solution to dodge/parry rage/mana starvation from avoidance gearing.

Spirit Link also solves the rage/mana starvation issue that BoSanc doesn't. That of off-tanking in order to keep threat up when the OT is not taking enough incoming damage or attacks, e.g. Gruul. Spirit Link the Pally OT, heal the Pally up, and voila, mana back.

Blizzard has said that one of their goals in WotLK is to make tanking specs do more damage, and to make some dps specs able to tank, such as ret pally, and most DK specs. Spirit Link provides raid roles for such dps/tank hybrid specs. They have the stamina (and possibly mitigation) to take 25% of a non-SL'd tanks incoming damage, as well as raid damage, while still able to put out respectable dps.

If encounters are re-tuned so that in order for tanks to survive, Spirit Link is mandatory, option (A) above, then all requirements for spirit link soakers go up. Raids will bring mandatory spirit link soakers, specced and geared prot, or for multi-tank encounters, may have multiple hybrid classes capable of acting as soakers for the heavy damage tanks. This still synergizes with Blizzards stated goals about hybridizing a bit of the prot/dps roles. Paladins of course, also hybridize prot/healing roles.

BoSanc doesn´t have a internal CD

Thats right, or if it do have one, it´s very short, less than 0.5 sec. I´ve read somewhere that this ability is equal to 200 mp/5 when you have some mobs hitting you. Pretty good.

But seiously. They should make this a self buff, or roll it into RF. It´s silly that Warriors get 10 rage on D/P/B, they already got tools for this. Also, it´s not fair that they get 3% more mitigation. Only makes the gap bigger.

Diminishing returns on dodge rating?

Oh snap!

http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/viewtopic.php?t=12925

Badge of Justice is no longer BoP

You read right! On the current build the BoJ is BoE, that mean that you can send them to a alt, friend, your cat or whoever you want. This way, you can grind badges now, and gear up your new shiny Death Knight in epics before entering Northrend.

Get some tanking gear for him, or DPS if you prefer to play DPS. (Or both, if you don´t have a life and grind badges 24/7). You can save some BoJ's each and give them to the guild DK, so he can get some good gear and zerg through Northrend's starting zones.

Rogues get a MD, and how to use it!

Tricks of the Trade:

The current party or raid member becomes the target of your Tricks of the Trade. The threat caused by your next attack and all actions taken for 6 sec afterwards will be transferred to the target. In addition, all damage caused by the target is increased by 15% during this time.
Instant, 30 sec cooldown

If our threat is good without Ebon Plague, then might aswell go get yourself an Unholy DK to put Ebon Plague up for you for 13% extra holy dmg, then ask your prot warrior friend to give you Vigilance for a loss of 10% threat but give you 5% dodge for the big heavy hitter fights.

With rogues now giving you misdirects, I can see using Vigilance alot more often. Since the target also do 15% more damage (15% more threat aswell) the threatincrease will only get bigger!

Pull

Use Tricks of the trade on me.
Use Fan of knives
Use other high damage moves on burn target.

So this is like:
- Rogue hurts NPC
- NPC wants to hurt rogue
- Rogue points at you and yells "HE DID IT!"

I might add that it´s a lvl 75 trainble ability. With the low CD (30 sec) it might even be better than MD. Rogues prolly got this since they whined that Fury Warriors brought much more to the raid (5% raidwide crit, AP shout and huge DPS from Titans Grip).

I think I go armorsmithing

Yes, for me, two meta gems are more powerful than a gemslot in the weapon.

I would go for:

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?item=41380 and http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?item=41396.
That would give me:

+32 Stamina
+2% increased armor
+21 defense rating
+5% Block Value

And if you didn´t get it before me. The LW enchant (90 stamina on wrist) is only for LWers, I guess I would get 1000 health after all buffs, but oh I was wrong...

Give me those new things

Leatherworking:

Fur Lining - Stamina -- Permanently enchant bracers to increase stamina by 90. Can only be used on the leatherworker's bracers, and doing so will cause them to become soulbound.

