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Friday, May 31, 2013
Encrypted Text: Mastering Tricks of the Trade macros
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here. Tricks of the Trade is a strange ability for rogues. Why would we sacrifice our own damage (by spending energy) to boost the damage of someone else? Aldriana and Pathal have both spoken out against TotT's misguided benevolence and its boring mechanics. Rather than being a situationally-useful ability that we pull out when the time is right, TotT has become a set-and-forget chore that we just auto-cast on the second-highest DPS in raid.
Lore issues aside, Tricks of the Trade is a pretty good ability. Used properly, it can greatly accelerate the rate that tanks pick up aggro, which makes dungeons and raids just a bit easier. While it's a DPS loss for the rogue casting TotT, it's a net gain for the raid's DPS, and that's a sacrifice that we'll have to make. It's also incredibly potent in PvP; granting an ally a 15% damage boost is a pretty big deal.
Macros and addons
One of the biggest issues with Tricks of the Trade is that rogue UIs aren't typically designed with the casting of beneficial buffs in mind. I know plenty of rogues that play with their raid frames turned off, and Clique definitely isn't one of the standard rogue addons. In order to use TotT effectively, we have to be able to cast it quickly and without changing our target. A combination of macros and addons are the best way to go about doing that.
The simplest macros
If you're looking for the most versatile TotT macro, the standard mouseover is a good place to start:
Just roll your mouse over someone's raid frame and hit the button. You probably want to keep this macro around for special situations (all of your normal TotT macro targets are dead). If you use Tricks of the Trade without any macros, it will either cast it on your current target (not good since it means you're not attacking the boss) or it will bring up a cursor where you can click on someone (not good since it requires another push)./cast [@mouseover] Tricks of the Trade
Another simple dungeon macro is the targettarget version:
This will cast TotT on your target's current target, which should be the tank if you're targeting the boss. I don't really like this macro as you never know when the boss will target someone with a random ability or when someone else will steal aggro./cast [@targettarget] Tricks of the Trade
Basic raiding/area macros
If you're playing with a fixed group of people, you should have a set of addons specifically for giving them TotT quickly. In a raid situation, you'll want to have macros for both tanks and one or two DPS players. In an arena group, you'll want to at least cover your partner in 2v2 or both teammates in 3v3. I suggest picking two or three similar buttons for this. I use V, shift-V, and ctrl-V for my 3 main TotT macros. Here are a few of my different macros for raiding:
The reason that you want macros for both tanks is that you'll often be tasked with assisting a particular tank at gaining aggro quickly. A great example is Horridon, where tanks often take turns tanking the smaller mobs that leak through the door. You need to alternate your TotTs between tanks, and having a separate macro for each tank will make it easy to direct traffic. During the last burn phase, you'll want to be pouring your TotTs to a DPS class instead./cast [@Tseten] Tricks of the Trade
/cast [@Hoofenstein] Tricks of the Trade
/cast [@Scottqt] Tricks of the Trade/cast [@Perfect] Tricks of the Trade
/cast [@Bakkalakka] Tricks of the Trade
An average dungeon macro
When I'm just running 5-man dungeons for a few hours in random groups, I don't want to go in and edit the name in one of my macros for every random tank that comes my way. It's even more trouble if the tank has funny characters in her name. Instead of doing a specific target macro, I use my focus target to handle it. The focus target is like a second target that you can have, which is persistent. So you "focus" the tank in the group, and you can then cast spells on your focus without switching your main target. First, use a simple focus macro while you have the new tank targeted:
You only have to do that once at the start of the run. If you're really crafty, you can add "mouseover" to the end of the "/focus" command to focus whoever your mouse is currently over. Once you set your focus, you can use this macro to cast TotT on that focused target for the rest of the run:/clearfocus
/focus
I don't bother with putting TotT on the other DPS classes in dungeons, as the tank is usually dealing quite a bit of damage and it helps with aggro issues. If you're focusing on defeating a difficult challenge mode dungeon, that's a different story./cast [@focus] Tricks of the Trade
TargetRole helps out
I have also used an addon called TargetRole to simplify my dungeon and LFR macros. You create a macro like one of these:
Once you have made the macros, you register them with the TargetRole addon, which will keep them up to date. It will automatically put in the information for the tank (or tanks, in LFR) and update it as players join and leave. Now your macros always work and you don't have to remember to use your focus macro every time./cast [@TANK] Tricks of the Trade
/cast [@TANK2] Tricks of the Trade
Handling all of these buttons
Obviously you don't want to be dealing with a mouseover macro, 10 or more static macros, a focus macro, and a handful of TargetRole macros all at the same time. Imagine how many hotkeys that would eat up! I personally use Dominos to save several different TotT bars, and I use a hotkey to roll through the bars for each situation.
My arena TotT bar has my static arena partners, my raiding TotT bar has my normal tanks, and my LFR TotT bar has the generic TargetRole macros. You could also use the low-tech solution by just keeping a bar of spare macros and dragging the ones you need into your hotkeyed slots when necessary.
Don't forget to have a few macros set up for when you want to suicide into a pack of mobs while some unsuspecting victim is AFK:
/cast [@David] Tricks of the Trade
How to Create Macros
Someone asked this on our Facebook page and I thought that it would be worth expanding on somewhat,
“can someone explain what a “macro” is…and how to put one together. It always seems like some characters are on automatic mode when in pvp or pve….just wondering. I’ve never done one before.”
A macro is just a set of commands that you can bundle together. Instead of hitting three or four or five keys to apply buffs and set up for a fight, just hit one key and it’s all done.
Type /macro into the chat area or hit the ESC key, bring up that menu, and hit the macro button. You’ll see a box like the one below, but without all the pre-made macros.
Hit “New” (at the bottom) and a side window will pop out. Click the ‘?’ icon, enter the name of the macro (I entered ‘kill’) and hit OK. The smaller window will go away and you can enter your macro text into the ‘Enter Macro Commands” area (see example of the text below.) Notice that my Kill macro shows at the lower left.
Once you’re done creating your new macro, hit Save and you’ll see the question mark change into a new icon.
Here’s an example which I grabbed from one of my macros.
This is an example of what you might enter into the macro commands box, just copy and past if appropriate:
#showtooltip Ambush
/cast Premeditation
/cast Pick Pocket
/cast Ambush
/use Ruthless Gladiator’s Badge of Conquest
#showtooltip makes sure that Ambush shows when I hover over the macro icon with the mouse pointer.
The /cast lines are casting various abilities or directives. You can use spells, buffs, abilities, any number of things.
The /use line is for items like trinkets, the example shown is a PvP trinket that adds a bunch of Agility when used, which lasts 20 seconds. This trinket is entered after Ambush because it breaks stealth.
Drag the icon for this macro onto your action bar, where it will look like the regular Ambush macro. When you use that button it will cast premeditation (for a quick two combo points) pick the target’s pockets (ewww… soiled linens…) and then whack him upside the backside. After that it will activate the PVP trinket.
You can also use scripts, like this:
/target NameOfTarget
/script SetRaidTarget(“target”, 8);
What this does is put a skull icon (raid icon) on top of your target (it doesn’t work on players.)
If you’re hunting for particular mobs enter their name where it says NameOfTarget (using just the first few letters of the name will work fine.) The macro will try to target that mob and then put a skull (raid marker) on it. You can also click or tab to a target, hit the macro, and the skull will appear. This is great for dungeons and marking targets. ’8' determines that the marker is a skull, different numbers will create different icons.
If your group is a bit clueless and having problems attacking the right target, you can try this:
/target NameOfTarget
/script SetRaidTarget(“target”, 8);
/yell Kill the guy with the fraggin’ skull!!!
That will put the skull on the target and then you will shout, “Kill the guy with the fraggin’ skull!!!”
My character with Inscription uses this macro:
/cast Milling
/use Cinderbloom
/use Twilight Jasmine
/use Azshara’s Veil
/use Whiptail
/use Stormvine
So instead of multiples clicking and pointing at herbs you just hit this macro over and over and it mills them right up. It’ll will look for herbs in the order listed and if it doesn’t find any it will move to the next herb. One kink is that if it finds a stack of 1 through 4 herbs it will get confused and stop. All your heb stacks have to be in multiples of five for this to work.
You’ll see macros posted here and there on other sites and we have a few in the various guides on this site. Just copy and paste them, play with them, feel free to tweak a bit, and you’ll eventually find yourself becoming more effective.
This video will run through much the same stuff, add some details, and run through some Hunter specific macros.
This next video will lay out how to set up a cast sequence, allowing you to cast multiple spells with one button. This is great if you have a specific rotation, not so useful if you have to cast depending on the situation (arena PvP for example.)
You should be able to get some good stuff out of this one regardless of what you do, for example, if you always a pair of spells or cast a series of buffs.
