WoW Insider http://wow.joystiq.com WoW Insider http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/wow.joystiq.com/media/feedlogo.gif WoW Insider http://wow.joystiq.com prods@weblogsinc.com (Weblogs, Inc. Producers) (Weblogs, Inc. Web Support) en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. View our terms of service here: http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/ Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/ <![CDATA[Know Your Lore: The orcs, part 2]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/22/know-your-lore-the-orcs-part-2/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/22/know-your-lore-the-orcs-part-2/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/22/know-your-lore-the-orcs-part-2/#comments 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.

One of the problems in covering the history of the orcs is that after the Rise of the Horde period, we've done it already quite a few times. The history of the orcs is the history of the Horde. Just in covering Orgrim Doomhammer's life, we've covered the formation of the Horde to a great extent.

What's interesting when considering the orcs as a people is how they were betrayed by their own virtues. The orc tendency to revere the spirits, their genius at preserving clan individuality yet coming together in times of crisis, their willingness to respect their elders and heed their wisdom -- all of these traits were twisted under first Ner'zhul and then Gul'dan. While Ner'zhul was proud, even arrogant, his initial actions in kindling the war against the draenei were sincere. He believed that the spirit of his dead wife Rulkan had returned to warn him of the draenei threat, accompanied by a "great one" who would teach Ner'zhul new magics to use to protect his people.

No matter Ner'zhul's flaws, it cannot be denied he was sincere. Yes, he hungered for power and respect (even though he was in fact powerful and respected) and yes, he prosecuted the war with the draenei when he really only had the word of Kil'jaeden that the draenei were evil and plotting against the orcs. And yes, Ner'zhul ignored for a time that he was losing the respect of the ancestor spirits and that the elements grew distant from him. He put himself ahead of his role as elder shaman. It cannot and should not be denied. But even in his most aggressive moments, Ner'zhul was neither blind nor a fool. He began to realize that his spiritual advisor, Kil'jaeden, resemble a draenei and hated Velen with a fervor the orc could barely comprehend. He began to wonder why the spirts would not speak to him.

And so he made his way to Oshu'gun.

Continue reading Know Your Lore: The orcs, part 2

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Know Your Lore: The orcs, part 2 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> DoomhammerDrakaDurotanfeaturedguideguide-to-loreGuldanHellscreamlorelore-guideNerzhulorcorcsrole-playrole-playing-guiderp-guideworld-of-warcraft-lorewow-guidewow-lorewow-role-playingwow-role-playing-guidewow-rpwow-rp-guidewow-rping (Matthew Rossi) Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Considering the Mists talent calculator]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/18/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-considering-the-mists-talent-c/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/18/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-considering-the-mists-talent-c/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/18/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-considering-the-mists-talent-c/#comments Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host.

We now have a new version of the Mists of Pandaria talent calculator to discuss. While we've covered the Mists talents and abilities before, every new iteration of the design process brings us new elements to consider. What we're effectively being presented is a snapshot of the future through the lens of current design, giving us a chance to muse about what warriors will be doing and not doing.

One of the things that jumps out immediately when considering the new talents is that the current capstones Bladestorm and Shockwave (as well as Avatar), which had been gained at level 90 before, are now level 60 abilities. I'm not actually surprised by this change, but I am pleased by it. Those are abilities people can currently get by around the end of Outland, so making them level 60 talents means they'll be useful for leveling characters again.

Let's go over what can be gleaned from the calculator update and discuss what it all means.

Continue reading The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Considering the Mists talent calculator

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Considering the Mists talent calculator originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 18 Feb 2012 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> arms-warriorarms-warrior-the-care-and-feeding-of-warriorsclass-helpfuryfury-warriorfury-warrior-the-care-and-feeding-of-warriorsguideMistsMists-of-Pandaira-Talent-Calculatormists-of-pandariamists-of-pandaria-talent-changesmists-of-pandaria-talentsprotection-warriorprotection-warrior-pvpprotection-warrior-the-care-and-feeding-of-warriorstalenttalentswarrior-guidewarrior-infoworld-of-warcraft-class-guideworld-of-warcraft-guidewow-class-guidewow-class-helpwow-guidewow-talent-guidewow-warriorwow-warrior-info (Matthew Rossi) Sat, 18 Feb 2012 20:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Ol' Grumpy and the crushing disappointment of roles]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/16/ol-grumpy-and-the-crushing-disappointment-of-roles/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/16/ol-grumpy-and-the-crushing-disappointment-of-roles/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/16/ol-grumpy-and-the-crushing-disappointment-of-roles/#comments There are no pure DPS classes in World of Warcraft that use two-handed melee weapons to deal damage and only one pure DPS class that can even equip them. There are literally hundreds of two-handed melee weapons in this game. This has always annoyed me, because I love big weapons. I know you know this about me.

One of the reasons I hate the argument that pure DPS classes should have dibs on top DPS weapons is that in order for me to play a character that uses a two-hander, I have no choice but to play a hybrid. In fact, in order to play as melee DPSer at all, I either have to play a rogue (all three rogue trees dual wield small, fast weapons) or a hybrid. Those are my options. If I wanted to play ranged DPS, I could pick from one of three possible pure classes, but if I want to melee, I'm forced to either give up the weapons I enjoy and take up a playstyle I don't like or accept that I will be forced to DPS at a penalty and be expected and/or pressured to tank.

This to me is asking me to pay twice, and it's unacceptable. Last week, Ghostcrawler posted an excellent discussion on class and role that I highly recommend everyone check out, and it seriously has me pondering what design I'd prefer for World of Warcraft and indeed how I feel about classes and roles entirely.

Continue reading Ol' Grumpy and the crushing disappointment of roles

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Ol' Grumpy and the crushing disappointment of roles originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> ClassClass-RoleDPSDPSingHealingol-grumpyold-grumpyolgrumpypatch-4.3Roletankingworld-of-warcraft-patch-4.3wow-patchwow-patch-4.3wow-patch-4.3-newswow-patch-news (Matthew Rossi) Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Know Your Lore: 5 remarkable relationships from Warcraft lore]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/15/know-your-lore-5-remarkable-relationships-from-warcraft-lore/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/15/know-your-lore-5-remarkable-relationships-from-warcraft-lore/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/15/know-your-lore-5-remarkable-relationships-from-warcraft-lore/#comments 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.

Last week, we talked about the orcs' history and culture before the dawn of the Horde period. Now, if you've read Christie Golden's Rise of the Horde (and if not, you should), then you know the outline of what came next. We're going to talk about that more next week, but this week, I wanted to touch upon something else.

What's interesting to me is how the story of the Horde's creation, which is certainly a grand and sweeping tale of betrayals, madness, and ultimately despair, is also a story of how two orcs met, fell in love, and pledged to each other despite the chaos of the dawning nightmare of Gul'dan's Horde. In light of Nyorloth's post discussing favorite relationships in Warcraft lore, it's hard not to think about Draka, daughter of Zuura and Kelkar, and Durotan, son of Geyah and Garad. Their lives would be spent as witnesses to the end of one way of life and the birth of a darker, more terrible chapter than their people had ever known.

This got me thinking about my favorite relationships in the game. These aren't all romantic ones. There are friendships, familial relationships, even enmity. Hating someone still counts as a relationship, after all, if you relate to one another.

Continue reading Know Your Lore: 5 remarkable relationships from Warcraft lore

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Know Your Lore: 5 remarkable relationships from Warcraft lore originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> BainebreakingCairneCrowleyfeaturedGarroshguideguide-to-lorelorelore-guidenyorlothnyorloth-cdevnyorloth-forumsrole-playrole-playing-guiderp-guidesaurfangWindrunnerworld-of-warcraft-lorewow-guidewow-lorewow-role-playingwow-role-playing-guidewow-rpwow-rp-guidewow-rping (Matthew Rossi) Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Breakfast Topic: I love Ashkandi]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/13/breakfast-topic-i-love-ashkandi/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/13/breakfast-topic-i-love-ashkandi/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/13/breakfast-topic-i-love-ashkandi/#comments
Pretty much no weapon model in the history of World of Warcraft has affected me like Ashkandi, Greatsword of the Brotherhood has. To me, it's emblematic of all that I love about Warcraft's model design -- excessive, bold, imaginative and evocative.