Greatness Darkmoon Card -- Chance to increase your highest stat by 85 for 30 sec when dealing or taking damage in combat.

A thought about Blessing of Sanc

Some people will call BoSanc OP, why? Because it return 10 rage and 20 RP. This can look like alot if you compare it to 2% of the base mana. So, if it doesn´t change to a selfbuff, they should atleast take the mana to 3%, otherwise it´s fine.

In block gear, you´re getting 99 mana per proc. That means ~2 procs pay for a Shield Slam, which in this gear can do quite a bit of threat (7-9k non-crit easy). 2 procs for a Death Knight is 40 RP which is 1 Death Coil. Not sure what a level 75 Death Knight Death Coil hits for, but I doubt does as much threat.

Plus they can't block, so it procs for them less. Just eyeballing it, 20 RP probably feels right. You could apply similar logic to Warriors. But maybe 10 rage is a bit much, but more like 6-8 rage would be even.

AoE grinding has never been this much fun though. The more mobs you gather, the more mana you have... seems like a simple thing, but it makes the class play so much more naturally. And it's weird saying "Woot! That avoidance streak topped me off!"

Insane amounts of HP for Retridins

Over 17 000 health, thats well, little OP? Add to that the over 650 resilience you get fro mthe lvl 80 PvP set. That makes me get wetdreams on the HP pool of Protection Paladins on level 80. Keep in mind that we have talents that increase Stamaina by 6% and 10% for a total 16.6% +Stamina.

Beacon of Light change

Beacon of light completely reworked. The new one is actually a lot more interesting.

The target becomes a Beacon of Light to all targets within a 40 yard radius. Any heals you cast on those targets will also heal the Beacon for 100% of the amount healed.

Cast it on tank, anyone you heal in 40 yds will heal the tank, nice isn't it? This one looks like a very competitive choice.

Hopefully with the huge buff to Beacon of Light, more holy paladins will dip into the prot tree to grab Kings so we can buff us with Sanc...

Cooking in Wotlk..wow!

Dragonfin Filet please. Looks like stamina is the new spirit for food buffs. (ie, everything was buff + spirit, now its buff + stamina)

I just thought of something... If those Critter Bites let you control critters and the critters remain non-hostile, this could potentially be a situational Eye of Kilrogg. Very cool for those of us who like to go on solo missions in dungeons and stuff. I hope it actually works this way.

BoSanc change is here!

From mmo-champion's calc:

Places a blessing on the friendly target, reducing damage taken from all sources by 3% for 10 min. In addition, when the target blocks, parries or dodges a melee attack the target will gain 10 rage, 20 runic power, or 2% of maximum mana.

They changed a crappy blessing into a very good blessing. The Rage/Runic power portions will probably eat a nerf, yes. Well, I'm uncertain on Runic Power, but the Rage certainly. Probably all the way down to 1-3 rage per proc instead of the current 10.

The 2% Total Mana regen per block/parry/dodge. For us, that's going to be like 100-200 mana each proc. A non-issue in a normal tanking situation. You'll still be able to spend faster then you regen, its just you'll actually be able to REGEN when not receiving heals. They should up the Paladin part to around 8%.

But still. Why do we have two blessings in the Protection tree? Either make Kings baseline, or make BoSanc a selfbuff. Somewhat like:

Places a blessing on the Paladin, reducing damage taken from all sources by 3% for 10 min. In addition, when the Paladin blocks, parries or dodges a melee attack the Paladin will gain 8% of maximum mana.

No more bears in 3.0

No. This item will no longer be available with the release of the next content patch. Mind you this patch will happen before the release of Wrath of the Lich King.

Be quick people.

Heroics to hard according to Blizz

My ass they are hard, they are very easy. The heroic nerf was so unneeded (The one they did shortly after TBC release). Now every scrub with S1 wellfaregear can run heroics, that's NOT good.

