Favorite Zones by Level

Undead > Worgen >>> Blood Elves > Goblins >> Night Elves > Humans > Orcs > Trolls > Gnomes/Dwarves > Draenai >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Tauren

Seriously, Tauren starting zone BLOWS.  Undead and Worgen zones flow, have a cool story, and lead into an even more awesome zone.  Blood elves have a neat, pretty, and well put together zone that leads into my favorite quest zone, Ghostlands.  Goblins have a neat story, but there's a LOT of running around.  Then stuff starts to get dreary with Night Elves, Humans, Orcs, Trolls, Gnomes, Dwarves, and Draenai with the amount of running around.  Taurens...well, let's just say I refused to level a Tauren.  My lone Tauren is a Death Knight so I could skip Mulgore.  Mulgore's component of Loremaster made my eyes bleed, and that was with a flying mount.

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Raid item level

It's so true. I could cut people when they stand in things. Lol! Or when I see our ranged DPS not go to our melee with chains on Stone Guards. XD I'm like, "HEY! Move yo' butt over thar! NAOTHNX!" They giggle, because this is actually how I talk. I don't get mad, they're such sweet people and we have a blast. I hope you have much luck in your raid, Garrodith. Also, to Cruzan - HERRO fellow Sparkle Ranger! > *waves spastically*

Anywho, if you need any help with your gems or chants, picking which one is best, I'm sure you know to check out the Druid guide here in Icy Veins, no doubt. However, like many things, it's all subject to your own play-style. So, then feel free to ask opinions if you don't agree, or want to try something new. ^^ Good luck to you!

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Raid item level

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Level 80 paladin solos some Mogu'shan Vaults bosses, gets Vengeance hotfixed

A great video is making the rounds right now of an exceptional player using some unintended consequences to solo multiple bosses in Mogu'shan Vaults -- and as a protection-specced paladin no less! He apparently downed Stone Guard, Feng, and Elegon before Blizzard caught wind of the escapade. You can see a video of the Elegon kill above.

How he pulled this off was by taking advantage of a series of design choices that Blizzard made, combining them all into a hilarious example of the law of unintended consequences in action.

To reach a decent item level, the paladin equipped various bind on equip rares that drop in Mists zones which all had a required character level of only 80. And because he was only level 80, he was avoiding the combat ratings drop-offs for levels 81 and 86 that a normal character wearing those pieces would be subjected too. This would allow him to get an insane amount of secondary stats like haste (I've seen that he had 95%!) and mastery (88%, apparently).

Watching the video, it's crazy to see the numbers that he was throwing out. With amount of damage he was taking, the paladin was easily rocking between 2 and 2.5 million attack power from Vengeance. And because Vengeance did not have a cap, there was really no upper limit on how much attack power could be generated, other than how much damage the boss could deal out.

As a result, this was making every Seal of Insight tick heal for at least twice his maximum HP, and Sacred Shield was fully absorbing any attacks he took. Likewise, it looks like with all the haste he had, the actual absorb effect from Sacred Shield was constantly up and constantly being refreshed. Not to mention the damage reduction boost his Shield of the Righteous was getting from all that mastery.

Perhaps the most important cog in the whole enterprise was the use of a bug in the code with Shield of the Righteous. There is a lot more than I care to detail (because it seems to be an overly clever use of mechanics) but one can game SoTR in a way that would result in a ton of Vengeance and, combined with the paladin's obscene mastery numbers, he was getting Vengeance numbers that shouldn't normally be possible. Uncapped -- of course -- thanks to a pre-Mists change to Vengeance.

Since this first appeared a few days, reports have surfaced that Blizzard appears to have responded by nerfing Vengeance with a hotfix, capping it at max health. They seem to have no plans to go after the 409 iLevel gear that aided and abetted this caper. Action is sure to come on the Vengeance calculation bug. Tags: breaking, elegon, Feng-the-Accursed, hotfix, Mogushan-Vaults, paladin, protection-paladin, solo, soloing, stone-guard, vengeance, vengeance-nerf

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Patch 5.2: Raid Finder item level not set in stone

In another example of "this is just the PTR," Nethaera notes that the item level for the next tier in the raid finder is not set in stone yet. We've seen Blizzard fluctuate on the iLevel requirements for LFR before, and we're likely to see it again.