From the moment my guild first started running Blackwing Lair, I wanted one. I ended up getting a Sulfuras instead, which is certainly a fine weapon in its own right, but as much as I liked Sulfuras, I always knew I was making the logical decision (take the one that drops first) over the one my heart wanted (wait for Ashkandi). Years passed. We moved out of BWL and into AQ, then Naxx, and then The Burning Crusade launched. No model could replace Ashkandi in my heart. The Gladiator sword, Despair, Cataclysm's Edge, Apolyon, The Lionheart Executioner -- all fine models, all solid weapons. None could take its place.

Continue reading Breakfast Topic: I love Ashkandi

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Breakfast Topic: I love Ashkandi originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 13 Feb 2012 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> ashkandiashkandi-greatsword-of-the-brotherhoodfacebookfeedgame-discussiongamer-discussionworld-of-warcraft-discussionworld-of-warcraft-topicswow-discussionwow-hot-topicswow-issueswow-topics (Matthew Rossi) Mon, 13 Feb 2012 08:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Wouldn't this be cool? The Lost Islands of Draenor]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/12/wouldnt-this-be-cool-the-lost-islands-of-draenor/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/12/wouldnt-this-be-cool-the-lost-islands-of-draenor/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/12/wouldnt-this-be-cool-the-lost-islands-of-draenor/#comments
One of the things we like to do at the virtual WoW Insider office is talk about what we'd like to see in the game. Sometimes it's something as simple as a winged Zhevra mount. Sometimes it gets more elaborate, like when Mat McCurley and I were talking about the lost ocean that once surrounded Hellfire Peninsula before Draenor got ripped inside out and dumped unceremoniously into the Twisting Nether, becoming what is now Outland.

"Hey," I said, "Have you ever noticed that Deathwing's Lair isn't part of the part of Draenor that became Outland?"

"Yeah, and the Warsong Clan's island is gone too." He pointed out. This got us to thinking about future content. We know we're going to Pandaria soon, but neither of us have given up on what Mike Sacco calls an outer space vacation expansion. We want it to happen, to seek out new life, to go where no tauren has gone before. And this got me to think that maybe, we can start the exploration off in 5-man content.

Continue reading Wouldn't this be cool? The Lost Islands of Draenor

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Wouldn't this be cool? The Lost Islands of Draenor originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 12 Feb 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> Five-ManGarroshLoremists-of-pandariapatch-4.3world-of-warcraft-patch-4.3wow-patchwow-patch-4.3wow-patch-4.3-newswow-patch-news (Matthew Rossi) Sun, 12 Feb 2012 16:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Single-Minded Fury redux]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/11/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-single-minded-fury-redux/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/11/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-single-minded-fury-redux/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/11/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-single-minded-fury-redux/#comments Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host.

In my first draft, I started this article off with a detailed explanation of what my main problems with Single-Minded Fury are. I still want to talk about those. But first, I want to say this about the talent.

It's crazy-fun. I've been raiding, Raid Findering and 5-manning with it all week, and frankly I love how smooth the rage generation is. If you ever played fury back in The Burning Crusade or even vanilla, before TG was a gleam in a designer's eye, SMF will be familiar and yet different to you. What's changed? Well, you don't use Whirlwind as your second attack anymore; it's purely a trash ability now. Raging Blow and Bloodsurge instant-cast Slams give you more to do but take the concept of rotation and shake it up, meaning that you're watching for procs more than ever. Colossus Smash gives you a very-long-cooldown ability that you're always going to prioritize. But for all those changes, the talent is still you dual-wielding smaller, faster weapons.

If you were the fury warrior with the Vanir's Fists in late BC, you'll recognize what this talent does for fury. If you leveled a fury warrior in Cata, it's exactly how levels 1 through 68 went. It's a fairly simple concept to grasp. You're not the warrior crushing everything in his path with raw power, and you're not the one using discipline and weapon control to make precise strikes, either. No, you're the one with speed and relentless assault over finesse.

Continue reading The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Single-Minded Fury redux

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Single-Minded Fury redux originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 11 Feb 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> class-helpFuryFury-Warriorfury-warrior-the-care-and-feeding-of-warriorsguideSingle-Minded-Furytalenttalentswarrior-guidewarrior-infoworld-of-warcraft-class-guideworld-of-warcraft-guidewow-class-guidewow-class-helpwow-guidewow-talent-guidewow-warriorwow-warrior-info (Matthew Rossi) Sat, 11 Feb 2012 14:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Know Your Lore: The orcs, part 1]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/08/know-your-lore-the-orcs-part-1/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/08/know-your-lore-the-orcs-part-1/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/08/know-your-lore-the-orcs-part-1/#comments 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.

Their name is on the freaking box. The very first Warcraft product ever released is called Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. Orcs get top billing. In terms of pure history in the Warcraft setting, orcs have a lot to discuss. In their time, they've gone from a shamanistic society of hunters defending itself from the hostile gronn and ogres to a united war machine led by a figurehead, to a demon-blood drunk engine of genocide and finally out the other side, to a shamanistic society that keeps elements of the war machine alive.

Continue reading Know Your Lore: The orcs, part 1

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Know Your Lore: The orcs, part 1 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> DoomhammerDurotanfeaturedGromGronnguideguide-to-loreGuldanlorelore-guideNerzhulOgreOrcOrgrim-Doomhammerrole-playrole-playing-guiderp-guideworld-of-warcraft-lorewow-guidewow-lorewow-role-playingwow-role-playing-guidewow-rpwow-rp-guidewow-rping (Matthew Rossi) Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Warrior mistakes to avoid]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/04/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-warrior-mistakes-to-avoid/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/04/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-warrior-mistakes-to-avoid/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/04/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-warrior-mistakes-to-avoid/#comments Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host.

One of the interesting things about my current astonishing obsession with transmogrification and all things related to it has been seeing older itemization. You know, strength and agility plate. Warrior tier 6 is lousy with agility. That's a legacy of the past, of course, and as the design of the game moves ever onward, artifacts like that are left in its wake. After all, most level 70 warriors nowadays move straight to Northrend dungeons and are not likely to look at Black Temple until much later, when farming for transmog gear. The stats aren't important enough to go back and redesign the set.

What I really find interesting about this is seeing where the class has been, not just visually but also in terms of design. It's kind of like archaeology (the actual field of inquiry, not the in-game profession) or paleontology, reconstructing the class and its roots from the remainders of what it wore. Granted, I was there, so to a degree it's like excavating Pompeii with an immortal who survived the volcanic eruption of Vesuvius and keeps grumping about how people in his day didn't complain when they were buried in pyroclastic material. Which is a complete lie, by the way, we did nothing but complain about it. But I digress.

The warrior class has come a long way in seven years, and the artifacts of past design lie strewn about. New players and even old veterans can be forgiven for making a few mistakes based on the rubble. Let's go over a few.

Continue reading The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Warrior mistakes to avoid

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Warrior mistakes to avoid originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> agility-plateclass-helpgeargearingguidelegacy-gearingmistakestalenttalentswarrior-guidewarrior-infoworld-of-warcraft-class-guideworld-of-warcraft-guidewow-class-guidewow-class-helpwow-guidewow-talent-guidewow-warriorwow-warrior-info (Matthew Rossi) Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Ol' Grumpy and the specter of pointless elitism]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/02/ol-grumpy-and-the-specter-of-pointless-elitism/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/02/ol-grumpy-and-the-specter-of-pointless-elitism/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/02/ol-grumpy-and-the-specter-of-pointless-elitism/#comments Ol' Grumpy (that's me) has a bit of a problem. He's started tanking for pickup groups lately. I guess technically that means I have two problems, but doctors probably can prescribe some medication or something for white-hot eruptions of seething rage. I'm starting to think Neltharion was the tank for the dragon aspects' regular 5-man group.