Wrath of the Lich King preview movie

A great, EPIC, preview of almost all zones in Wotlk. You will also see some instances, Naxx, Air-to-Air combat and much more! NERDGASM!

http://www.vimeo.com/998323

New design

I got tired of my blog design, so I picked this instead, sure, still ugly as hell, but imo better that the last one.

Sure, some Wotlk news aswell:

The huge honor- and arena points prolly won´t stay to release, just there to make it easier for the testers to buy the weapons.

Lake Wintergrasp

In my last post I forgot to add how much honor- and arena points a capture awarded, so here it comes. Taking the keep in Wintergrasp awards 7500 honor- and 150 arena points.

BoSanc will change in Wotlk

Anyone see the new blue post clarifying buffs and debuffs in Wrath of the Lich King?
http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=14214.0

Found an interesting categorization for Blessing of Sanctuary, regarding buffs that do not stack:

"Damage Reduction Percentage Buff: Grace, Blessing of Sanctuary"

Grace is a priest ability reduces a target's damage taken by 2% after a flash/greater heal lands. I guess we can expect a similar effect from casting BoSanc in Wrath.

Uber Wotlk quest

http://www.gamevee.com/viewVideo/World_of_Warcraft/PC/The_Drakkensryd/740706

In short. You jump from dragon to dragon, while killing their riders. Uber. WTB that as daily, to bad we only do it once.

No beta invite yet...

This sucks.

Our GM got a beta key, well, a friend of him borrowed him his key, so he could level a Deathknight.
I.

Hate.

You.

And now, just suddenly another guy in our guild got a key, a real key this time. I´m so jealous. I also want the bloody key so I can test some Paladin stuff. Or well, I can test the talents in the content patch. But I so want to try a DK, I´ve seen some videos and it looks so fun!

First I will level Andox to 80 and get some good gear so I can raid, and when I hit uncrittable and have some nice mitigation and threat I will go and powerlevel a Deathknight. I jsut have to come up with a name.

Mana problems solved

I will quote a beta Paladin, about the mana issues. Right now, we have big problems once we outgear a instance, mainly because we tank by spamming Consecration, but still. Oom after one group. In Wotlk this problem is much less visible. Our new main aggrospells, Hammer of the Righteous (Aka. "Hammer" in this post) and Shield Slam use like 150 mana each on level 70, that is really nice.

Hammer also proc seals, so you can seal up with Vengeance and stack it up on three mobs at the same time (keep in mind that it proc on every hit now). That my friends are some really nice threat on groups. And just random tab and cast Hammer and volia, you have a 5 SoV stack on every mob.

This also work with Seal of Light/Wisdom. Seal of Light heals for ~450 in the beta. bangbang, hit Hammer an you got a instant heal of ~1500 - 2000 HP. 6 seconds cooldown, so just spam this if you drop. Same thing with Wisdom. If you outgear a instance just seal up Wisdom (The judgement still do damage, a new feature in Wotlk) and you get a full manapool in no time.

Anyway, as you can see, I easily loose track on what I write, maybe you´ve seen this on the forum (walls of text) and in game. But hell, who cares, I love to write. But as I said, here is the quote.

IMO, prot mana issues are almost non-existent at this point. Even if we're tanking a 5-man we overgear, our new abilities make for a much less mana-consumptive experience. If you're still tanking by spamming consecration, yeah you're going to go oom. But with HotR + SoV, I can keep aggro on a pack of mobs easily enough without blowing all my mana every pull. Wisdom is my new go-to judgment, which makes things even easier.

I recently tanked Utgarde Keep in full T5/badge gear, with a 73 pally, and 3 69/70 DKs, and during the whole run I only drank once, and used divine plea maybe twice. I was consistently able to pull the next group while my dps was finishing off the last mob.

Divine Plea is like Evocation.

Divine Plea

Channeled	5 min cooldown

While channeling this spell, you gain 50% of your total mana over 6 sec

Idiocy at Wotlk beta forum

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=9336454806&sid=2000

I have no words....

I´m a idiot

The Tauren Chieftain event is so old!