- Cast Sequence Command -
/castsequence …
- Reset Conditions & Examples -
reset=# (/castsequence reset=10 …)
reset=target (/castsequence reset=target …)
reset=combat (/castsequence reset=combat …)
reset=shift/alt/ctrl (/castsequence reset=shift..)
- Target Conditions & Examples -
[@player] — /castsequence [@player] …
[@focus] — /castsequence [@focus] …
[@mouseover] — /castsequence [@mouseover] …
[pet] — /castsequence [pet] …
[harm] — /castsequence [harm] …
- One Cast, Different Situations -
/castsequence [help] Flash Heal, Flash Heal, Greater Heal;
[harm] reset=10 Shadow Word: Pain, Holy Fire, Smite, Smite
- Modifiers & Examples -
[mod:shift] — /castsequence [@player, mod:shift] …
[mod:alt] — /castsequence [@player, mod:alt] …
[mod:ctrl] — /castsequence [@player, mod:ctrl] …
[nomod] — /castsequence [@player, nomod] …
- All Together Now -
/castsequence [help, nomod] [@player, mod:alt] Healing Surge,
Healing Surge, Greater Healing Wave;
[harm] reset=10 Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt,
Chain Lightning, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lava Burst
Here’s a transcript of the video
WoWpedia has a list of all of the different macro commands. They also have a macro guide that covers some basics. It’s somewhat out of date, but the concepts and basics are good, it’s just a few details that might be off.
They also have a page that’s an index to all of their macro pages, including pages with class specific macros. Some of these will be out of date (or way out of date,) but you should be able to get some useful stuff.
In-Game widget makes keybindings and macros easy,
click here to get yours.
Blizzard was Hacked, Security Update
Some of Blizzards servers were broken into. Blizzard has issued a press release. Here it is, in full, links have been removed. See the source pages for Bliz links. Credit cards and other important data do not seem to have been compromised.
Players and Friends,
Even when you are in the business of fun, not every week ends up being fun. This week, our security team found an unauthorized and illegal access into our internal network here at Blizzard. We quickly took steps to close off this access and began working with law enforcement and security experts to investigate what happened.
At this time, we’ve found no evidence that financial information such as credit cards, billing addresses, or real names were compromised. Our investigation is ongoing, but so far nothing suggests that these pieces of information have been accessed.
Some data was illegally accessed, including a list of email addresses for global Battle.net users, outside of China. For players on North American servers (which generally includes players from North America, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia) the answer to the personal security question, and information relating to Mobile and Dial-In Authenticators were also accessed. Based on what we currently know, this information alone is NOT enough for anyone to gain access to Battle.net accounts.
We also know that cryptographically scrambled versions of Battle.net passwords (not actual passwords) for players on North American servers were taken. We use Secure Remote Password protocol (SRP) to protect these passwords, which is designed to make it extremely difficult to extract the actual password, and also means that each password would have to be deciphered individually. As a precaution, however, we recommend that players on North American servers change their password. Please click this link to change your password. Moreover, if you have used the same or similar passwords for other purposes, you may want to consider changing those passwords as well.
In the coming days, we’ll be prompting players on North American servers to change their secret questions and answers through an automated process. Additionally, we’ll prompt mobile authenticator users to update their authenticator software. As a reminder, phishing emails will ask you for password or login information. Blizzard Entertainment emails will never ask for your password. We deeply regret the inconvenience to all of you and understand you may have questions. Please find additional information here.
We take the security of your personal information very seriously, and we are truly sorry that this has happened.
Sincerely,
Mike Morhaime
Original source
MMO-Champion has the original release and an FAQ.
Totem Talk: Restoration and the Throne of Thunder, Part 4
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and content creation at InternetDragons.TV), shows you how
Ji-Kun
Turtles and Hyrdas have a special place in the sewers of the Isle of Thunder. Their existence does sort of answer the question about what happens when turtles and snakes find their ways into the refuse of an empire full of magic and chemical experimentation. I mean, I know that was a burning question for me before this raid tier started. But now that you've stomped shells and knocked out a few one eyed monsters tentacle things, I'm sure you think you've done it all. Well, there's more to do still.
As you dive deeper into the sewers looking for a way back into the main castle, there is still a great number of horrors that await you. Well, rather, they're waiting for you so that they can try to eat you whole. The good news at least is that they mark the midpoint on the way to the final encounter with the Thunder King himself.
This will not be a comprehensive boss guide, instead this will be a quick run down on things that you, as a resto shaman, should be aware of or tips to help make your healing of the encounter easier.
Ji-Kun
This giant bird is one bad mother, I mean she literally is because she just leaves her eggs all around waiting for players to come by and make omelettes out of them on normal mode. The bird is also a colossal pain and deals a ton of damage. The fight is really divided into two parts, the main platform and the nests. There are some abilities that we will have to pay attention to regardless of our location in the fight. The first ability to take note of is Feed Young, where Ji-Kun will spit up globs of food to attempt to feed any of her hatchlings that have called out for food. This is an important ability for multiple reasons. When in the air, players who have gathered the ability to fly from the smaller platforms can intercept the feed before it can reach the young. These are giant green blobs that fire straight out of the bird's mouth. Catching them will give you the Primal Nutriment buff. The buff gives you increased healing and damage when you catch it.
As a healer, if you can manage to snag this you are doing nothing but helping yourself and your raid team for the entire 30 seconds that the buff lasts by increasing the healing you do. The other thing to note is that whenever a feed glob is missed, a Feed Pool will land on the ground around the main platform. Standing in the pool will deal damage over time, but if someone stands in the pool for 3 seconds, they will absorb the pool and gain the debuff Slimed which is a stacking debuff that deals damage over time. This is important to note because as a shaman you can use your cooldowns to absorb the pool and the subsequent DoT it leaves on you so someone else doesn't have to. Stone Bulwark Totem is amazing in this regard and if you combine it with Call of the Elements you can double dip on the totem and survive quite well.
Quills is an ability that deals high raid-wide damage every second for 8 seconds when Ji-Kun uses it. This is where you're going to need to use your Healing Tide Totem and your Spirit Link Totem. My suggestion on this is that you use HTT if you're on the main platform and SLT if you're on one of the egg platforms combined with Healing Rain. The last two things to really know are Caw and Down Draft. Caw is a small 8 yard AoE that targets a random player in the raid. For this reason your group will be spread out to minimize damage. As a result you will rely more on Riptide, Healing Surge, Greater Healing Wave and Healing Stream Totem. Down draft is where the boss will attempt to push you off the edge of the platform, this one is easy to avoid if you keep your Ghost Wolf on your bars in easy reach. Move in towards the center of the platform, pop ghost wolf and run. The fight isn't too terribly bad for us, it is just a fight in which we have to mind the fact that yet again we can't rely on our group healing to see us through. Managing cooldowns is key, and absorbing damage when we can so others don't have to makes us strong in this fight.
Durumu the Forgotten
This is actually the fight where I started making all sorts of comparisons between Throne of Thunder and Big Trouble in Little China. He's a giant eyeball monster that was created with the sole purpose of looking into the hearts of the Thunder King's Followers and seeing if they would betray him. Now, however, he lives in a sewer with only Mist Lurkers as his friend. The good news about this fight is that there will be a lot of times that you can stay stacked up and make full use of your Chain Heal and your Healing Rain. There are a few things to really pay attention to as a resto shaman.
The first is going to be the Light Spectrum, in which Infrared Light, Bright Light and Blue Rays will spawn. These are damage effects that split the damage taken evenly between the people standing in it. As time goes on, and the longer people stand in the beams, the damage taken increases. With these you have to watch how long people have been standing in them, and when the beams cross each other. These persist until all the Fog adds are revealed and killed. Try to save any big cooldowns like HTT or SLT until the damage either starts to stack way too fast, or when the beams are crossing each other. You can also utilize stone bulwark totem to mitigate some of your incoming damage. Otherwise, simply heal as normal through them while your DPS handles the adds. I recommend not using your Spiritwalker's Grace on this, because you're going to need it for another ability boss ability.
The second, and probably the most iconic part of this fight, is the maze phase. It starts with the casting of Disintegration Beam, where he will focus on a point with his gaze. Any players caught by it will instantly die. This is important to pay attention to where this beam is because it will rotate and follow the group. While staring intently at the group, his Cross-Eye will create a maze of Eye Sores around the platform. The trick here is that an opening will, well, open in the maze for you to follow at ranged and near melee. You have to run through the maze to stay ahead of the beam. There is still however damage being dealt as you go around so you will still have to heal while running. Make liberal use of your riptide and this is where you want to save your SWG for. Pop that, and just go to town while running. Use HST on cooldown and CotE to pop it back up if you need a little extra punch to make it through. You may want to consider picking up Echo of the Elements for this fight as well just to give you a little more healing when you're using SWG and running, it has served me well on this fight.