However, my molten cauldron of hate masquerading as a soul isn't what I came to talk to you about today. No, I'm actually here to explain what pointless elitism is and why it's actually bad. I'll use an example from a recent 5-man. I had signed up to tank because I wanted the goody bag of potent bribery. I admit it, I'm weak. I zoned into End Time, said hello to the mostly uncommunicative group, and started charging things, as I am wont to do. Things died, we progressed, no one pulled aggro by DoTing a mob while I was mounted and on the other side of the map -- it was pretty much ideal for a pickup.

Then we got to Sylvanas, killed her, and as someone looted, two of the DPSers begin savaging the third for doing less than they. I look at Skada and saw that all three of them were floating between 11k and 14k DPS overall, with this one player sinking to 7k on Sylv. They were all geared about the same -- a couple of HoT pieces -- so clearly, they were all there because they needed the gear.

Continue reading Ol' Grumpy and the specter of pointless elitism

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Ol' Grumpy and the specter of pointless elitism originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> GrumpyOl-GrumpyOldOlGrumpypatch-4.3What-Im-saying-is-that-I-am-ancient-as-the-tidesworld-of-warcraft-patch-4.3wow-patchwow-patch-4.3wow-patch-4.3-newswow-patch-news (Matthew Rossi) Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Retribution bug hotfixed, Vengeance temporarily returns to PvP]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/02/retribution-bug-hotfixed-vengeance-temporarily-returns-to-pvp/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/02/retribution-bug-hotfixed-vengeance-temporarily-returns-to-pvp/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/02/retribution-bug-hotfixed-vengeance-temporarily-returns-to-pvp/#comments Zarhym has given us an update on the bug with Seal of Truth from yesterday, and it opens a fascinating window into the complexities of the code that ultimately is the World of Warcraft.

Zarhym - Update on Retribution Paladin Bug
The bug where paladin Seals could sometimes cause excessive damage has been fixed. This bug came as a result of a hotfix we put in to fix an issue where some attacks, such as Scatter Shot, were still causing Vengeance in PvP situations. While these things may seem totally unrelated, it has to do with our proc system, which is an extremely complicated mechanic under the hood. We reverted that hotfix, meaning you may sometimes see Vengeance in PvP. But we don't think that will present a major balance concern at this time.

To be clear, we have no current plans to take action against players who experienced this bug last night unless we come across any extreme cases. The error was ours and we haven't seen any evidence -- so far -- of players excessively exploiting the bug. We reserve the right to take action if we do find evidence of players crossing the line to repeatedly exploit this bug for major in-game advantages.


I won't lie, I find this fascinating. The idea that the issue lies in a system that on the surface would seem totally unrelated gives me the shivers just imagining what it must be like to maintain and advance the design for code that's been around for years and years. I have to agree that letting Vengeance sometimes pop up in PvP is probably the better option. It's only going to happen in an extremely limited set of circumstances, anyway.

I'm also glad only extreme edge cases will be seeing bans, as I had no idea the bug even existed while leveling my ret paladin last night and only figured it out afterwards.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.

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Retribution bug hotfixed, Vengeance temporarily returns to PvP originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> bughotfixesPvPretributionretribution-bugretribution-paladinVengeanceVengenace in PvPVengenaceInPvpwow-hotfixwow-hotfixes (Matthew Rossi) Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:45:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Know Your Lore: The Troll Wars]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/01/know-your-lore-the-troll-wars/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/01/know-your-lore-the-troll-wars/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/01/know-your-lore-the-troll-wars/#comments 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.

The past is prologue. Melodramatic, perhaps, but it bears stating. The world of Azeroth, known to us for the three most recent wars, has in fact seen many -- the War of the Ancients, the War of the Shifting Sands, the war between the ancient troll empires and the aqir. One of these wars went far to set the stage for the First and Second Wars by creating, in effect, three of the major players in those conflicts. Without the Troll Wars, there would today be no Silvermoon, no human nations (and thus no Forsaken), and the troll nation of Zul'Aman would rule all of northern Lordaeron, perhaps all the way south to Khaz Modan.

The Troll Wars were named by their victors. To the trolls of Zul'Aman, they never really ended. Pushed back by the elves of Quel'Thalas and their human allies, the once-great northern troll empire receded but never actually died. Technically, even after repeated raids by outsiders, the Amani still hold onto their ancestral home. But all around it, the direct descendants (barely two elven generations) of their conquerors hold the Ghostlands, forests scarred by the Scourge during the Third War. War seems to never leave the gates of the troll kingdoms.

However, to be fair, it's not as if the trolls are shy about warring on others, either.

Continue reading Know Your Lore: The Troll Wars

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Know Your Lore: The Troll Wars originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> AmaniAnasterianArathorfeaturedguideguide-to-loreHe-who-walks-by-dayhigh-elveshumansIgnaeuslorelore-guideQuelThalasrole-playrole-playing-guiderp-guideSilvermoonStromSunstrderTrollbanetrollsworld-of-warcraft-lorewow-guidewow-lorewow-role-playingwow-role-playing-guidewow-rpwow-rp-guidewow-rpingZulAman (Matthew Rossi) Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Have reforging demands become too complex?]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/31/have-reforging-demands-become-too-complex/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/31/have-reforging-demands-become-too-complex/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/31/have-reforging-demands-become-too-complex/#comments Have you ever cringed at the idea of picking up a new upgrade because you knew it meant you were going to have to reforge almost every single piece of gear you wear? Do you actually consider picking up more than one of the same item so that you can have it reforged differently for different specs? Do you ever want to punch that smarmy, overly reverbbed ethereal in the face after you dump several hundred gold reforging all your gear because there was no negotiation? (You just charged me a flat fee, you jerk!)

That last one may just be me.

Reforging gear has become a huge part of optimization. It is at least as important as gemming and enchanting. Sites like WoW Reforge and Ask Mr. Robot (to name just two) are heavily consulted by players looking to squeeze every last erg of performance out of their gear. Is it too much? Has the minigame of stat tetris gotten out of hand?

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Have reforging demands become too complex? originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> AskMrRobotpatch-4.3rawrreforgingreforging-optimizationworld-of-warcraft-patch-4.3wow-patchwow-patch-4.3wow-patch-4.3-newswow-patch-newswowreforge (Matthew Rossi) Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Let's get everyone tanking]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/28/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-lets-get-everyone-tanking/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/28/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-lets-get-everyone-tanking/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/28/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-lets-get-everyone-tanking/#comments Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host.

Now for whatever reason, I've been tanking lately, usually due to a connection issue or what have you. It's one of those confluences of my gear's being just good enough and my no longer being burned out on the role. While I still define myself as a DPS warrior and raid with that as my main spec, I was surprised to find tanking wasn't that hard to pick back up. In fact, it may be a little too easy.

I hesitate to make this statement because, in part, I know I'm not a typical player. I main tanked for years. I tanked in vanilla, in The Burning Crusade, in Wrath, and for the opening of Cataclysm. I was the undergeared tank trying to do heroics in greens when the expansion came out. I was the guy tanking heroic LK. I've tanked in all sorts of situations and gear and specs. I tanked when TC only hit four mobs and did not work in Defensive Stance. What I'm saying is, I've been tanking for so long there's almost no way for me to evaluate how difficult tanking is for other players. I have years of muscle memory. I've kited. I've done adds; I've done bosses. I've picked up murlocs and traded adds on Yogg.

