Ask a Beta Tester: Mounts, threat meters, and tabards
by Alex Ziebart 
Sep 19th 2008 at 11:00AM
andyjay220 asked...
How have people liked the new threat meter? I have tried PTR but I don't really understand it as I am used to Omen. As far as I can tell the only information it gives you is "YOU NOW HAVE 100% AGGRO" which isn't very helpful. I want to see a meter showing how far away from pulling aggro I am so i can gauge my attacking accordingly. Any way someone could explain it to me?
The threat meter's UI is pretty simplistic. It displays yellow when you're close to pulling aggro, and red when you've done it. It's accurate, but hard to gauge how close you really are. It shows the percentage in your tooltip... but that's a strange place for it. It won't replace things like Omen (when it's updated for 3.0.2) but its addition will allow Omen and similar mods to be much more accurate.
Of course, for things like 5-man dungeons, you don't need to the nitty gritty numbers, really. There's very little reason to be at the max possible threat before pulling aggro, just take it a little easier. Raids, though? You'll want Omen.
Read on for more answers to your questions!
Gat asked...
I have a question, and please don't say take your time and enjoy the content. I want to get to 80 as fast as humanly possible when the xpac comes out, do you have any advice? Can I carry over quests? Should I shoot for instances or quest?
Why in the world would you want to do that? Take your time, enjoy the content!
Just kidding.
The 'fastest way' is probably to enlist your entire guild into powerleveling you. If you're mostly on your own, quests are really good XP. You can carry over quests from The Burning Crusade and hand a bunch in right away, but they give less than half the XP that Wrath quests do, so I wouldn't spend too much time running around Outland turning a bunch of old quests in.
Dungeons are very good XP if you have a strong, regular 5-man group. If you wipe a lot with a bunch of bad players, it's a waste of time when leveling. If you have a very good group, it's very, very fast XP.
I have only leveled once in the Wrath beta, so I don't have a ton of practice doing it to give you a perfect answer. My best advice is don't dawdle. Check out Wowhead, Wowwiki, etc. Look for quest hubs, and plot a course.
Alex asked...
Aside from the Amani War Bear, are any other mounts being removed?
As far as I know, no other mounts are being locked out when Wrath hits. It's just the War Bear since it's a special case.
Kypros asked...
I vaguely remember reading that Blizz was looking to allow players to gain rep by wearing that rep's tabard, essentially removing the need to run a specific instance. Any word on this, or did I just make this up?
You weren't making it up! It was something they stated they wanted to do at the Worldwide Invitational (perhaps earlier), but wasn't implemented until just two days ago. The tabards are gotten from each faction's quartermaster, cost 1 gold, and I'll let the screenshot below tell you the rest of the story.
Are Inscription glyphs actually items that can be readily replaced, or do you have to get or buy new glyphs if you want to swap them out?
Glyphs are just like gems in this way. If you swap one out, it is destroyed. If you remove it, it is destroyed.
Tap asked...
Hrm, does using a flying carpet require cold weather flying?
Yes.
BiggusGeekus asked...
Can the driver of the motorcycle have a battleground flag carrier as a passenger? So if my buddy grabs the flag can I give him a ride to our keep?
Battlegrounds aren't up right now for me to test, but I think it's safe to say no, you can't carry flag carriers in your motorcycle. If you currently can, I bet that's going to be labeled a bug and fixed really fast.
The Wrath of the Lich King beta is in full swing, and the WoW Insider crew is here to sate your curiosity with Ask a Beta Tester! Leave your beta questions in the comments and we'll do our best to answer 'em! And if you can't get enough Wrath, don't forget to check WoW Insider's Wrath Roundup page for anything we haven't answered here!Filed under: Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Renako Sep 19th 2008 11:07AM
A note on the threat thing: there's a UI option in the beta to get the percentage shown on your target's frame in the base UI. I don't remember which option it was (I was just playing around with it and it appeared.) But I found it easier to keep track of there. If the custom unit frame addons manage a way to make this more visible, it could work well, though I imagine most people will stick to Omen.