Both fights aren't too terribly bad compared to some others in here, though Durumu can often times be attributed to a whole lot of pain due to maze phase, they are not the worst, nor the best fights for us in this tier of raiding. I suspect you should not have too much trouble breaking through and getting closer to the king of the castle. 
Totem Talk: Restoration lends you advice on healing groups, DK tanks and heroics and mana concerns in today's endgame -- or take a break and look back at the rise of the resto shaman. Happy healing, and may your mana be plentiful! Tags: durumu, Durumu-the-Forgotten, featured, guide-to-shamans, ji-kun, resto, Resto-Shaman, restoration, restoration-shaman, restoration-shaman-column, restoration-shaman-totem-talk, shaman-guide, shaman-healing, shaman-info, shaman-restoration-column, shaman-talents, throne of thunder, ThroneOfThunder, wow-shaman, wow-shaman-info
Conquest Vendors temporarily disabled
Blizzard Community Manager Daxxarri has taken to the US and EU forums to explain a temporary issue that has led Blizzard to temporarily disable the Conquest quartermasters for both factions. In the meantime, we've applied a hotfix that temporarily prevents players from purchasing gear from Tyrannical PvP item vendors.
This achievement required a hotfix back in patch 5.2, too, as it was incorrectly calculating the points required. It seems that, with patch 5.3, things have gone from bad to worse. The reason this is an issue is that the achievement's completion, at 25,000 conquest, now allows players to purchase conquest gear with honor. Allowing players to purchase that gear with honor at a far lower points earned level than intended was clearly a bit of an issue! Hopefully the developers will be able to implement a fix very soon, so that PvPers can continue to purchase their gear.
Update: Senior PvP Designer Brian Holinka tweeted WoW Insider this morning to clarify that the only disabled vendor is the one selling Tyrannical gear for honor. The Tyrannical conquest vendor is, in fact, still available.
Tags: breaking, patch-5.3, patch-5.3-pvp, patch-5.3-pvp-gear-changes, patch-5.3-pvp-vendorFiled under: PvPThe Hunter in Mists of Pandaria
Pandaren Hunter with Wolf PetThis page covers the various Hunter abilities and Glyphs as they will be in Mists of Pandaria, it does not cover builds. Yet. As this is written it’s still two months to the M of P launch and things might change. For now, check stuff out and think about what you will want for your Hunter, since the Cataclysm system will be scrapped.
Feel free to add comments, if you’re so inclined.
Any spec of Hunter can choose any one talent from each row. You will have six talents at level 90. You do not have to spend points in any given talent (or any ability,) you just pick ‘em and use ‘em. Obviously this means that any flavor of Hunter can have Silencing Shot.
The Hunter Talents in Mists of PandariaAgain, you can pick one from any one row, regardless of your spec.
Posthaste - Your Disengage breaks free from movement impairing effects and increases your movement rate.Narrow Escape - When you Disengage you leave webs, snagging all targets for a few seconds.Binding Shot - Enemies are tethered to your arrow and stunned if they move away.Dire Beast - Summons a mighty beast to attack your target.Lynx Rush - Your pet charges from target to target, attacking each.Glaive Toss - Throw glaives to slow target and increase their damage taken.Powershot - A mighty shot that knocks back opponents.Barrage - A spray of shots that damages the target and enemies between you and the target.These talents are gone, though some of the functionality may have been rolled into other abilities or glyphs or talents.Sic em!, Bestial Discipline, Efficiency, Hunter vs. Wild, Improved Kill Command, One with Nature, Pathing, Rapid Killing, Improved Mend Pet, Improved Steady Shot, Suvival Tactics, Point of No Escape, Counterattack, Ferocious Inspiration, Hunting Party, Killing Streak, Longevity, Noxious Stings, Resistance is Futile, Resourcefulness, Sniper Training, T.N.T., Termination, Toxicology.Beast Mastery – BM Ability exotic beastsBlack Arrow – Survival abiltyBombardment – MM abilityCareful Aim – MM abilityCareful Aim – MM abilityChimera Shot – MM abilityCobra Strikes – BM abilityConcussive Barrage – MM abilityCrouching Tiger, Hidden Chimera – tier 1 talentEntrapment – Survival abilityFervor – tier 4 talentFocus Fire – BM abilityFrenzy – BM abilityGo for the Throat – BMImproved Serpent Sting – Survival abilityInvigoration – BM abilityKindred Spirits – BM abilityLock and Load – Survival abilityMarked for Death – now a glyphMaster Marksman – MM abilityMirrored Blades – now a glyphPathfinding – now a GlyphPiercing Shots – MM abilityPosthaste – tier 1 talentRapid Recuperation – MM abilityReadiness – now a general abilitySerpent Spread – Survival abilitySilencing Shot – tier 2 talentSpirit Bond – tier 3 talentThe Beast Within – BM abilityThrill of the Hunt – tier 4 talentTrap Mastery – Survival abilityTrueshot Aura – general abilityWyvern Sting – tier 2 talentPreviously all specs of any class shared a pool of common abilities and the talents made the difference. In Mists of Pandaria there is a smaller pool of abilities, the talents (which can be accessed by any spec,) and then a set of abilities unique to each spec.
All of the abilties are acquired from your trainer as you level. As with talents you will not have to spend any points in any of these abilities.
These are the abilities that all Hunters will eventually receive on their path to level 90. Naturally you’ll pick these up from your trainer as you level. If you want to level as fast as possible, then go here.
Fetch – new , pet loots for you.aimed shot is now a Marks abilityCobra Shot is a Survival abilityMost, not all, of these abilities have been tweaked from their Cataclysm versions. A couple are new, some were talents. Hover over the links for descriptions. Remember that you can still use the Dual Build ability (learned from your trainer.) As with the regular abilities you will learn these from your trainer as you level.
These are all the Hunter Glyphs in Mists of Pandaria. You will notice, right off, that Prime Glyphs are gone. You’re left with Major and Minor, three of each. They’re gained, 1 of each, at levels 25, 50, and 75.
If you hover over each link you will also notice that all glyphs are level 25, which means you can buy them all at that time and swap them as necessary. (And they’re likely to be pricey at launch, go here if you need more gold to buy them.) As before, you will need some stuff from your Inscription Supplies dealer to do that:
Under level 80: Vanishing PowderLevel 81 to 85: Dust of DisappearanceLevel 86+: Tome of the Clear Mind
The third weapon slot is gone, but you can still equip ranged and melee weapons, just not at the same time. You can have your two swords or you bow/gun, but not both. Make a macro to swap weapons or use the equipment manager if you really want to use melee weapons. Or go fishing.
Note in the “dead abilities” section that some of your melee strikes are gone.
Hunters can fire ranged weapons in melee range, Pandaren hunters have a point blank stun which will be rather nice for getting out of tight spots.
Pet talents are gone, rather they will have abilities appropriate to type and spec.
It’s possible for your ranged attacks to be dodged, so the Expertise stat might become valuable, up to the dodge cap. It’s exact value will probably depend on the exact situation, gear level, PvE Vs. PvP, etc., just as it does in Cataclysm.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
The Druid in Mists of Pandaria
Take all your Cataclysm builds and chuck ‘em. They’are all dead and useless. Mists of Pandaria is revising everything. All classes will share a pool of abilities, as they always have, but each spec in each class will have a set of unique abilities that define that spec. These abilities will be learned from your trainer, as you level, just like any others.
By the way. Druids will have four specs in Mists of Pandaria. In reality, they always have, now it’s just official.
Note – this page is a work in progress. If you find something wrong, leave a comment.
Updated
7/26: Added a video on the Druid ability Symbiosis. This one ability make make Druids the essential class in raids and maybe PvP.12/13: Corrected the abilities table.The talent system from Cataclysm is gone, as mentioned above. Many of the old talents (and some glyphs) have been rolled into abilities learned from your trainer. Many others have been ganked outright.
Talents are now available to any spec. You have six tiers of talents, learned at levels 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, and 90. Each tier has three talents and any spec can pick any one talent from each tier.
Weapon usage is unchanged.
Relics are gone.
Glyphs (for all classes) are changed. Prime glyphs are dead. Many individual glyphs have either been slain or have been changed in some way. primes and Majors have, more or less, been merged. Minors are similar to what they were before. You will have six glyphs at level 90, three major, three minor.
Battle Pet Training is a new ability, for all classes, that you get from your trainer. There are a few new abilities, in the table below, and check out what Symbiosis will do.
This is the new talent page, many of the old talents have been rolled into abilities that you will get from your trainer.
Hover over the links for more info. Any Druid spec can pick any one talent from any row. You will have six total talents at level 90. Notes that there are no points to be spent in any talent, you will get the whole thing when you make your pick.