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Let's get everyone tanking originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 28 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> class-helpguideprotection-warriorprotection-warrior-the-care-and-feeding-of-warriorsresiliencetalenttalentstanktank-designtankingtanking-designvengeancewarrior-guidewarrior-infoworld-of-warcraft-class-guideworld-of-warcraft-guidewow-class-guidewow-class-helpwow-guidewow-talent-guidewow-warriorwow-warrior-info (Matthew Rossi) Sat, 28 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Ol' Grumpy and the return of class-based quests]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/26/ol-grumpy-and-the-return-of-class-based-quests/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/26/ol-grumpy-and-the-return-of-class-based-quests/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/26/ol-grumpy-and-the-return-of-class-based-quests/#comments Hi, I'm Ol' Grumpy. You may remember me from such posts as every single other post with "Ol' Grumpy" in the title. Today, since I have this incredibly uncomfortable rocking chair to sit on, I figured I'd grump about class quests and why I think they should come back.

Back in the day (that day being 2004 to 2005), I leveled the first of many warriors to the experience cap of level 60. At that time, one of the things that set the warrior class (and other classes) apart was a long, involved quest line that sent you all over Azeroth to gather materials and finally face and defeat Cyclonian. As a result, you gained one of three iconic weapons. (Most people took the axe. As a human at the time, I took the sword.) This extremely long quest line took you from Fray Island to the area north of Tarren Mill and then to Arathi Highlands (giving them a reason to exist) and Stranglethorn Vale before bringing you back to face Cyclonian. It was a rite of passage for a leveling toon. As a 60th-level, 70th-level and then an 80th-level warrior, I would often go back and help warriors on the quest to defeat Cyclonian, who posed an extreme challenge to anyone attempting to solo him.

I lamented the removal of class-specific quests at the time it was announced. Now, over a year later, I still think removing them was a mistake. Being soaked in ancient wisdom like a turkey soaked in ancient wisdom, here are my reasons.

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Ol' Grumpy and the return of class-based quests originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> classclass-questclass-questscyclonianfangsfangs-of-the-fatherlegendaryqueldelar (Matthew Rossi) Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Know Your Lore: Broxigar the Red]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/25/know-your-lore-broxigar-the-red/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/25/know-your-lore-broxigar-the-red/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/25/know-your-lore-broxigar-the-red/#comments 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.

It's time for me to give the Horde some love in KYL -- if not for its future (an uncertain one), then for its past and for the family that comes closest to personifying its tragic history, current state and potential future. The Hellscream line has produced great warriors, the line of Durotan a world shaman, but only the Saurfangs can boast those who succumbed to the blood curse and those that strove to defy it. Ten thousand years before he was born, a Saurfang stood against a Titan and defied it, knowing he would die to save a world he didn't really know and had no reason to care about. A Saurfang stood at the Wrathgate, side by side with a human in opposition to evil, possibly the last time man and orc could look past their recent enmity. A niece even struck the blow that freed Malfurion Stormrage from being trapped forever in the Emerald Dream.

The Saurfangs have fought in every incarnation of the Horde.The eldest, Broxigar, fought in all three of the recent wars with distinction, becoming known as a hero to his people. His younger brother Varok also fought with the Horde from the time of the drinking of the Blood of Mannoroth, even serving as second-in-command of the Blackrock Clan under Orgrim Doomhammer. Varok Saurfang led Horde forces right up until the defeat at Blackrock Mountain and was one of the few orcs not entirely crippled by their aftermath.

Both brothers were the Horde made manifest, in both their triumphs and their defeats. Both struggled with what they had done and what they had failed to do. Varok felt himself forever tainted by the innocents he had killed while under the effects of the Blood Curse, while Broxigar lamented his own life continuing when so many of his friends and fellows had died.

Each would find his own way forward. For Broxigar, the path would lead backward.

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Know Your Lore: Broxigar the Red originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> BroxBroxigarBroxigar-SaurfangBroxigar-The-Redfeaturedguideguide-to-lorelorelore-guiderole-playrole-playing-guiderp-guideSaurfangSaurfang-The-YoungerVarok-Saurfangworld-of-warcraft-lorewow-guidewow-lorewow-role-playingwow-role-playing-guidewow-rpwow-rp-guidewow-rping (Matthew Rossi) Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Bashiok on BlizzCon: "It makes sense to focus our efforts"]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/25/bashiok-on-blizzcon-it-makes-sense-to-focus-our-efforts/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/25/bashiok-on-blizzcon-it-makes-sense-to-focus-our-efforts/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/25/bashiok-on-blizzcon-it-makes-sense-to-focus-our-efforts/#comments In case you hadn't already heard, there won't be a BlizzCon 2012. While I personally have never gone, many of the staffers here have and are sad pandas that they won't get to this year, as I gather are a lot of you as well. Our friend Bashiok answered a forum thread on the news with the reasoning behind it.

Bashiok - No Blizzcon
Yeah it's a bit disappointing because we all really do enjoy being able to 'open the doors' so to speak. But, it is an enormous effort by all employees, including our game designers and artists, not to mention customer support and quality assurance, PR, our business departments, and *hot breath on fingernails & shirt rub* Community & eSports to make a BlizzCon happen. In a year when we're working to release multiple titles (knock on wood) it makes sense to focus our efforts. Also with multiple game releases we just wonder if we'd be at a point with any of them where we'd have anything really big or new or cool to talk about.

We didn't have a BlizzCon in 2006 either, and at that time we were really strong on the idea that BlizzCon isn't really supposed to be and doesn't have to be an annual event. Of course then we have it for five straight years in a row... which obviously built some expectation.

Personally I always enjoy seeing the excitement, the rushing crowds, hearing the clicking of mice on the demo stations, and waiting in agony as the seconds countdown to an announcement and then the waves of emotion from the crowd that follow it. But thinking about our year and what we're trying to get done already without a BlizzCon, and having to think pretty hard about what we'd have to announce or demo, it just makes sense to me not to have one.

Here's to the Battle.net World Championship, it's going to be awesome, and to a bigger and better BlizzCon in 2013.


So there you have it. With multiple titles aimed for release this year, not only would it be a lot of work to also run a convention, but then the convention wouldn't have much to show, since all the titles would have been released beforehand. While this is sad news, it does definitely make me think we're going to be running around Pandaria (and freeing Sanctuary, and dealing with the Zerg) well before the middle of this year.
The news is out -- we'll be playing Mists of Pandaria! Find out what's in store with an all-new talent system, peek over our shoulder at our Pandaren hands-on, and get ready to battle your companion pets against others. It's all here right at WoW Insider!

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Bashiok on BlizzCon: "It makes sense to focus our efforts" originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> BashiokBlizzConblizzcon-2011ForumNo-Blizzcon (Matthew Rossi) Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[The aesthetic consequences of new character models]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/23/the-aesthetic-consequences-of-new-character-models/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/23/the-aesthetic-consequences-of-new-character-models/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/23/the-aesthetic-consequences-of-new-character-models/#comments This is neither a post excoriating nor exulting but rather simply contemplating the process of updating character models in World of Warcraft. I got to thinking about this when I realized that I'm always happiest when I get Well of Eternity because I like the night elf model. Tall, spare, muscular, it looks excellent in plate. There are certainly flaws to the model, but they're concealed entirely by my gear. Night elf males have large hands, but those hands look just fine curled around a weapon, and the faces are entirely concealed behind my helmet. As you can see above, the night elf male does an excellent job of showing off the textures and details of my armor set, especially the plated legs.

Redesigning these models will have a variety of effects. As a long-time player, I have my own stylistic loves and hates. Human females look astonishingly vapid and nigh-idiotic, and their animations in melee look ludicrous to the point that I expect them to fall over every weapon swing, while gnomes and blood elves have excellent combat flow. Female undead melee are awesome to watch, but I can't stand the bones poking through my gear. That's part of the complication here. The models you love, someone else hates, and the models you hate, someone else loves. That's often viewed as a cop-out -- but man, if you screw up my tauren, I will burn your world. (Note: Will not actually burn your world ... too lazy.)