*hides in corner*

Hot chick

Good that they changed the model, she isn´t a Night Elf, took some time for Blizz to realize that...

Tauren Chieftain in Shattrath!

Yes, why is the Tauren Chieftain band in Worlds End Travern and playing their songs? I havn´t seen this being announced anywhere! Just came at 18:00 (ST) and dissapperaed at 18:05. Luckily, I Frapsed that event =P But tell me, why did they do this? Did I miss anything?

But hell, it was damn cool!

Nice picture of Arthas in game

Useless spellhit

We all know that Blizz sucks at making tankadin armor in TBC, if we don´t count T6, which is a very very good set. So is the SWP set. But if we count the badgegear, it have alot of spellhit, useless in TBC, but VERY usefull in the next content patch. Since they are removing our +3% hit talent we have to stack hit aswell.

Spell Hit and Melee Hit are becoming a single +Hit stat. All that useless spell hit you have will suddenly become very useful.

Great tanking ring

Oh yes, a very nice ring with lots of Stamina, Strength, but most important Defense. Seems easier to hit the defensive cap now, than it seemed like 1 week ago when all dungeon loot wasn´t published. Will be easier and easier the more loot we see ;)

Right now, the in the current Wotlk beta build. If you die in Storm Peaks, you are ressurected on a ghost mount, a flying mount. Would be to hard to run to your corpse in this area, high mountains and deep valleys in that zone. The only purpose is to make the corpse running easier.

And here you get a map over Stork Peaks, so you can see the terrain. You will have your flying mount there, since it´s a level 77+ zone, would be pretty stupid if not. Normal mounting sucks hard in this zone. Also, we get a imba questspeed with our epic flyers there, WOOOOOOOO!

Rep tabards

For those who don't know, they announced that instead of having each dungeon tied to a rep, you would wear a tabard of the faction you wished to gain rep with, and any dungeon would give you that rep. Pretty cool, would be easy to gain rep with factions that way, just grind a easy and fast instance.

Video: Old Stratholme

This instance is so cool I don´t have words for it! First, you chase the scourge around in the city while Arthas is rampaging and killing all the dudes that live in the city. Then you have to fight a HUGE abomination, then a necromancer. After that, meet up with Arthas, go inside a house and zerg the dragons, kill a dragon lord, then you go out.

AND STRATHOLME IS BURNING! This is so cool, just like Stratholme is now. Then you zerg through a street full of rage, encounter Mal'Ganis and kick some ass.

A video from a DK tank POV, I will really roll a DK, 10 000 dmg to like 4 enemys while tanking is OP!

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=9336793602&sid=2000

I know how to solve the lack of defense

Three words:

Chestplace of Stoicism

I use Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian now. So I have to run some heroics with my Retadin so I can get the badges. I need around 70 of them. The good thing is that BV = Threat in Wotlk. And the lost dodge is compensated by the new talent (5% dodge).

Stupid rewards in the starting zones

Summary:

-Howling fjord: too much haste items totally useless for leveling since haste isn't so good alone without any other stat.

-Borean tundra: Crit and AP items that really help your leveling.

So the DK's should go STRAIGHT to Tundra, screw Fjord, since that's where fresh new DK gets all the proper gear, inculding spanking new 2h sword from like the 1st quest off the ship.

Another tanking head + new achivements

Pretty nice head, bad the Stamina is very low imo. But to continue. New achivements are added for the nolifers. First to 80, first raid kills and such things. Would never happend to a poor Tankadin who struggles with his quests. Goddammit Blizzard!

Realm Firsts are implemented in the next beta build although they will be slightly broken due to the fact that we have data issues with existing beta testers. For now, here's the list. We'll probably add more.

Realm First to 80
Realm First to 80
Realm First to 80
Realm first to 450
Realm First 10/25 end-boss kills

Keep in mind, this will be broken on beta realms slightly. For example, in the current build, Realm First Mage to 80 is actually implemented. Well, Daelo, our Lead Encounter Designer, was testing something and leveled a Mage to 80 instantly and got the achievement for the server. On live realms, this will never happen. On live realms, all blizzard employee accounts are not counted toward server-firsts. But this part of the technology was not yet implemented.