Displacer Beast – Activates Cat form and Prowl and teleports you up to 20 meters forward.Nature’s Swiftness – When activated various spells become instant, free, and castable in all forms. The healing and duration of the spell is increased by 50%.Renewal – Instantly heals the Druid. Useable in all shapeshift forms.Cenarion Ward – Protects a friendly target, causing any damage taken to heal the target every 2 sec for 6 sec. Gaining the healing effect consumes the Cenarion Ward. Useable in all shapeshift forms.Faerie Swarm – Causes 3 applications of the Weakened Armor debuff and reduces the target’s movement speed by 50% for 15 sec. While affected, the target cannot stealth or turn invisible.Mass Entanglement – Roots your target in place and spreads to additional nearby enemies. Affects 5 total targets. Useable in all shapeshift forms.Typhoon – Summons a Typhoon that strikes targets in front of the caster, knocking them back and dazing them for 6 sec. Useable in all shapeshift forms.Soul of the Forest – Aessina’s blessing grants a benefit which varies by your combat specialization.Incarnation – Grants a superior shapeshifting form appropriate to your specialization. You may freely shapeshift in and out of this form for the duration of Incarnation.Disorienting Roar – Invokes the spirit of Ursol to roar, disorienting all nearby enemies. Any damage caused will remove the effect. Useable in all shapeshift forms.Ursol’s Vortex – Conjures a vortex of wind at the destination location that reduces the movement speed of all nearby enemies. Useable in all shapeshift forms.Mighty Bash - Invokes the spirit of Ursoc to stun the target. Useable in all shapeshift forms.Heart of the Wild – Increases Stamina, Agility, and Intellect by 6% at all times. When activated, dramatically improves the Druid’s ability to perform roles outside of their normal specialization.Dream of Cenarius – Wrath, Starfire, Starsurge, and melee abilities increase healing done by your next healing spell by 30%. Tranquility is not affected.Nature’s Vigil – Increases all damage and healing for a short time. While active, all single-target healing spells also damage a nearby enemy target for some of the healing done, and all single-target damage spells and abilities also heal a nearby friendly target for some of the damage done.This is the list of general abilities for Druids, all specs get all of these. See below for abilities unique to each spec.
There have been a few changes and a couple of new abilities. Some of the abilities have had their level requirements changed and I’m not certain how correct these are. (WoWhead’s databases disagree.) I’ll update when possible.
As mentioned above, you now have the four specs. Dual builds are still available, so you can still pick two. The old Feral tree and been split into Feral (Cat) and Guardian (Bear.) Each spec will now have a set of abilities, not talents, unique to that spec.
Points are not spent in any ability, you will get the whole thing when you get it, and they are all learned from your trainer.
The specs are:
Balance – Super Chicken bolt lobberFeral – Kitty formGuardian – Bear formRestoration – Everyone’s favorite healing tree to hug.
These are in addition to the abilities listed above. Notice that some of these used to be talents. All of these are picked up from your trainer at the appropriate level.
Some are dead, some are abilities, some have been rolled into other things. I probably missed a few, leave a comment if you see a problem.
Sunfire, Blessing of the Grove, Feral Swiftness, Furor, Natural Shapeshifter, Naturalist, Nature’s Grace,Nature’s Majesty, Predatory Strikes, Starlight Wrath, Feral Aggression, Fury Swipes, Genesis, Improved Rejuvenation, Moonglow, Perseverance, Primal Fury, Feral Charge cat form,
Feral Charge Bear Form, Fury of Stormrage, Revitalize, Brutal Impact, Empowered Touch, Gale Winds, Nature’s Bounty, Dreamstate, Efflorescence, Endless Carnage, Natural Reaction, Nature’s Ward, Primal Madness, Blood in the Water, Gift of the Earthmother, Pulverize, Rend and Tear,
In a nutshell – The druid can both give an ability to another character (for an hour) and borrow one at the same time. Druid an player need to remain reasonably close to each other, 30 yards. The spell you receive isn’t quite as nice as the original, but is still useful. No one loses a spell, but the recipient gains it for an hour.
Keep in mind that the M of P launch is two months away as I write this, so this ability may change. Given how overpowered it might be right now, change might be very likely.
WoW Moviewatch: Not All Roleplay is Serious - Episode 7: NOOB
Work Warning: Minutely blue humor found herein.
It's been a while since we've seen a new video from Nixxiom (also known as SilverlinedPro). That makes this delicious bit of machinima even more tasty. With a somewhat painful look on those first seconds of a Tauren roleplayer's life, Not All Roleplay is Serious - Episode 7: NOOB demonstrates only the finest irony of a beginning roleplayer. Watch your flags! Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com. Tags: featured, guide-to-machinima, machinima, movies, ow-machinima, world-of-warcraft-movies, world-of-warcraft-videos, wow-created-movies, wow-fan-movies, wow-guide, wow-machinima-guide, wow-movie-guide, wow-movies, wow-video-guide, wow-videos
Blood Pact: Catching up on Patch 5.3
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill is free to pet battle all day, e'ry day. I tried to gauge when Patch 5.3 would hit so that I'd end the series on World of Logs just in time, but unfortunately I overestimated and the new patch has cut me off. With my original plan of posts, I'd be a week short, but now...uhhhh it might be a halftime break.
In case you've missed the World of Logs posts so far, here's a recap: A brief overview of ranking and the combo of how to tell what warlock or pet you would or should be looking at,Looking closer at some of the graphs on World of Logs, andHow to use the buffs and debuffs graph to gauge proper cooldown or proc usage, as well as a basic understanding of what stats (for trinket procs) do for each spec.I intend to explore some warlock-specific examples using the expression editor to dive deep into the combat log, but I'm not sure I can fit it all into one post. I'll finish the series off with a deeper look at the damage done tables and how the spells spread for each spec in general raid encounter styles.
But this week? This week is a little shorter and lighter while we go over what Patch 5.3 means for warlocks.
Obligatory information caveat: The patch notes last I looked were updated May 14th, but they could be added to or changed in between writing and patch day.
Smarter smart heals and pet avoidance: Healers' smart heals are now preferring players over pets. However, warlocks apparently already had some pretty OP avoidance pet-wise, so we won't really notice this.
Guardian chain casts! Both versions of the Doomguard and demonology's Wild Imps will now chain cast instead of having that weird cast and then wait effect going on.
Dark Intent costs less mana to cast. I suppose this is cool if you just switched specs, but even if you're Life Tapless in destruction, who cares.
Fire and Brimstone loses its ember cost, gives to affected spells. I goofed last week by accidentally sticking this sentence in with the World of Logs stuff. That'll teach me to work on two posts at the same time. Fire and Brimstone has always let destruction warlocks cast an AoE curse, but in 5.3, warlocks won't be docked a full burning ember when they activate Fire and Brimstone. The next Immolate, Incinerate, Conflagrate, or Curse will drain a full burning ember, instead.
The wording is that the Fire and Brimstone "effect remains active as long as the Warlock has at least 1 Burning Ember remaining," so I'm not sure if this means pressing Fire and Brimstone once allows a warlock to chain together two to four AoE-amplified spells. We'll see on Tuesday.
Soulburn: Health Funnel helps healing, no longer heals: My soloing attempts are saddened by this. No more OP Soulburning back my voidlord's health? Ah, well. Maybe I'll have to switch from Soul Leech to Dark Regeneration now.
Glyph of Siphon Life healing stabilized: Glyph of Siphon Life in Mists of Pandaria has been a heal worth 20% damage dealt of the primary DoT -- Corruption for affliction and demonology and Immolate for destruction. In Patch 5.3, it's changing to a flat 0.5% maximum health heal when either Corruption or Immolate deals damage. Of course, the key phrase is maximum health which can increase with various raid abilities, talent combos, or personal cooldowns.
Currently, in near-all normal-mode Throne of the Thunder gear with Dark Intent up, my warlock sits at about 550k health, so this translates to roughly a 2.7k heal per Corruption tick. On average, my Siphon Life ticks have been giving me only 1k out of the usable healing (it overheals more than half the time). In PvP, on the one hand, I'm not sure if it's a buff because DoT damage is currently very weak.
On the other hand, PvP in Patch 5.3 is changing greatly. 
Demonic Gateway is harder, better?, faster, stronger: My guild currently jokes that we're recruiting two more warlocks so everyone gets a free ride out of the tornadoes on Iron Qon 25N. Many details are changing with our party-sized portal. The cast is 3 seconds, down from 5 seconds.The first charge generates after 5 seconds (down from 13), and every 10 seconds a new charge generates (down from 15).The gateway has 100% of the warlock's health and 100% of the warlock's resilience.The gateway can now be attacked and killed by enemy players.This change is clearly for PvP, but the PvPers are less enthused about it. The gateway is going to be easier to set up and use in a tight spot, but it's now killable and not just by the warlock being across the map. Unfortunately, gateways don't have the ability to pop cooldowns or heals like we warlocks do, so who knows how long the gateway will last in PvP to focused fire.
Blood Horror ignores pets: This is bad if you wanted to scare away that pesky hunter pet or this is good if you really wanted to save it for that rogue rushing up to you.