This is important figure to watch for many people because the iLevel on the PTR's LFR would be unreachable at release for a bit. On the PTR you need an iLevel of 486 to enter LFR, while the current LFR only drops 483 gear. That three point gap would need to be made up with normal raid gear, some crafted gear, upgraded items, or valor gear -- all of which are not necessarily accessible to everyone (yes, they might be for you and your friends, but remember, WoW is huge and there's people that only do LFR).

Neth's brief statement is as follows:

NethaeraI think you've hit the nail on the head by saying it's a PTR. That's the most important thing to remember. We'll do our best to keep you informed on where we end up with the item level for the Raid Finder when we can.

One additional way the inevitable iLevel jump to the new LFR will be softened is through increased drop rates on the current tier of LFR, which Ghostcrawler let us know yesterday will be happening. Will it be enough to not make the gear grind terrible, if not impossible? Probably, although this is one of those things that the only real way to tell is when the data is there from the live servers, and millions of players are trying things out.

Either way, Blizzard is keeping an eye on things, and they're quite flexible -- so don't take the PTR for more than what it is; a test realm.

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Patch 5.2: Thunder King LFR item level requirement reduced

The patch 5.2 LFR item level requirement. It's been an extremely hot topic lately, and Blizzard has been listening. Today Taepsilum mentioned that the requirement has been reduced to 480, down from the previous high of 486.

This should make it much easier to get into the new LFR, as current LFR gear has an item level of 483. Keeping the new number just slightly below the current number should allow for those drops that just won't happen, and give players a bit more flexibility on off-spec sets as well.

Keep in mind this is all on the PTR, and as Neth reminded us earlier this week, things can and often do change. Taepsilum's statement is as follows:

TaepsilumJust wanted to share some updated info we have with you guys: At this moment our intent is to change Thunder King's LFR ilvl requirement to 480, we also want to lower the Honor gear in patch 5.2 from 483 to 476, compensating with some bonus PvP stats, so that the gear remains as powerful for PvP but not allow players to use it as a quick shortcut into LFR.

Like always, everything is subject to change, we're still in PTR stage folks! And we all know that even on live things can still change, while we always [strive] to avoid doing that (and that's why we have a PTR), gameplay comes first, so if a change is urgently needed, we do our best to apply it as fast as possible.

Tags: breaking, patch-5.2, patch-5.2-item-level, wow-patch-5.2

Filed under: News items, Raiding

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Night elf priest iron-mans to level 90 with no greens, no talents, and no deaths

It's a world first for night elf priest Lyssan of Vek'linash (US), who has bypassed death, gearing, talents -- all the conveniences of modern-day Azeroth -- to hit level 90 in the player-created WoW Ironman Challenge. A report like this would normally include the winner's class specialization and gearing, but not for this player, yet the Ironman's brutal ruleset prohibits not only those basics but also death itself.

That's right: If you die during the WoW Ironman Challenge, you re-roll. Period.

Here's a look at the grim core rules of the challenge:
No items equipped other than white or gray items.No heirlooms.No talent points -- no specialization. You may train class abilities.No professions, primary or secondary, other than First Aid.No food or water above vendor-quality white items.No groups -- no BGs, no instances, no raids, no quest groups. No guilds.No enchants, scrolls, potions, elixirs, or glyphs.No outside financial or equipment assistance (including gold or bags from other characters).The Big One: If you die, ever, you delete that character and start over at level 1.The next closest participant in the Mists leg of this event is currently level 87. Kripparrian, the player-run hard-mode competition's former title-holder in Cataclysm at level 85, does not appear to have leveled in Mists of Pandaria.

We'll have a full interview with the triumphant Lyssan next week, after she takes a well-earned holiday rest! (And if it were me, I think I'd go out and die a few times, just for sheer relief ...)
Tags: hard-mode, hard-mode-wow, hardcore, hardcore-wow, ironman, ironman-challenge, leveling, Lyssan, no-death, no-deaths, player-generated-content, player-run-events, world-of-warcraft-ironman-challenge, wow-ironman-challenge

Filed under: News items

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