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The aesthetic consequences of new character models originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> character-modelcharacter-model-revampcharacter-modelsmodelspatch-4.3world-of-warcraft-patch-4.3wow-patchwow-patch-4.3wow-patch-4.3-newswow-patch-news (Matthew Rossi) Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Unleashing fury in the Dragon Soul]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/21/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-unleashing-fury-in-the-dragon/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/21/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-unleashing-fury-in-the-dragon/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/21/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-unleashing-fury-in-the-dragon/#comments Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host.

I love fury. I raided in vanilla WoW with a two-handed fury DPS spec and also tanked, because everyone who played a warrior tanked back then. I tanked with a fury spec that worked very well for threat generation, but I eventually switched to an arms/prot spec for the Mortal Strike debuff.

When Titan's Grip was announced for Wrath of the Lich King, everyone who knew me knew what my reaction would be. TG fury became my DPS spec of choice until I became a main tank for my Wrath guild, and it has stayed my favorite spec throughout the talent's existence. Even now that I raid as arms DPS, fury is technically my main spec and arms my secondary. I even applauded when Single-Minded Fury was announced for Cata because I knew a lot of fury warriors missed the one-handed weapon playstyle.

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Unleashing fury in the Dragon Soul originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> class-helpfuryfury-warriorfury-warrior-the-care-and-feeding-of-warriorsguidepatch-4.3talenttalentswarrior-guidewarrior-infoworld-of-warcraft-class-guideworld-of-warcraft-guideworld-of-warcraft-patch-4.3wow-class-guidewow-class-helpwow-guidewow-patchwow-patch-4.3wow-patch-4.3-newswow-patch-newswow-talent-guidewow-warriorwow-warrior-info (Matthew Rossi) Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Ol' Grumpy and the Dragon Soul nerf]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/19/ol-grumpy-and-the-dragon-soul-nerf/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/19/ol-grumpy-and-the-dragon-soul-nerf/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/19/ol-grumpy-and-the-dragon-soul-nerf/#comments OK, I've had a day to think about the recent announcements regarding the Dragon Soul raid and the progressive nerfs that will be rolling out at the end of January. My thoughts on it have evolved from my initial confusion and even disbelief. I freely admit, when I first read that Blizzard was introducing an ICC-modeled debuff to the raid, I was incredulous. I didn't see why it was necessary, and I said as much. Several of you then upbraided me on Twitter, and frankly, you gave me things to think about that I hadn't considered. This dovetailed with recent statistics posted on MMO-Champion about who'd completed Dragon Soul in the Raid Finder vs. normal mode. This led me, inexorably, to the following conclusions:
  • The Raid Finder is head and shoulders above normal mode raiding in terms of popularity. 35% of level 85 players have completed Raid Finder vs. 4% completing normal mode; that's a huge, huge shift. Keep in mind that Blizzard has more exacting statistics available internally, but this serves as an indicator of a trend.
  • Fewer than 200,000 players have finished normal mode Dragon Soul. I'll admit, I found this shocking. With the exception of Ultraxion and Madness, I found Dragon Soul to be undertuned and figured many more players would have completed the raid than this. One commenter on Twitter even blasted me for my elitism, when I had been under the impression I'm a fairly middle-of-the-road raider. These numbers bear that out.
  • Over 1 million players have finished Dragon Soul in the Raid Finder. Both this statistic and the preceding one are as of the end of December 2011. But how ever they've changed and how ever the more precise Blizzard statistics play out, this is still a very strong indicator that normal mode Dragon Soul isn't the cakewalk some of us thought it was, myself included to some extent.
  • Almost 800,000 players finished normal Firelands, and the majority of them did so after the nerf to Firelands. I think this fairly well speaks for itself.

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Ol' Grumpy and the Dragon Soul nerf originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> dragon-soullifestylepatch-4.3raidingworld-of-warcraft-patch-4.3wow-patchwow-patch-4.3wow-patch-4.3-newswow-patch-news (Matthew Rossi) Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Know Your Lore: Where is WoW's story headed in the distant future?]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/18/know-your-lore-where-is-wows-story-headed-in-the-distant-futur/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/18/know-your-lore-where-is-wows-story-headed-in-the-distant-futur/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/18/know-your-lore-where-is-wows-story-headed-in-the-distant-futur/#comments 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.

Because of the way we experience the setting, the story of World of Warcraft progresses in bursts. It's fair to think of each expansion as a new series, and the patches as episodic, in the same manner as British TV series such as Doctor Who or Turning Evil. Therefore, each expansion brings new settings, new dangers, and a new, overarching storyline, while each patch is an advancement of that storyline, bringing it to a conclusion with the ultimate patch of each expansion. In this way, Patch 4.3 is effectively a multi-part episode concluding the story of our confrontation with Deathwing.

I bring this up because with Mists of Pandaria, we're going to see a whole new place and explore it. In essence, it will be an expansion that introduces a great deal of new -- new lands, new peoples, new experiences. While it will still be part of Azeroth and still part of the unfolding storyline, it's also a change to switch gears and get away from the familiar. In a game like WoW, it's necessary to introduce new elements in this way to keep the setting engaging. It may be hard to relate now, but Ragnaros, Ahn'Qiraj, the Old Gods, the Silithid, all were introduced in World of Warcraft and not any of the RTS games. Look at the Warcraft III map of Kalimdor. You'll notice pretty much everything south of Feralas is blank on it.

This puts me in mind to speculate on the future of the game and where the lore is going to take us. Not just in Mists, of course, as I expect that much of the lore of the expansion is well and truly fleshed out already, and I'm as eager as anyone to see it. But we've got expansions down the road and trends to consider. None of this absolutely will happen ... but some of it might.

Continue reading Know Your Lore: Where is WoW's story headed in the distant future?

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Know Your Lore: Where is WoW's story headed in the distant future? originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> Blackrock-Orcsfeaturedguideguide-to-lorelorelore-guidemists+of+pandariaMists-of-Pandariamistsofpandariarole-playrole-playing-guiderp-guideThe-Shawarcraftworld+of+warcraftworld-of-warcraft-loreworldofwarcraftwow-guidewow-lorewow-role-playingwow-role-playing-guidewow-rpwow-rp-guidewow-rping (Matthew Rossi) Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Breakfast Topic: Thank everything for transmogrification]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/15/breakfast-topic-thank-everything-for-transmogrification/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/15/breakfast-topic-thank-everything-for-transmogrification/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/15/breakfast-topic-thank-everything-for-transmogrification/#comments If not for transmogrification, my worgen would look like he escaped from the bargain bin at a dirt mall. Now, my worgen is an alt and one I can't spend the time with to gear up like my main, so in the past, I was simply used to having a mismatched set of gear. Some of it looked cool, but even when I was in full epics, the pieces often didn't match like when I had two pieces of tier 10, two pieces of DK look-alike gear and the rest from various 5-mans.

Now, thanks to transmog, I always look how I want. I cycle between three or so sets on this guy (tier 2, BC-era PvP gear, and tier 10) and am perfectly happy with them. Others use transmog more proactively than I do to create a specific look. I just use it so I have a unified look. I absolutely love my complete BWL set look; it makes me so happy. If you know me as Ol' Grumpy, writer of bitter, trenchant cynicism and curmudgeonly scowls, you may not be aware that I can feel happiness. I was surprised too!

So how about you? Are you making use of transmog? Do you use it to design unique looks, or are you like me, just happy to finally not have to wear mismatched pieces of gear?
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.