Haunt refunds a soul shard when dispelled. This is a good thing in PvP, should you try affliction instead of destruction. I still wish missing a Haunt in PvE (delayed Dead Zone, I'm looking at you) would give me back a shard.
Warlock PvP set bonuses change:
The previous 2-piece set bonus was a cooldown reduction of 20 seconds on Unending Resolve. That still left Unending Resolve at a roughly 2.5-minute cooldown, which is only somewhat helpful in PvP. The cooldown can't be short like Sacrificial Pact or Twilight Ward because Unending Resolve can be used offensively with its protection of spellcasting.The new warlock PvP set bonuses start off with a strictly defensive 2-piece and an offensive 4-piece. The new 4-piece set bonus particularly harkens back to a comment about how affliction PvE damage is doing fine, but affliction PvP could see some more help, so perhaps this 4-piece is hinting toward that direction. 
With the base resilience of every player becoming 65%, fights are stretching out to be much longer, even with high gear disparities between participants. There is also a new effect called Battle Fatigue where damaging a player reduces the effectiveness of healing and absorb spells and abilities by 45%. While DoTs could stand to keep Battle Fatigue on a player constantly, watching some of Cobrak's Chaos Bolts hit for under 100k doesn't fill me with confidence for DoT damage prowess. Finally, we warlocks receive 40% bonus to healing from PvP Power, not that PvP Power is looking to be a good stat at all in patch 5.3.
Speaking of Cobrak, he tested out stat and gear changes for destruction warlocks in PvP on the PTR in a video here. Resilience is gone from PvP items, including the set bonuses and sockets. Sockets are PvP Power or Intellect, and the set bonuses increase PvP Power. Testing Chaos Bolt damage, intellect matched mastery, coming out on top of both PvP Power and critical strike. On regular Incinerate damage, mastery lagged a little behind intellect, but that should be obvious given that mastery only boosts ember-consuming spells. Interestingly, intellect gemming countered resilience gemming very well. Gemming defensively will mean gemming for resilience or mastery (since mastery will increase the heal on Ember Tap), and gemming offensively will mean gemming for intellect or mastery (since mastery increases the Chaos Bolt hit).
Cobrak only did destruction warlock stats, but we can draw guesses from our knowledge of the other specs' stats. PvE affliction likes haste, but PvP gear won't grant that much delicious haste. Affliction might stick to mastery better, with hopes of making the DoTs feel worth it in longer combat. It's rare that I've seen a demonology warlock in PvP, to be honest, but the obviously answer is to go for mastery as it increases caster, pet, and Metamorphosis damage.
Will PvE trinkets once again top PvP gear lists? That's the fear, but before you go trinket-hunting in LFR or regular raids, know that there are already some PvP-special effects for certain trinkets listed in the patch notes. The typical Blizzard half-nerf is to nerf the potency but lengthen the duration of a buff. When in a battleground or arena: Wushoolay's Final Choice has its proc effect reduced by 33%, but has a 100% increase to duration. I did not get the chance to test whether the duration increase affects the tick rate or not, but I'm assuming the tick length will also double.Everything else above ilevel 502 has a 50% effect reduction and a 100% duration increase.Until next time...
Patch 5.3 may possibly earn its Escalation name through nerd rages over PvP changes. It's also the start of summer, and although I have pet battles and hoping for a Hearthstone beta to keep me content, I think I will try once again to kill some Horde in PvP. It'll give me something to write about, at the very least. 
Blood Pact is a weekly column detailing DOTs, demons and all the dastardly deeds done by warlocks. We'll coach you in the fine art of staying alive, help pick the best target for Dark Intent, and steer you through tier 13 set bonuses. Tags: chaos-bolt, demonic-gateway, DoT, DoT-damage, ember-tap, featured, fire-and-brimstone, guide-to-locks, guide-to-warlocks, health-funnel, intellect, lock-guide, lock-info, lock-talents, mastery, player-versus-player, pvp, resilience, siphon-life, twilight-ward, unending-resolve, warlock-guide, warlock-info, warlock-talents, wow-lock, wow-lock-info, wow-locks, wow-warlock, wow-warlock-info, wow-warlocks
What new players need to know about WoW patches
If World of Warcraft had but one holiday, it would be Patch Day: the glorious Tuesday (or Wednesday) in which the WoW servers go down for maintenance but come back online brimming with new, unexplored content. If you're new to World of Warcraft, or MMOs in general, you may not entirely understand all the fuss the community makes over patches. So just what is a patch? Why are they so important? And how can you get your hands on one? We'll do our best to explain. What is a WoW patch?
Did you know we're playing version 5 of World of Warcraft right now? It's true: Version 1.1 was World of Warcraft's launch client and every expansion since has bumped the version number up a full number, while each patch release is a decimal place. The original game went up to patch 1.12 (the 1.1 launch client and 11 patches after), Burning Crusade (2.0) had a scant 4 patches, Wrath of the Lich King (3.0) had 3, Cataclysm (4.0) had 3, and Mists of Pandaria (5.0) is about to see the release of its 3rd patch, patch 5.3. These days, patches are coming more quickly than ever and we have no idea how many patches to expect before the next expansion arrives.
Unlike patches you might be familiar with from other software or other (non MMO) games, which might fix bugs or address problems, WoW's patches add content -- sometimes a lot of it! You might see new skills, new quests, new zones, and new dungeons rolled out in a patch. The patches are best compared to downloadable content (DLC) that you might find for other games you play. However, in WoW if you want to keep playing, you have to download and install the latest patch in order to connect to the World of Warcraft servers -- they aren't optional parts of the game experience.
What's the difference between an expansion and a patch?
Expansions are big: patches are small. A patch might add a new zone, but an expansion will probably add a new continent. Think of patches as what you're paying your subscription fees for: in addition to keeping the servers running and the lights on at Blizzard HQ, you're also paying Blizzard for new content. Expansions are much larger chunks of content which have their own, additional fee for purchase.
Why all the fuss over patches?
Blizzard's patches for WoW include can include lots of gameplay changes -- and not every player will agree that all of them are good. Before a patch rolls out, players are eager for news of how their class will fare in the coming patch: will they be buffed? Will they be nerfed? Blizzard makes calls like this based on overall game balance rather than a particular player's wants, so with each patch you'll find a lot of discussion, speculation, cheering, and complaining. And since WoW players love to chat about their favorite pastime, you won't always find this stopping once the patch comes out. 
What is the PTR?
You've probably heard the term "PTR" tossed around in advance of a new WoW patch. The PTR is the Public Test Realm, where Blizzard releases early versions of patches for players to test out. How long content is on the PTR and when it arrives on the PTR is entirely up to Blizzard: when they have new content ready for players to see, they'll open the PTR and when the patch officially launches they'll close it again. Though a lot of pre-patch chatter is based off content on the PTR, nothing about a patch is for sure until Blizzard finalizes it for the live realms. The patch data up on the PTR can -- and usually does! -- change between its initial roll out on the PTR and its final release on the live servers.
For more on the PTR -- or if you want to do some play testing yourself -- check out Blizzard's PTR FAQ.
Just when is patch day?
Patches will always be applied during WoW's weekly maintenance, which is on Tuesday for North American and Australian realms and Wednesday for European realms. Smaller hotfixes, which fix bugs or other problems, are sometimes applied between patches and, if the problem the hotfix is addressing is serious enough, may go out at any time instead of waiting for maintenance.
Following Blizzard's philosophy of only releasing content when it's done, patches don't come out on any specific schedule. However, Blizzard usually gives a few days' warning before a new patch is expected to land. In the case of patch 5.3, they told us on Friday that the patch would be rolling out the following Tuesday and Wednesday. 
How do I get the new patch?
When you fire up World of Warcraft's launcher, one of the things it does before letting you in to the game is check to see if there's any patch data to download. If there is, it will start downloading it immediately -- usually, it will start before the patch's official release, downloading anything Blizzard has finalized so you won't have a huge download on patch day.
However, there will still be downloading on patch day: when you fire up the client, it will prevent you from logging in until the patch is downloaded. There's a certain amount of essential data it has to download and install before you can play (the download bar will appear red while it downloads necessary components). Once it's grabbed essential data, the bar will turn yellow and you can log in while it finishes downloading in the background: though you may not have a flawless gameplay experience. When it's completely finished downloading, the bar will appear green and you're good to go without any problems.
We typically find the downloader to work perfectly, but if you're having problems, check out Blizzard's patch troubleshooting information.