Blind Sep 19th 2008 11:15AM
Actually blizzard did implement a bar type UI for the threat meter, but for some reason have it disabled:
http://i33.tinypic.com/2lx6ka8.jpg
http://i33.tinypic.com/10pu9er.jpg
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=9956669655&sid=2000
skajake Sep 19th 2008 12:35PM
I think what alot of people miss about the built in threat meter is that it is not about the UI. The real magic is that server threat information is now accessable via the LUA API. This means that all addons have full access to actual, precise threat values instead of having to play a guessing game. Count on Omen to provide a useful frontend to this new API.
darian Sep 19th 2008 2:17PM
That's true, but at the same time it'd be nice for them to have a basic option to have the % value shown at all times. It would avoid the whole "ZOMG U JUST PULLED AGGRO" "Gee, thanks" aspect of the whole thing.
Mike Sep 19th 2008 11:09AM
How are the rewards for getting achievements received? Through the mail? Do you get them from certain NPC's? Does it become a quest you turn in?
Tinious Sep 19th 2008 3:03PM
Then it shouldn't be refferred to as "bind to account", it should be "bind to realm".
Hinalover Sep 19th 2008 11:10AM
I thought I heard that they were taking out the Baron run of Stratholme. I was running that with a Pally Buddy a month ago and he heard of that and was trying to get the mount with no success.
Ametrine Sep 19th 2008 11:37AM
Nope, like always, the Baron's skelepony is still there, it's just on the same horrendously-low droprate it's been from the start.
scotttopic Sep 19th 2008 4:59PM
hmm but isn't baron rivendare gone from strat? if he's in naxx, does the mount now drop in naxx, or off the strat replacement?
Cookie McWeaksauce Sep 19th 2008 5:26PM
Why does there need to be a replacement? Kael'thas is in TK and MgT.
doug Sep 19th 2008 11:10AM
Question about bind-to-account items: I understand you could probably mail them to characters on the same server, but how would you transfer a bind-to-account item from server to server?
Ahoni Sep 19th 2008 12:10PM
You can't.
Zrob Sep 19th 2008 12:32PM
I imagine there woudl be a $25.00 fee and a 30 day cooldown involved.
rosencratz Sep 19th 2008 2:13PM
As insinuated above, without transferring a character from server to server it's fairly obvious sending stuff from server to server is not possible.
So yes, account bound doesn't magically give you the right to trasnfer stuff from realm to realm. Normal rules apply.
doug Sep 19th 2008 4:06PM
So its not "bound-to-account" as much as bound to server. Way more lame than I thought.
CallMeIrd Sep 19th 2008 11:13AM
Maybe this has already been asked, and if so I missed it. Sorry!
I want to level my DK in Inscription and Blacksmithing. Do I need to start running around collecting Peacebloom and copper, or do the knights get a profession boost?
Brian Arnold Sep 19th 2008 11:20AM
Their first aid is boosted up to 270 (iirc) but everything else starts at 1.
CallMeIrd Sep 19th 2008 12:08PM
Thanks, I better get grinding then ^^
zappo Sep 19th 2008 1:44PM
Yeah, I'd recommend saving up now. When death knights come out, the majority will probably be inscriptionists, however there will be a much larger pool of people taking up other trades as well (well probably not so many taking up leather working..), so I have the feeling that pretty much all trade raw materials are going to end up going way up - especially at skill leveling bottlenecks.
It's also a good time since I'm seeing prices starting to drop on certain items as people try to get some gold for the expansion and are trying to cash in their bank inventory.
rosencratz Sep 19th 2008 2:19PM
I'm not sure how true it is that "most death knights will be inscriptionists"
let's not forget that Inscription is being released with the patch before the expansion comes so most people who want to do it properly will probably have it maxed out at 375 way before Wrath comes thus reducing the amount of Death Knights picking Inscription.... that said a pretty big number probably still will.