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Breakfast Topic: Thank everything for transmogrification originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 15 Jan 2012 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> facebookfeedgame-discussiongamer-discussionpatch-4.3transmogrificationworld-of-warcraft-discussionworld-of-warcraft-patch-4.3world-of-warcraft-topicswow-discussionwow-hot-topicswow-issueswow-patchwow-patch-4.3wow-patch-4.3-newswow-patch-newswow-topics (Matthew Rossi) Sun, 15 Jan 2012 08:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[The Care and Feeding of Warriors: How to tank for non-tanks]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/14/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-how-to-tank-for-non-tanks/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/14/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-how-to-tank-for-non-tanks/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/14/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-how-to-tank-for-non-tanks/#comments Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host.

So maybe you don't tank or perhaps have never tanked. Maybe you're new to the game, maybe you just haven't tried it out yet, maybe you used to tank but then stopped for whatever reason and aren't feeling comfortable picking it back up. Whatever your situation, the tanking game in World of Warcraft is available to you as a warrior.

A lot of guides tend to focus on gearing and speccing your warrior to tank, glossing over what you actually do as a tank. What buttons are you hitting and when? Sometimes that's because it seems self evident, or because specific fights call for specific things. This guide is written from an absolutely basic perspective: It will tell you what to do and when to do it, assuming you've no experience at all as a tank. Therefore, this caveat: No guide can make up for practical experience, and you may well learn different ways to perform the role that conflict with this. And that's fine. Learning the role through doing will help teach you what's suited to you; this is just intended to get you started out on that road.

This guide also assumes you are level 85. At least for the first 60 or so levels, you have few enough abilities that there's really no confusion and if you level as a prot warrior, you'll pick this up anyway. This is intended for DPS warriors and PvPers who have never tanked but would like to, as well as old hands who haven't tanked in a while.

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors: How to tank for non-tanks originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 14 Jan 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> protectionprotection-warriorprotection-warrior-the-care-and-feeding-of-warriorstanktankingtanks (Matthew Rossi) Sat, 14 Jan 2012 18:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Know Your Lore, Tinfoil Hat: Destroying this clockwork universe]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/11/know-your-lore-tinfoil-hat-destroying-this-clockwork-universe/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/11/know-your-lore-tinfoil-hat-destroying-this-clockwork-universe/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/11/know-your-lore-tinfoil-hat-destroying-this-clockwork-universe/#comments 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.

If you've ever run the Black Morass in the Caverns of Time, you may recall Aeonus' memorable line upon entering the fray: "The time has come to shatter this clockwork universe forever!" A clockwork, as we know, is a precision instrument, an engineered and designed mechanism that proceeds along a rigidly programmed path. A clockwork does exactly what it was designed to do -- it ticks off the seconds in a preordained fashion.

I bring this up because of the revelation that the Titans, when they created the dragon aspects, seemingly knew that one of them would go mad and align himself with the Old Gods. The four aspects who remained seemed convinced that this moment, this Hour of Twilight, is what they were created to avert. The question then becomes, why would the Titans empower Neltharion in the first place if they knew what he would do? Why would they create a powerful entity like an aspect if they knew he would become corrupted?

The answer may be as simple as this: They didn't know it -- they simply anticipated it. The mechanism was designed to accommodate a great many options.

Algalon the Observer
Your actions are illogical. All possible results for this encounter have been calculated. The Pantheon will receive the Observer's message regardless of outcome.

This is a Tinfoil Hat edition of Know Your Lore. It takes established game lore and speculates on what it could, might, or does mean. It contains spoilers and, furthermore, is not to be taken for actual in-game or tie-in story.

Continue reading Know Your Lore, Tinfoil Hat: Destroying this clockwork universe

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Know Your Lore, Tinfoil Hat: Destroying this clockwork universe originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> AmanthulDeathwingfeaturedguideguide-to-lorelorelore-guiderole-playrole-playing-guiderp-guideSargerasTitansworld-of-warcraft-lorewow-guidewow-lorewow-role-playingwow-role-playing-guidewow-rpwow-rp-guidewow-rping (Matthew Rossi) Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[How could tanking design be changed?]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/11/how-could-tanking-design-be-changed/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/11/how-could-tanking-design-be-changed/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/11/how-could-tanking-design-be-changed/#comments Tanking is designed around holding threat and using abilities to stay alive. The current paradigm, wherein tanks work hard to passively gear themselves for predictable incoming damage in order to make healing them easier, has its drawbacks. Tanks usually ignore stats that contribute to threat generation (to a degree that baseline threat generation has repeatedly been increased, currently sitting at five times damage dealt by the tank), which has led to the discussion of active mitigation in the tank design of Mists of Pandaria. The goal is to make tanks desire threat generation stats such as hit and expertise by making them not just threat stats, but also to tie them into survivability.

By making threat gen stats also generate resources that are used to actively mitigate incoming damage, the goal is to make tanks want those stats, rather than simply aiming as close to complete coverage of the combat table as they can get, reducing incoming damage to something as reliable and easily anticipated by healers as possible. Tanks currently value dodge, parry, and their mastery stats well over any potential threat generation from hit and expertise.

Since we've already seen quite a bit of the Mists of Pandaria talent calculator, we know that design of the new tanking system is probably fairly well advanced. We also know that the monk, another tank/DPS/healing hybrid class, will be debuting with the expansion. Therefore, it's worthwhile to examine tanking changes that could be implemented, even to stretch our vision of tanking significantly past where it is now and most likely past where it will go in Mists.

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How could tanking design be changed? originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> Death-Knightdruidpalmpatch-4.3tankingtankswarriorworld-of-warcraft-patch-4.3wow-patchwow-patch-4.3wow-patch-4.3-newswow-patch-news (Matthew Rossi) Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Does WoW need more raid lockout alternatives?]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/09/does-wow-need-more-raid-lockout-alternatives/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/09/does-wow-need-more-raid-lockout-alternatives/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/09/does-wow-need-more-raid-lockout-alternatives/#comments I was talking to some friends about raiding lockouts before we went into Baradin Hold, in part because Baradin Hold isn't merely locked out by the usual weekly system but also by whether or not your faction holds Tol Barad. This led us to discussing the old Zul'Gurub raid lockout, a three-day cycle, and that led us to consider other possible options. Algalon, a raid encounter that gave you exactly one hour per lockout to complete, also came up. I then told them I was shamelessly going to steal our discussion and use it as grist for a post, because that's what I do.

One of the things about raiding lockouts right now is that they're extremely predictable, and their commonality across the board means that they tend to cause content exhaustion near the end of a week. Everyone does everything they're likely to as close to the reset as possible, meaning that by the end of the week, there's nothing left. Even guilds like mine that raid on a three-day-a-week schedule can exhaust almost all current raiding well before mid-week if we get some lucky breaks. What if we had some variation?

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Does WoW need more raid lockout alternatives? originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> looking-for-raidraidraid-finderraid-locoutraidingraiding-lockouts (Matthew Rossi) Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[The Care and Feeding of Warriors: The state of the class]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/07/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-the-state-of-the-class/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/07/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-the-state-of-the-class/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/07/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-the-state-of-the-class/#comments Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host.

So, as of right now, at least for warriors, the following things can be said.
  • Warriors are still competitive as tanks. Two issues that are of concern for warrior tanks is that reaching total coverage for the combat table requires more work than, say, paladins (it's still doable) and once you reach it, stamina becomes far more potent than avoidance, and the tier 13 four set bonus basically puts you in an unenviable position of having to save your Shield Wall (a personal cooldown) to try and cover group damage. In general, warrior cooldowns are lackluster in comparison to other classes.
  • Arms is king of PvE DPS for warriors. It's not really because arms got better, but fury got a lot worse. Mastery is still lackluster for fury (bad for SMF, slightly less bad for TG), hit is still way too hard to cap, and the nerf to Dual-Wield Specialization combined with the fix to the Deep Wounds bug has hammered fury fairly hard.
  • In all cases, Gurthalak is basically the Band-Aid that keeps warriors viable as DPS. If you don't have one, you're doing less DPS even if you have a weapon with competitive stats. I'd replace a heroic Zoid's or Skullstealer with a Raid Finder Gurthalak and consider myself lucky.
  • PvP isn't a lot of fun on a warrior right now. We lack real survivability buttons outside of Shield Wall (which needs a macro to work due to stance switching unless you're prot) and don't put out enough damage or debuffs to stay competitive in the Dragonwrath/Fangs of the Father universe that is PvP right now. (I know, right now it's far more likely the rogue merely has stage 2 daggers. Those are enough.)