Now you know all you need to know to celebrate this week's patch day holiday! Just because you're a newbie doesn't mean you can't bring your A-game to World of Warcraft! Visit the WoW Rookie Guide for links to everything you need to get started as a new player, from the seven things every newbie ought to know to how to get started as a healer or as a tank. Tags: featured, guide, how-to-play-wow, new-to-world-of-warcraft, noob-guide, patch, patch-5.3, patch-day, patches, ptr, rookie-guide, world-of-warcraft-guide, world-of-warcraft-help, world-of-warcraft-noobs, world-of-warcraft-rookies, wow-guide, wow-help, wow-noob-guide, wow-noobs, wow-patch, wow-patch-5.3, wow-patch-day, wow-patches, wow-ptr, wow-to-play-world-of-warcraft
Know Your Lore: Gul'dan, Doomhammer, and the nature of the Horde
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Garrosh Hellscream is many things. He's brash, headstrong, arrogant, concerned for his people, determined to deliver the whole of Azeroth into their dominion no matter what anyone thinks about it, but one thing is clear. He's not Gul'dan. For all the grief I like to give Horde players (mainly because it's easy to rile Horde players up, I know, I raided as Horde for all of Cataclysm and a good chunk of Mists) It's true that on the surface, the Horde of today has changed greatly from the Horde Gul'dan created.
The Horde as it exists today is the spiritual successor of the Horde that Orgrim Doomhammer created when he seized power. Was Doomhammer a kindly, soft spoken orc who loved kittens and rainbows? No. No he was not. He was an orc who had come to power as the right hand of Blackhand the Destroyer, a hunter and a warrior who had spent his entire life in combat. He was strong, devoted to his people, and absolutely committed to an orc victory no matter the odds. In a way, minus Garrosh's bluster and bravado, the orc he most resembles from the history of the old Horde is Orgrim Doomhammer. 
Doomhammer understood the harsh algebra of victory, how it often demands actions that would sicken or shock another orc. It was Doomhammer who allowed Gul'dan to create the first Death Knights, countenancing Gul'dan's atrocious misuse of human corpses and the spirits of his own acolytes, acolytes Gul'dan himself murdered and then implanted into those human bodies. It was Doomhammer who supported the plan to use the Demon Soul to capture the Red Dragonqueen, Alexstrasza, and it was by Doomhammer's command as Warchief of the Horde that Alexstrasza was forced to breed incessantly so that her offspring could be used as fodder for the Horde. For all that Doomhammer cared deeply for his people's welfare, his vision never moved past them, nor did he ever see that he'd become part and parcel of a system created by Gul'dan in the first place to mislead and subjugate his own people. Even in victory, Doomhammer was trapped in Gul'dan's web. And his ultimate defeat came from Gul'dan, who proved himself to be the ultimate opportunist.
The problem was and still is fairly simple. The Horde as it exists now dates back to Gul'dan's need for a structure to shape and direct the nomadic clans in a singular purpose. He did not invent the Horde, precisely. There were traditions dating back to the distant past when the orcs were fighting for their lives against the gronn and their ogre descendants of a unified force, commanded by a single orc, that could come together and deal with the ancient enemy. When Ner'zhul convinced the various orc clans to make war on the draenei (misled as he was by Kil'Jaeden) he didn't try and organize them any further than simply giving them directives under the auspices of his position as the most renowned shaman of the orcish people, but Gul'dan saw the need for organization both to placate Kil'Jaeden and as a means to more surely ensure the end of the draenei people. It didn't hurt that with the decision to sell his people into demonic slavery for greater personal power Gul'dan realized that the orcs would become impossible for him to directly control. They were already a proud and aggressive race of nomads who disliked the idea of a centralized government and who engaged in conflict both with the ogres and among each other. Even before they drank the blood of Mannoroth, they were unlikely to follow someone like Gul'dan. 
Gul'dan's masterstroke was the creation of two organizations. To those former shaman who lost their power to command the elements he offered the Shadow Council, a means to the demonic powers of the warlock. To the vast majority of the orcish people, whose souls now burned with the unholy frenzy of the blood curse, he offered the Horde. Led by Blackhand the Destroyer, a physically powerful orc with ambition that far exceeded his intellect, the Horde would serve Gul'dan's plans without the danger of actually being seen to be in charge. Meanwhile, the Shadow Council of warlocks would give Gul'dan a means to direct the occult might of the Horde as he saw fit, and served to allow him to manipulate the Horde from behind many guises. And for the entirety of the war against the draenei as well as the invasion of Azeroth, Gul'dan was satisfied with the arrangement.
It wasn't until he got greedy that things fell apart. The Shadow Council created in Garona an agent who would execute their will, infiltrate the humans (as a half-draenei, she was conditioned to believe she was in fact half-human) and ultimately strike down the human king, Llane Wrynn. It was all going according to plan until Gul'dan's silent partner Medivh was struck down by his former friends and allies Khadgar and Anduin Lothar, and Gul'dan attempted to telepathically steal the secrets of Sargeras from the dying Guardian's mind. Instead, he nearly died with him. In so doing, Gul'dan exposed the true weakness of both the Shadow Council and the Horde.
The Shadow Council could not direct itself absent from Gul'dan. He had ensured that his was the driving will. There was no consensus, no loyalty between council members - each served at Gul'dan's pleasure and intrigued against each other, which kept them from uniting and attempting to overthrow Gul'dan himself. Similarly, with the Shadow Council at each other's throats, Warchief Blackhand was incapable of directing the Horde minus their input. He wasn't a strategist, he was a jumped up thug better at crushing heads than using his own, more cunning than smart. It was this moment of chaos, when Blackhand couldn't find his footing, that Doomhammer exploited. He challenged his Warchief and tribal leader to combat, killed him, and assumed control both over the Blackrock clan and the Horde entire. While a united Shadow Council under Gul'dan could and would have taken steps to remove Doomhammer or bring him in line (the very reason he hadn't moved against Blackhand before) in their fragmented state, with Gul'dan lying comatose, Doomhammer easily removed their subtle control of the Horde by killing most of them.
Ironically, in the very moment of their destruction, the Shadow Council's agent did indeed murder King Llane Wrynn, paving the way for the orcish Horde to destroy Stormwind. Still, Doomhammer was now Warchief of a Horde committed to conquest on an alien planet, one that had under Gul'dan and the Shadow Council left their own world tainted and dying. Doomhammer never even considered negotiation with the humans. It's possible that his world view was simply too shaped by Draenor, a hostile world where the only path to peace with the ogres had been their subjugation, or that the war against the draenei had shaped him without his realizing it. Despite never having drunk demon blood, despite his personal misgivings (whatever they may have been) Doomhammer committed himself and his people to the destruction of the humans who had never offered him or his people any insult, just as he participated in the annihilation of the draenei. And he did so using the same methods as the Horde had under Gul'dan. Indeed, he did so using Gul'dan himself.
This is why I said before that on the surface the Horde today has changed greatly from Gul'dan's Horde, because at the very moment that Doomhammer killed Blackhand and assumed total power, he brought Gul'dan into the ranks of the Horde and made use of his own slain Shadow Council as the first of his new death knights. The position of Warchief, a figurehead when Blackhand held it, now held real power but Doomhammer never used that power to reform the Horde in any substantive way. He didn't seem a return to shamanism, but instead put warlocks like Gul'dan in positions of power. Gul'dan was even allowed to lead an entire clan, the Stormreavers, in addition to his loyal servants among the Twilight's Hammer. (It's telling that, with Gul'dan dead, only the Old Gods could command the loyalty of the Twilight's.) And yes, in the end Gul'dan betrayed Doomhammer and the Horde, as everyone always knew he would.
It was this failure on Doomhammer's part to purge the Horde that resonates to the present day. Thrall's attempt to preserve Doomhammer's legacy has allowed Gul'dan's original Horde to exist like a cancer eating away at the Horde entire - even Garrosh, who emulates Doomhammer in his ways, preserves this 'Victory at any cost' mentality that allows Gul'dan's legacy to continue. As long as the Horde will do anything for victory, Gul'dan will remain as a presence within the modern Horde. 
While you don't need to have played the previous Warcraft games to enjoy World of Warcraft, a little history goes a long way toward making the game a lot more fun. Dig into even more of the lore and history behind the World of Warcraft in WoW Insider's Guide to Warcraft Lore. Tags: Doomhammer, featured, Garona, Garona-Halforcen, guide, guide-to-lore, Guldan, Horde, Kiljaeden, lore, lore-guide, Nerzhul, Orgrim-Doomhammer, role-play, role-playing-guide, rp-guide, world-of-warcraft-lore, wow-guide, wow-lore, wow-role-playing, wow-role-playing-guide, wow-rp, wow-rp-guide, wow-rping
Breakfast Topic: Should Blizzard brake base XP while preserving boosts for experienced players?
We recently explored how you felt about alternate characters, whether you believe they should represent true alternatives to your first character or whether they should remain secondary to a more fully developed main. Either way, there's no stuffing rapid leveling back into the bag. WoW's current leveling design pushes players forward relentlessly, whether they're experienced gamers or not. The problem is that today's leveling pace already outstrips zone content, quest lines, gearing -- you name it. Should Blizzard apply the brakes to base XP while still permitting seasoned WoW players to choose to move more rapidly? Consider this: What if the leveling experience weren't tuned to catapult players so quickly through and past leveling zones and dungeons? What if the pace were a little looser, giving new players more time to soak up the leveling game itself -– and then at the same time, the current XP boosts were spread across tools designed for experienced players who choose to hop, skip, and jump their way to 90?