Also, when those Realm First achievements go live, they won't be accurate on the beta realms. But on live realms, the data will be pure and the information will display correctly.

Something to note about Realm Firsts:

A Realm First window stays open for 1 minute after initial completion of the Feat Of Strength. This means if 25 people kill Malygos as a Realm First, they'll all get credit. But what this also means is that if two players reach level 80 within a minute of each other, they will both get credit as well.

Tiersets in Northrend

I´ve found some pics about the tiersets. First, I will post the Dungeon sets, like T0. The set that drop in normal dungeons. First out, is Warrior/DK, rogue (looks damn retarded to me, two huge eye on the head) and last, the Paladin Tier 7, a recolored Redemption, looks pretty nice imo.

Or well,the Rogue set looks pretty T7ish, since of the models, don´t think Blizz would do that model just for a dungeon set. And last, a set where I found several sets on. Maybe THAT is the dungeon tier. Since Pala/Warr/DK look the same. I think that!

Parry/Dodge is fucked!

Quotes from ElitistJerk!!! It goes against stacking a single stat in a single item, so "spreading" would make it better. The amount of parry and dodge that you get per point changes. In fact, it might get to a point where it will actually be better to stack +defense rating, since that supposedly does not suffer from the same diminishing returns.

"I log in, without pants or trinket equipped. I equip Praetorian's Legguards and my parry increases smoothly at about 0.041% per Parry Rating. I equip Ancient Aqir Artifact as well, and from both unequipped I get closer to a 0.038 per Parry Rating, or a 0.035 from trinket not equipped -> equipped."

"Its just dodge and parry rating, no diminish on defense or dodge from agility. It has been like this since it went to beta at least by the way."

Those are from two different users.

My planned route

I´m planning a good route to do i nWotlk, posting it here tomorrow. With instances, zones and that shit.

Change in defense

Grr! When the content patch hit they will remove the 20 defnense (pure defense, not raiting) that I get from the talent and replace it with 5% dodge. That is great, on level 80 that is. Since we will have much lower avoidence than on T6 level, Blizzard said that we had to high avoidence (70%ish) in BT and SWP.


This will be a problem. Some Paladins, including me, is balancing on the edge. I think I have 500ish defense, won´t cut it when the content patch hit. I´m glad that we isn´t raiding until Wotlk, would been a complete disaster.

Intresting change in itemlevel

So Mmo-champion has a few items of note that were found on the beta. Interestingly enough is the new Heroic dungeon blues.

Heroic dungeon cape

Compare to

Normal level 80 dungeon cape

It's not so easily discernable but it does look like Heroic blues have a higher item budget, possibly due to a higher item level. Take a look at:

Leeka's Shield from regular Strat

versus

Heroic Nexus

That's not how it works on live. All level 70 regular instances drop item level 115 blues. All heroics also drop level 115 blues. MgT heroic doesn't even drop blues so it's no exception to the rule.

See the difference in armor value and block value? Also as a minor point, I'm glad Shield Block Rating is still alive and kicking. There's still hope for a high block set.

New tanking blues!

What is it with Wotlk adn Parry? Give dodge for god sake, parry is a expensive stat.


Tanking blade. A bit fast imo, but it good pretty good stats and it looks AWESOME!

Bye bye epics, hello blue!

Just did abit of theorycraft. I better be picking up the Tempered Saronite stuff, like this one http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?item=40674. It gives me more armor, defense (very important since I loose the +20 defense talent), stamina (some pieces) and most of all, Strength, the new threat stat for me.

Will feel pretty awkward for me, to exchange some of the gear from MH, BT and Sunwell badges for some shitty blue. But I guess I have to live with it. Strength will also increase my solo viability since HotR cost like 150 mana, extremly cheap. Proccs seals on three mobs aswell. So if I seal up with Light and hit it *BANG* instant 2000 heal. Very very good. When you outgear a instance you use it with Wisdom.