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors: The state of the class originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 07 Jan 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> class-helpguidepatch-4.3talenttalentswarrior-guidewarrior-infoworld-of-warcraft-class-guideworld-of-warcraft-guideworld-of-warcraft-patch-4.3wow-class-guidewow-class-helpwow-guidewow-patchwow-patch-4.3wow-patch-4.3-newswow-patch-newswow-talent-guidewow-warriorwow-warrior-info (Matthew Rossi) Sat, 07 Jan 2012 18:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Know Your Lore: The top 10 lore reveals of Cataclysm, part 2]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/04/know-your-lore-the-top-10-lore-reveals-of-cataclysm-part-2/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/04/know-your-lore-the-top-10-lore-reveals-of-cataclysm-part-2/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/04/know-your-lore-the-top-10-lore-reveals-of-cataclysm-part-2/#comments 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.

Welcome to what is easily the most subjective list I have ever done. Last week, we covered the Infinite Dragonflight, the Alignment, the return of many old favorites, the tol'vir and Uldum, and the resurgence of the naga. However, that was only half of the story.

This week, we'll get moving right away on the five biggest (as determined by me) lore revelations of this expansion. What did Cataclysm change, shake up, or bring into focus for us?

Continue reading Know Your Lore: The top 10 lore reveals of Cataclysm, part 2

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Know Your Lore: The top 10 lore reveals of Cataclysm, part 2 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> cataclysmdeathwingDruids-of-the-flamefeaturedguideguide-to-lorelorelore-guiderole-playrole-playing-guiderp-guidewarworld-of-warcraft-lorewow-guidewow-lorewow-role-playingwow-role-playing-guidewow-rpwow-rp-guidewow-rpingzandalari (Matthew Rossi) Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[The Care and Feeding of Warriors: 2011's warrior in review]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/31/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-2011s-warrior-in-review/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/31/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-2011s-warrior-in-review/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/31/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-2011s-warrior-in-review/#comments Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host.

In the past, I've done Year in Review columns and liked them well enough. The first one I wrote was in 2007 and discussed rage normalization, which to my eyes was the biggest and worst change the warrior class had undergone in The Burning Crusade. Flash forward four years. Here we are in 2011, and rage normalization has been with us for a year and the sky didn't fall. This has me in a contemplative mood. The future is Mists of Pandaria and a new talent system, but right now, it's time to look back at what were the biggest developments for the warrior class.

I don't necessarily mean good or bad, here. These are simply profound changes, things that may have also affected other classes but which definitely affected us. While 2011 was a year we made contact (because we're melee, we have to make contact) it was also a year of a great many changes.

Mastery

I've talked about it before, but mastery really has been a game-changer for warriors this past year. Fury warriors got so much out of the stat before patch 4.1 that the amount of mastery they have at base was nerfed from 8 points to 2 points. It worked, after a fashion, because until patch 4.3, it became impossible for fury warriors to assemble enough mastery to make them interested in the stat again. It may be possible with Dragon Soul gear for TG fury, but with arms the dominant DPS spec for warriors in Dragon Soul raids right now, it's not likely to be tested exhaustively.

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors: 2011's warrior in review originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 31 Dec 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> class-helpguideLooking-for-RaidMasteryRageRage-NormalizationReforgingtalenttalentstransmogtransmogrificationwarrior-guidewarrior-infoworld-of-warcraft-class-guideworld-of-warcraft-guidewow-class-guidewow-class-helpwow-guidewow-talent-guidewow-warriorwow-warrior-info (Matthew Rossi) Sat, 31 Dec 2011 16:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[The Raid Finder, the Dungeon Finder, point caps and you]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/30/the-raid-finder-the-dungeon-finder-point-caps-and-you/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/30/the-raid-finder-the-dungeon-finder-point-caps-and-you/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/30/the-raid-finder-the-dungeon-finder-point-caps-and-you/#comments I have a theory that either our various caps for justice and valor points are too low, or the amount we get per activity is too high. I'll relate my thinking. I have several level 85 characters I'm running through the Dungeon Finder and Raid Finder tools. Clearing both halves of the Raid Finder Dragon Soul gets me 500 valor; I then run four random heroics, and I'm capped. This means that playing my main any further that week is effectively a waste of time. (I usually cap my valors out before I even raid for a week, which makes raiding just about the gear, but I'm OK with that.)

My problem is, I like my main. I'd play him more if there was anything to do. As it is, I tend to cap out on justice points rather than run on one of my alts, and even then, they usually cap on valors as well. (At least two of them do.) I even sometimes cap on honor, and with the new conquest point gains for Random BGs, I could cap on conquest if I really set my mind to it. And while I understand why we have both weekly and total caps on points, it often feels like I'm being penalized for liking the game and wanting to play it.

Continue reading The Raid Finder, the Dungeon Finder, point caps and you

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The Raid Finder, the Dungeon Finder, point caps and you originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 30 Dec 2011 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> conquestcurrencydungeon-finderhonorjusticeJustice-PointsLFDLFRpointsraid-findervalorValor-Points (Matthew Rossi) Fri, 30 Dec 2011 22:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Know Your Lore: The top 10 lore reveals of Cataclysm, part 1]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/28/top-10-lore-reveals-of-cataclysm-part-1/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/28/top-10-lore-reveals-of-cataclysm-part-1/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/28/top-10-lore-reveals-of-cataclysm-part-1/#comments 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.

Spoilers for every single Cataclysm raid and zone to be found here.

On the whole, Cataclysm has revealed a great deal of lore for the Warcraft universe. We've been to all four of the elemental planes and destabilized two of them by destroying the elemental lords who were effectively the dictatorial forces of their respective elementals. As of this writing, only Therazane remains as undisputed master of her elemental plane. (Indeed, with the destruction of Deathwing, she's actually in a stronger place than she was.) We've seen the Twilight's Hammer cult rise to world-shaking prominence and played a role in setting them back by destroying Cho'gall. We've finally managed to balk them on the eve of their Old God masters' final triumph by destroying Deathwing just as he was about to unleash an even more destructive assault on Azeroth than his first.

The Dragon Aspects lost their immortality just after we discovered that there were actually safeguards in place to appoint new ones. We discovered the secret land of Uldum and its Titanic ruins, and we prevented the activation of the Halls of Origination at Deathwing's behest and discovered the connection between the Qiraji and Uldum. We also saw the war between the Alliance and Horde begin lurching toward a new phase. We discovered the fate of Gilneas and the Gilneans, saw tantalizing hints as to the development of the goblin people and their mysterious kajamite, and even more. It's been an eventful expansion in terms of what it established. For the next couple of weeks, I'm going to talk about where Cataclysm took us and what we discovered.

Continue reading Know Your Lore: The top 10 lore reveals of Cataclysm, part 1

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Know Your Lore: The top 10 lore reveals of Cataclysm, part 1 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 28 Dec 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> AlignmentArygosAzsharaCalenChogallDragonwrathfeaturedFirelandsguideguide-to-loreKalecgoslorelore-guideMalygosmortalsNagaNefarianNozdormuRagnarosrole-playrole-playing-guiderp-guideTarecgosaTolvirworld-of-warcraft-lorewow-guidewow-lorewow-role-playingwow-role-playing-guidewow-rpwow-rp-guidewow-rping (Matthew Rossi) Wed, 28 Dec 2011 18:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Big stakes and the end of an expansion]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/28/big-stakes-and-the-end-of-an-expansion/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/28/big-stakes-and-the-end-of-an-expansion/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/28/big-stakes-and-the-end-of-an-expansion/#comments Guys, I don't know if you know this, but we have just pried the elementium plates off of the back of a dragon so big 25 people can stand on him. After that, we killed the mutant kaiju version of him, who was so big his head alone was bigger than us and four other giant dragons.