The precedents are there -- just look at the heirloom armor system. Today, you can buy Grand Commendations to boost various reputations for your characters once you've played through them once. And remember when everyone was buying the Tome of Cold Weather Flight for their alts? The tools are already in place. From leveling XP to reputation gains to player convenience, the helping hand of a level-capped main character is key.
Do you think WoW's leveling experience should remain something to be played through quickly and efficiently, even for brand new players, or do you think there's merit to allowing that part of the game to move at a more deliberate pace? Would you support more mechanics that give experienced players a way to speed up leveling for their alts, preserving a slower pace for new players and players who enjoy slower leveling? If you like a strong emphasis on mechanics like heirlooms and commendations, should those tools be simple, affordable purchases for any level 90 player, or should they take some time, effort, or money to earn? Tags: alts, featured, game-discussion, gamer-discussion, leveling, main, main-character, world-of-warcraft-discussion, world-of-warcraft-topics, wow-discussion, wow-hot-topics, wow-issues, wow-topics, xp
Filed under: Breakfast TopicsWednesday, May 29, 2013
The 5.1 Patch, Landfall, has Landed
Mists of Pandaria is, in part, about the war between the Horde and the Alliance.
Landfall turns that up a notch. It brings the Krasarang Wilds battlefield, where both factions will be able to slaughter each other, especially on PvP servers. New quest hubs and new scenarios in that area will insure that Horde and Alliance are in each other’s faces, constantly. If you’re on a PvP server and not yet 90 you should get there soon and get into some PvP gear ASAP.
Will guilds be forming groups to clear the opposing factions from their areas? They already seem to be doing just that in places. If you’re on an RP server then this should be a pretty good excuse to play up the war. PvE servers will be a lot lower stress. 
The Alliance’s Operation Shieldwall and the Horde’s Dominance Offensive are looking for skilled operatives, you and your associates, to inconvenience (Ok, OK… slaughter) the other side. RPers can play up Garrosh Hellscream’s destruction of Theramore and the Alliance’s response to same.
Players will be able to kill NPCs, important ones, as well as other players. Commendations can be earned from this and they can be used to upgrade your base. Other rewards will have similar faction enhancing value. This does bring up the question of how well this will work on highly imbalanced servers…
No one talks about the Brawler’s Guild. It’s really just a myth to scare young adventurers, but if you happen to find yourself with an invitation…
The Bliz patch notes are here. In this post I’ll include things that stand out for me. MMO-CHampion has some 5.1 hotfixes, for Nov. 29.
Gear upgrades – for 1,500 honor/conquest/justice/valor points you will be able to upgrade superior or epic gear by a maximum of 8 item levels. The gear has to be a minimum of iLevel 458. This will give you an excuse to keep raiding/PvPing after you have your desired gear set.
Brawler’ s guild? What Brawler’s guild? You mean the one that lets you test your ability against tough monsters and NPCs? That lets you win bragging rights, rewards, and additional activities? The one that you have to receive or find an invitation to be able to attend? Never heard of it.
Class Abilities have undergone the usual collection of buffs, nerfs, and adjustments. All the classes received at least a tweak (and for once DKs do not head the list of “most fixes.” Maybe they’re about where Bliz wants them to be?) Check the patch notes page for details, there’s some important stuff there.
Spirits of Harmony can be purchased for 600 Conquest points from the Conquest quartermaster. These are needed by crafters for most of their high end stuff. Currently it doesn’t look like they can be bought elsewhere. So your crafter, if she wants to make the good stuff, will either have to grind the motes, hope you get a spirit from a daily quest reward, or do enough rated PvP to buy them.
Enchants: if you’re into understanding exactly how things are calculated then note that the Dancing Steel, Jade Spirit, Colossus, and River’s Song enchantments now use the Real PPM system utilized by Windsong and Elemental Force.
Pet battles – There are a lot of battle-pet notes, see the patch notes for details. Some of those notes are for bug fixes, others for increased availability of acquiring pets, and so on. Here are some high points:
You can upgrade your battle pets with Battle Stones. These come in two types and two qualities: General stones upgrade any pet and Specific stones will upgrade a pet within one particular pet family. Stones can be either polished or flawless, the former upgrades your pet to Uncommon, the latter to Rare.General purpose Polished Battle-stones can be purchased for 1000 Justice Points. There are other ways to obtain stones.Players can now keep up to 650 pets.Several classic Raid bosses now have a chance to drop new Battle Pets. The new pets can be obtained from bosses in Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, Ahn’Qiraj, and Naxxramas.Farming at Sunsong Ranch. Looks for a Barnaby Fletcher at Halfhill Market, he sells seeds that grow into items that act as Mage Portals.Miscelleneous
Raid groups are no longer necessary to enter pre-Mists of Pandara raid dungeons. If you’ve been taking your 90 through the old raids you will no longer have to beg your guild to find someone willing to team with you.90s will be able to smash face in Tol Barad and Wintergrasp.A new banner will appear when a player is subjected to an effect that causes them to lose control of their character. The effect that caused the loss of control and remaining duration will be displayed. (Video below)This new feature lets everyone know when they’ve lost some or all control of their character (roots, silences, etc.) and how much time remains. This has some of the functionality of the popular PvP addon: LoseControl
You can change some of the settings or disable the thing in your interface panel.
To get into those juicy dailies and PvP/PvE events as quickly as possible.
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Patch 5.3 PvP changes
From a PvP perspective, patch 5.3 is one of the biggest patches in a really long time. A really, really long time! WoW Insider has been covering the changes from a PvP angle to a pretty reasonable extent, from the first moment the resilience changes were announced, through the new arena and the new battleground, right up to the more recent alterations to tank damage and the like. All our coverage is collected in one easy place, so do check it out if you're searching for more information. So we've struck upon a few changes already, but let's dig into the patch notes and provide some additional clarity. I've pulled out the PvP-specific items from the patch notes, but if you want to see them in full, that's absolutely fine too.
These are the really big, key changes. What does it all mean? Well, your PvE gear is now essentially slightly underpowered PvP gear. It'll be downscaled inside instances, so its item level is on a par with that of PvP gear. However, PvP gear has a key advantage, and that advantage is PvP Power. While we won't be seeing the same increased damage levels of up to 60% as we're used to seeing on live servers, PvP Power will still be generating a huge chunk of extra damage over PvE gear, which is downscaled, as I mentioned.
Looking at the healing side of things, PvP power now contributes an extra 100% to healing. This is a lot higher than the patch 5.2 numbers, and Battle Fatigue, the debuff that lessens player healing on other players in PvP has been increased accordingly. The devs have aimed to maintain the same or similar levels of healing as we're used to on live servers, but a notable change is that hybrid classes will now have a boost from PvP power to their self-heals, and heals they can put on other players. It's important to note that this does also include tanking classes.
Taking this section of the patch notes in tandem with that above, you'll note that resilience is gone from PvP gear, after its long stay with us in WoW. This is because everyone now has 65% base resilience, as we mentioned earlier. Don't panic. It's also worth noting that this change does not carry on down through lower levels, so you'll likely still find your resilience gear there, along with the standard base resilience of 40%. It is worth noting that players do have the option to rework their resilience a little with gems and enchants, if they wish, but these have also been nerfed quite considerably. Consider what are traditionally PvE gems for PvP, and do keep an eye on the various theorycrafters for analysis of the new gems and enchants. Things may well change, and it's going to take PvPers a little while to shake off the old habits of years of resilience and PvP-specific gemming or enchanting.
As promised, conquest weapons no longer have a points-earned requirement for their purchase, and what's more the Catch-Up Cap for conquest is in place, meaning that players can earn up to 12,000, if they have earned no other conquest this season, from the first time they log in after the patch until they are caught up. For the high-end PvPers, there's both enchants and tabards to show the world that high rating! Item upgrades are also available for PvP gear, but only for season 12 gear. Players who have earned over the 25,000 conquest cap in the season will be able to purchase conquest gear for honor.
It is very important to note, as Brian Holinka clarified in an interview yesterday, that the role check is not likely to affect queue times, and therefore will not result in players queueing as heals when they intend to DPS. The way the system works is that, when there are enough players queued to create a battleground match, the system assesses how many healers are available, and allocates the same number to each team, with a tolerance of one. So, if there are seven healers in the queueing pool, one side will get three and the other will get four. If there are only two, then each side will get one healer. This system does not work like raid finder, where groups need pre-defined numbers of healers, tanks and DPS to start.