Confetti the Rainbow Clown

Just saying here, but the artwork for the quest reward greens in Northrend is much less horrible. While it doesn't look as fancy as the raid gear does, it doesn't make you look like Confetti the Rainbow Clown (Or Confetti the Rainbow Stripper if you're female >.>).

It actually matches together pretty well to achieve a bit of a viking look (At least, in the case of the plate gear, I haven't checked the other gear in detail).

I also might to add. Two new arenas will be released in the Wotlk content patch before the real release, these are Orgrimmar Arena and Dalaran Arena. They are featuring new layouts, terrain hazards, and moving obstacles.

About the content patch

It will nerf the XP needed 60 > 70. This makes it much easier to level the DK's so they can enter Northrend. But also helps me. Since it´s just a content patch I can continue to level my uber Hunter so I can leech of his quest rewards. Since they nerf the XP, it mean more quests on lvl 80 = more money for my Paladin.

Btw, anyone know a good grinding spot for retridins?

Content patch before Wrath of the Lich King / Season 5 (?)

Content patch before Wotlk, what does that mean you may say. That is a patch that updates the classes with talents, skills, barbershops, new professions and so on. much like the patch before TBC. This is really good, makes us able to learn the new abilitys before Wotlk goes gold. I post what the blue said.

With the release of Wrath of the Lich King approaching, we wanted to provide you with some important information. In preparation for the expansion, we will be issuing a new content patch in the coming weeks. Much like the patch made available shortly before The Burning Crusade's release, this content patch is designed to bridge current game content with that of the expansion and will contain some exciting changes and additions.

We have outlined some of the larger features scheduled to release with the patch below:

New class spells and talents
Stormwind Harbor
Barbershops in capital cities
Zeppelin towers outside of Orgrimmar and Tirisfal Glades
Two brand-new Arenas featuring challenging new layouts, terrain hazards, and moving obstacles
Guild calendar
Hunter pet skill revamp
New profession: Inscription

As mentioned above, this is not a comprehensive list, just some of the major highlights. We’ll post the full patch notes as soon as they’re available. Regarding Inscription, please note that all Burning Crusade players will be able to select Inscription as one of their two professions and level up to a skill level of 375 with it. Upon the release of Wrath of the Lich King, players who purchase and install the expansion will be able to continue leveling in Inscription and the other professions beyond 375.

There is also a mace from the presumed S5 released now!

What is inscription?
Inscription is the new profession that will be added with Wotlk, like JC was the new profession for TBC. The profession is available to everyone, even is DK's get a bonus, think it was +15 skill. Inscriptionist's will be able to make Glyphs to enhance abilities of yourself and other players, inscriptionists will also be able to make some consumables.

What is a Glyph?
In Wrath, characters will have an extra page in their spellbook/character sheet.(Screen will be added later tonight when i can get home and upload it).Basically it boils down to 6 glyph slots for character improvements. The slots are broken into the following categories, Greater Glyphs, Lesser Glyphs and Minor Glyphs. As you see on the picture, there is room for two Greater-, two Lesser- and two Minor Glyphs.

Greater Glyphs will enhance class spells and abilities greatly, here is an exampel of a known glyph which is most likely a greater glyph:

Venomous Mana (Glyph Passive) - Empowers a Greater Glyph to grant your Viper Sting ability an additional 15% chance to resist dispel effects.

Lesser Glyphs will offer smaller buffs to class abilities, you can expect lesser glyphs to have a similar strength to:

Glyph of Moonfire (Class: Druid) - Empowers a Lesser Glyph to reduce the rage cost of your Demoralizing Roar by 20

Minor Glyphs will offer cosmetic buffs or slight buffs to some spell mechanics or cost's a couple of examples of minor glyphs beign used for ciosmetic buffs would be:

Glyph of Polymorph - Sheep spell to turn the target into a baby penguin.
Glyph of the White Bear - Changes the appearance of your bear and dire bear forms to that of a polar bear.