We've already discussed the scaling, as well as covering the tanking nerfs in a previous article, so if you're looking for more information on these or any other aspect of the patch notes, do check out WoW Insider's Patch 5.3 PvP coverage. Do you want to capture flags, invade cities, attack towers, and dominate the enemy for your faction? Do you dream of riding your War Bear with pride? We'll steer you to victory with secrets of Battlegrounds and Arena, prepping you with proven addons and keybindings that win! Send questions or comments to olivia@wowinsider.com. Tags: arena, arena-guide, arena-strats, arena-tips, arenas, featured, guide, how-to-play-battlegrounds, how-to-pvp, patch-5.3, patch-5.3-pvp, pvp-guide, wow-arena, wow-arena-guide, wow-guide
The Priest in Mists of Pandaria
There are some changes coming with Mists of Pandaria
The Prime Glyphs slots are gone, but some of those glyphs have been rolled into the Major glyphs. Minor Glyphs are now pretty much cosmetic only.
The wand slot is gone, though you can still use wands.
Release is still a month away, so some changes will still be coming. We’ll update appropriately as we find them.
Comments? Thoughts? Questions? Use the comment box at the bottom of the page.
The talent page. This is about what you will see when you check the talents on your Priest. Any Priest spec can pick any one talent from each row. You will have six total talents at level 90. All of the old talents (and some of the old abilities) have been either slain or rolled into these talents or the current abilities.
Some of these have obvious PvP use or are utility talents.
In Mists you will be able to swap talents exactly the way you do with glyphs. You will need one dose of the appropriate level item and then you can change any one talent. So if you need to change something and have no ready access to your trainer, you can do so. If you’re inclined to do a lot of swapping then keep a full stack of the appropriate materials:
Up to level 80: Vanishing powder81to 85: Dust of Disappearance86+ Tome of the Clear Mind.Void tendrils – roots a group of targets. Maybe better for PvP, but offers some control for A of E times in PvE.Psyfiend will send mobs fleeing all over the place, but might be fun in PvP.Angelic Feather – place feathers at up to three locations, people moving through the feathers get a speed buff. You can also cast it right on a target and on yourself. With a litle care this looks like it could be quite useful.Body and Soul increases the target’s movement speed, briefly, when you cast Power World Shield or Leap of Faith on them.Phantasm greatly improved your Fade ability and looks like it’d be very nice in PvP.From Darkness Comes Light – Vampiric Touch ticks give a chance for a free, instant, Mind Blast with increased damage and that doesn’t consume your DoTs.Mindbender replaces your Shadowfiend. It’s attacks restore your mana.Angelic Bulwark throws up a shield to protect you when you go below 30% health. Again, this looks like more PvP use than PvE.Twist of Fate – Finish Him! you do more damage as the target gets low in healthPower Infusion increases casting speed and reduces mana costs for 20 seconds. Nice for when that burst is needed.Divine Insight: Your SW; Pain ticks have a chance to proc free Mind Blasts.Halo: A Ring of Power extends outward from your location damaging enemies and healing friends and doing max power at 25 yards. This one just sounds cool and might a pretty nice in a raid or mass fight.Cascade: Your Holy Bolt bounces from target to target, doing damage to each, preferring longer range targets and never hitting the same one twice.Divine Star: Your star blasts outward, staight away from you, damaging enemies and healing allies along its path, and does the same on its return.Previously all Priests shared a pool of abilities and the talents defined the individual specializations (specs.) In Mists of Pandaria each spec will share a pool of common abilities as before, then they will each have their own set of unique talents. You will pick each of these up from your trainer at the appropriate level.
All Priests will receive all of these abilities at the appropriate level. New or greatly changed talents are linked. Some of the old abilities have moved to become specialization abilities.
Some of the old talents have been moved, others have died. Some of the dead talents are dead in name only, their effects having been moved to other talents.
As mentioned above the Prime glyphs are gone. Major glyphs now enhance the functionality of your spells and the minor glyphs offer cosmetic changes. All glyphs are level 25 and you can only have three of each, total, at level 75+.
Around Azeroth: Close encounters of the blurry kind
"As I was leveling herbalism in Westfall, I noticed something unusual," writes submitter Jkal of Alexstrasza (US-A). "A white, glowing blur would zoom across the landscape about five feet up in the air. I couldn't target it and it was fast. It was like nothing I'd seen before in game. It would always head towards Longshore and disappear. I think I got a picture. But I still don't know what it is. Sure looks like a UFO to me. This one was stationary when I found it. It just slowly blinked out as I stood there watching."
Want to see your own screenshot here? Send it to aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com. We strongly prefer full-sized pictures with no UI or names showing. Include "Azeroth" in the subject line to ensure your submission dodges email spam filters; if you'd like to be credited, also include your name, guild and realm. Tags: around azeroth, around-azeroth, AroundAzeroth, featured, screen-shots, screenshots, world-of-warcraft-pictures, world-of-warcraft-screenshots, wow-screen-shots, wow-screenshot, wow-screenshots, wow-ssFiled under: Around AzerothPatch 5.3 hotfixes for May 21
Patch 5.3 is officially live on servers -- and of course, with a new patch, we've got a new round of hotfixes. While there are some class tweaks for druids, monks, paladins and shaman, most of the changes involve new content. Or in the case of one change, an adjustment to older content that ought to make pet collectors and Karazhan farmers very happy.In the Chess Event over in Karazhan, the delay between moves for enemy chess pieces has been increased.Out in the Battlefield: Barrens, map markers for caravans that have been destroyed ought to be properly removed from the world map. In addition, overturned caravans should now despawn properly.In scenarios, the issue causing shape-shifted players to not shape-shift back into the correct race has been fixed.Read on for the full list of hotfixes!Tags: featured, hotfixes, patch-5.3, patch-5.3-hotfixes, wow-hotfix, wow-hotfixesFiled under: Hotfixes
Patch 5.3: Known issues
It's often the case that more patches means more problems, and while the majority of Patch 5.3: Escalation is running like clockwork, there are a few hiccups popping up along the way. WoW Insider reported on one late last night: the issues with the Tyrannical Conquest achievement. This achievement, awarded when a player has earned 25,000 conquest points in a season, also allows players to purchase conquest gear for honor. It was being awarded far too early, and allowing players who weren't entitled to do so to buy that Tyrannical gear for honor. A hotfix was swiftly implemented, blocking purchases from the vendor selling Tyrannical gear for honor, and a fix to the achievement is in the works. The devs are also working hard on a fix that allows players to resurrect inside Lorewalker Cho's Seat of Knowledge room above Mogushan -- this contested territory is the base for the first run of new scenarios, so was seeing heavy traffic from both factions, and is out of reach from the normal resurrection run.
And what's more, Deepwind Gorge, the new battleground in patch 5.3, has been temporarily pulled from the rated battleground rotation, thanks to problems with base captures. Lastly, there are also reported problems with sound-generating addons such as Deadly Boss Mods, but WoW Insider has only been able to replicate this in certain situations. For the rest of the issues, hit the break!
Environment Gnomes can get stuck in chairs around tables in Bizmo's BrawlpubThe minimap of the exterior section in the Troves of the Thunder King scenario area is appearing bright green.
Combat Buff and debuff tooltips are not always scaling to reflect the correct values.Priest - The spell animation for the Shadow spec version of Divine Star will sometimes not display, unlike the Discipline and Holy versions.Druid - Treants summoned by Force of Nature are returning to the caster before engaging in combat.Warlock - Command Demon does not change into its pet specific version when the Warlock summons the pet type for the first time.The Role Check confirmation window only appears on the first time your party queues for a battleground.Selecting your Battleground role during the group role check will not cause your chosen role to be reflected in the UI.
UI Starter Editions are unable to engage in Pet Battles.Players sometimes do not receive credit when defeating a boss on the quest "Beast of Fable"The Bonus Roll sound may continue to play after rolling. A relog will fix this. (permanently – once relogged it will not continually loop againThe human portrait for Worgens does not always appear while in the Barbershop chair.Allowing a role check for Battlegrounds to expire will generate the "A role check has been initiated." message.Quests The quest "Into the Depths" does not award credit for killing Leyara if the player is not top threat.Players are unable to complete the quest if Taran Zhu is damaged after becoming a quest giver during "Lord of the Shado-Pan"."Infiltrating the Black Temple" does not grant credit to the warlock if the player is dead at the time of the completion event firing.Players who have earned the achievement A Test of Valor will be unable to track the achievement progress on a second character during the quest "A Test of Valor"
Items & Tradeskills Players are not able to place the legendary meta-gems into upgraded ilvl 496 helms.Dungeons, Raids, & Scenarios In Nalak's Dungeon Journal loot tab, opposite faction items are not filtered out.Tags: breaking, DBM, deadly-boss-mods, lore-walker-cho, Lorewalker-Cho, lorewalker-cho-room, patch-5.3, patch-5.3-pvp, patch-5.3-pvp-changes, patch-5.3-pvp-vendors, scenario-room, seat-of-knowledgeFiled under: Mists of Pandaria
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