You mentioned Consumables?
Yes. Inscriptionists will be able to make their own range of consumables same as many other professions. It can be it runes of warding from blacksmithing or wizard oil from enchanting.

Notes
In Wotlk, Herbalism is the primary gathering profession for Inscription. Inscriptions require herbs as materials, and so it relies on the herbalism gathering profession, Glyphs can also be sold at the Auction House. Those who don't purchase the expansion will be able to use items created by an inscriber, but only those players who purchase Wrath of the Lich King will be able to learn Inscription as a profession.

A skill called Milling will accompany Inscription that will produce reagents from herbs similar to how the Prospecting skill work of ores.

Which gems/jewels for Lich King?

Here is a very good list. Click on the Expansion tab, and deselect the TBC and old world to only see the gems for Wotlk: http://wow.crafterstome.com/recipes/jewelcrafting.html

Yes, I will get the Stamina gems first, and then the Strength gems. Maybe some Defense/dodge gems if I can´t reach the defense cap.

Arena points without arena!

Yes you read right! In Lake Wintergrasp you actually get BOTH honor- and arena points. Control flying machines, shredders, tanks and much more while you laying siege on the horde or the alliance in this zone. When you captured a tower, it works like the towers in Terokkar. The bosses drop some sort of a "Spirit Shard", which you buy PvP gear from.

"The main aim is to capture Wintergrasp Keep, once your faction is in control of Lake Wintergrasp, all instance bosses within Northrend will drop Spirit Shards which can be collected and turned in for rewards. Killing opposing members of your faction will also yield Wintergrasp Marks of Honor, which will be redeemable through the honor system and various NPC’s."

-Mmo-Champion

At the moment, there isn´t any info about the arena points. But on the current build, the award for capping a tower is both honor- and arena points. According to screenshots and friends in the beta.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=815

Good idea, yes/no?

Shield Charge
5% of Base Mana 8 - 25 yd range
Instant 30 sec cooldown
Requires Shields
Charge an enemy with your shield, debuffing your enemy causing your next holy attack to do [SBV*0,75] more damage to your enemy. This ability cause high threat.*

* Discussable, maybe the high threat component should go away. But still, it´s not usable when you fight the boss, since it´s a minimum of 8 yd range on the ability. It´s great if the melee have to run away, you can´t build aggro when you run away (I don´t count Avengers here or if you have a SoV stack up). useable on fights like Winterchill, since the ranged continue to nuke even when he isn´t tanked.

Want to know how a newly dinged 80 will look like?

Here is the answear, I took some loot from WoWhead, used "View in 3D", Screenshot adn then into Photoshop. I don´t really feel like looking everything up again, but it´s some of the blu lvl 75 BS tank set, some of the lvl 80 epic, BoE, BS stuff and the shoulders is from Stratholme (I belive). Pretty cool, really DKish imo. Doesn´t really fit a paladin, but to hell with it, it looks awesome!

My leveling route in Wotlk

Fjord -> Dragonblight -> Grizzly -> Sholazar -> Zul'Drak as close to 100% quest completion as possible and got halfway through 79.

This way, I have my flying mount when I start on Zul'Darak, makes it alot easier according to my soucers. Also makes me able to level up BSing as fast as possible. Alot of Saronite in Sholazar which makes me able to get the level 75 blue tanking set as soon as possible.

I forgot to add about the shield....

That shield is actually the 10 man version. If there is a 25 man one, expect it to be noticably better from what they've said.

Naxxramas 25 - Spider Wing Boss 3 - Loot 1 - 2H DPS Mace
Nax 10 - Badge Loot - Tank Shield

I guess this is the correct reading [where] [who] [what] (or something like that)

Very good pair of tanking boots. Nice that they have Block Value on non tiered gear aswell. Gogo Paladins/Warriors, screw the DK's!! (Just joking)

However, I'm a little concerned as to how we're gonna hit uncrittable with gear like that. According to http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t29453-combat_ratings_level_80_a/, we'll need 688.52 defense rating to get 140 Defense skill (what's needed to be uncrittable), and since Anticipation no longer adds Defense skill, we'll need all 689 defense rating from gear.

If no changes are made, won't it be tough to get 689 with only 34 on our boots?

New sexy gear!

I just came home from school and surfed into Mmo-champ, my favourite site, after Maintankadin ofc. And there I saw some AWESOME gear, first out, the Naxxramas 10man tanking shield. Got supernice stats. Alot of armor, 299 BV, huge stamina and ofc, a good amount of avoidence from the defense and dodge.


Next item is a blue neck, from Utgarde Pinnacle actually. Also some nice avoidence on it. Parry this time, well, not perfect, but I guess it work. More of a DK item, since they use parry for avoidene and threat (?). But still, nice stamina, defense and strength. It´s nice that the tanks scale with strength now, makes it much easier to make items. Instead of one tank scalign with spell damage, one with BV, str and agility and so on.

The last item is "helm of stupid name". I really hope that the name is a silly placeholder. I will not, I repeat, NOT, run around with this silly name.

Woah! They're bringing in the heavy artillery now?

The first quests in Northrend indicates that you are a renowned hero, known from many battles. Someone says in Vliance Keep when you turn in a quest to meet him, something like: "Woah! They're bringing in the heavy artillery now?". That heavy artillery is YOU.

This one is also great!
"A person like you will stand in no line! Report to Commander Iforgothisname immediatley!"

And it's awesome, finally they give us credit!

First look at raiding epics

Looks pretty sweet, a good amoutn of DPS, AP and Stamina. Very nice for Retadins. With kings and divine strength you get 15% from divine strength and 10% from kings possibly giving you 126 Str = 252 AP and then 75 SP from Sheath of Light if my math is correct.

I really look forward t othe taning epics, will be intresting to see how Blizz did this time, if they fucked it up or not like they did in TBC with giving us huge amounts of Intellect, but low Stamina and defensive stats.

ZOMG FIRST!

Maybe I should introduce myself...

I´m a Paladin named Andox, usually Protection that play in a guild on the EU server Neptulon. Right now I´m Ret, since we just chill until Wotlk will hit, most of this blog will discuss Wotlk because it´s party in my pants as soon as something new is published on mmo-champion.com.

In Wotlk I will play Protection, it´s the specc I enjoy the most.

Maybe some history would be nice. I began to play WoW at the release day. Or well, I bought it on the release day here in Sweden, but I didn´t play until the next day, you old schoolers remembers that the servers went down instantly when it released. I created this character, played as Ret. I was on Warsong, or shouldI say Russong. So I migrated with some mated to Shattered Hand, there I lvled up to 60 and then I migrated again, to Neptulon.

I played Ret all the time, mostly BGs while I tried to rank up to rank 14 and some random instances. This was the time of the autoattackadins. You had 5 paladins for UBRS,"Ok, so who will heal?". Just before TBC came I joined a friendly guild named CryBaby Raiders (RIP), I lvled in TBC with them as Ret. On lvl 70 I realized how useless Ret was (before all the buffs) and specced Prot. Wow. What a specc. I was able to steamroll the normal instances with ease, and also tank some of the heriocs with a skilled group, before all the heroic nerfs.

I started with KZ, went to Gruul and tried Magtheridon. Crybaby Raiders disbanded, some people didn´t share the goals with us other. So a core group joined the guild HellFrost. We owned. Steamrolled through SSC and TK. Little struggle on Vashj and KT, but they went down. So did our MT aswell on KT, so I tanked him the last bit of the fight.

We even got into Hyjal and BT, easymode. Til we got to Archimonde, he was a bitch. At this time, I went for a vacation. When I came back, summer summer summer. Guildkiller anyone? The new guild Scorched was formed, with the best players from HellFrost. We are a guild that will begin with raiding in Wotlk. Pretty much rush up and try the new 10- and 25-mans.

So, there you have me. A hot and sexy Swedish guy, that play a hot and sexy Paladin.