I'm sorry, but you have to be 50 kinds of jaded to not enjoy this. One of the things I've really enjoyed about patch 4.3 and the Dragon Soul raid is how it unabashedly throws massive, crazy, world-ending doomsday events at you. Between fending off not one but two faceless ones from within bloated abominations, balking an ancient earth elemental giant at the base of Wyrmrest Temple, and defeating Ultraxion and then taking on Deathwing himself, the fights feel enormous. The stakes are huge, and while the supposed saviors of Azeroth spend a lot of time thinking really hard at a McGuffin, we step the heck up.

Whether you are hitting it via Raid Finder, attending your weekly 10-man hardcore raid, or participating as a member of a casual 25-man raid alliance (or anything in between), in terms of pure aesthetics, Dragon Soul is a very satisfying raid in terms of pure scope and sweep.

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Big stakes and the end of an expansion originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 28 Dec 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> CataclysmDragon-Soulpatch-4.3raidraidingSunwellTransmogTransmogrificationUlduarworld-of-warcraft-patch-4.3wow-patchwow-patch-4.3wow-patch-4.3-newswow-patch-news (Matthew Rossi) Wed, 28 Dec 2011 13:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Leveling from 61 to 80]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/24/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-leveling-from-61-to-80/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/24/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-leveling-from-61-to-80/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/24/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-leveling-from-61-to-80/#comments Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host.

Leveling in Northrend was made easier with patch 4.3's reducing the experience necessary by 33%. In addition, many quests in Outland and Northrend were retuned from group quests to soloable, and the major quest givers for instance quests were moved inside the instances in most cases so that players using Dungeon Finder to level through them could turn them in more easily.

These changes make leveling through the oldest content in the game (with the Cataclysm revamps, Outland and Northrend are in fact older content than the 1-to-60 game) easier than it has ever been. That makes now the perfect time to talk about how to level through these 19 levels and get ready for the 80-to-85 content. Since we talked about 1 to 60 two weeks ago, we'll follow much the same format.

Continue reading The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Leveling from 61 to 80

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Leveling from 61 to 80 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 24 Dec 2011 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> class-helpguideLevelingleveling-guidetalenttalentswarrior-guidewarrior-infowarrior-levelingworld-of-warcraft-class-guideworld-of-warcraft-guidewow-class-guidewow-class-helpwow-guidewow-talent-guidewow-warriorwow-warrior-info (Matthew Rossi) Sat, 24 Dec 2011 22:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Breakfast Topic: Do you PvP to win or to make the enemy lose?]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/24/breakfast-topic-do-you-pvp-to-win-or-to-make-the-enemy-lose/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/24/breakfast-topic-do-you-pvp-to-win-or-to-make-the-enemy-lose/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/24/breakfast-topic-do-you-pvp-to-win-or-to-make-the-enemy-lose/#comments I'm not sure why I do this, but every so often I spec protection, get on my best PvP gear, and go out of my way to prevent other players (opposing faction players, usually) from achieving their objectives -- not, to be clear, to prevent them from killing me or anyone else. No, I don't care if they kill me. The goal is to prevent them from achieving whatever the victory condition is.

Is it to capture a flag? Assault an enemy warmaster? Take over a base? It really does not matter. I seriously don't even care if we win sometimes, just so long as they don't. This is not always possible, mind you. But one of my best moments was in managing to charge into Drek's room on my tauren, hit every survival cooldown, and fear, then Shockwave the Alliance's healers, keeping them occupied just long enough for Drek to kill their tank. Did I survive it? Heck, no. Neither did they. And it was glorious -- even though we still lost.

Something about PvP just makes me like this. I don't care if I win, as long as you lose, forcing you to try and recap a tower or run back to Mage Tower, or even keeping you in mid-field while your flag runs back to the Dragonmaw base.

Have you ever felt this way? Have you even PvPed purely out of spite?
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.

Breakfast Topic: Do you PvP to win or to make the enemy lose? originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 24 Dec 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> facebookfeedgame-discussiongamer-discussionPVPworld-of-warcraft-discussionworld-of-warcraft-topicswow-discussionwow-hot-topicswow-issueswow-topics (Matthew Rossi) Sat, 24 Dec 2011 08:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[What the Raid Finder's success means for the future of accessible content]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/21/what-the-raid-finders-success-means-for-the-future-of-accessibl/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/21/what-the-raid-finders-success-means-for-the-future-of-accessibl/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/21/what-the-raid-finders-success-means-for-the-future-of-accessibl/#comments The Raid Finder is here to stay. It's rolled out to astonishing success, getting more people to see the encounters of the major raid of the Cataclysm expansion than we've seen since the days that Karazhan convinced Blizzard that 10-man raiding was an option worth exploring. With Blizzard explicitly intending to move forward with the Raid Finder so that every future raid will have a RF difficulty option, a few things are likely to develop.

When we consider the Raid Finder as a tool, we have to consider it both as a tool for the players (us) and as a tool for the designers, a means for them to deal with a persistent and somewhat untenable issue with the raiding game -- a ton of work goes into raid design, and statistically speaking, almost no one ever sees it. People who got to see Kel'Thuzad at level 60, Illidan or Kil'Jaeden at 70, or even Arthas at level 80 are in the minority. Thanks to the Raid Finder, Deathwing may be the most accessible big bad any expansion's ever had. Looking forward, a few broad strokes may be discerned about the Raid Finder and where it will drive the game.

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What the Raid Finder's success means for the future of accessible content originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 21 Dec 2011 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> lfrlooking-for-raidpatch-4.3raid-finderworld-of-warcraft-patch-4.3wow-patchwow-patch-4.3wow-patch-4.3-newswow-patch-news (Matthew Rossi) Wed, 21 Dec 2011 21:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Know Your Lore: Lady Liadrin]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/21/know-your-lore-lady-liadrin/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/21/know-your-lore-lady-liadrin/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/21/know-your-lore-lady-liadrin/#comments 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.

There have been many paladins in the lands of Azeroth. Some hail from other worlds, such as the Vindicators of the Draenei. Still others are newly come to their powers, such as the Sunwalkers of the Shu'Halo. Ultimately, to be a paladin is to trust in a greater power than yourself to be your sword, shield and balm against the forces that threaten all you hold dear.

Interestingly, the Horde has not one but two unique paladin orders formed in recent years. Of these two, the Blood Knights of the Sin'dorei are interesting not only for the means of their foundation, but also the evolution they have gone through. This evolution is mirrored by that of their Matriarch, Liadrin. A former priest who survived the Scourge onslaught on Quel'thalas and the destruction of the original Sunwell, she lost her faith in the Light and took up the power of a Blood Knight in order to show her spite and derision for the magical force that did nothing to save her city and her people. Yet in time, Liadrin would learn that things were not as they seemed, turning against the Blood Prince Kael'thas himself for the sake of her people.

Liadrin, the first Blood Knight, became in truth as well in power a paladin. All she had to do was suffer the destruction of everything she thought she knew.

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Know Your Lore: Lady Liadrin originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 21 Dec 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> Astalor-Bloodswornfeaturedguideguide-to-loreKaelthasLady-Liadrinlorelore-guideMururole-playrole-playing-guideRommathrp-guideVelenworld-of-warcraft-lorewow-guidewow-lorewow-role-playingwow-role-playing-guidewow-rpwow-rp-guidewow-rping (Matthew Rossi) Wed, 21 Dec 2011 15:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Breakfast Topic: Do you enjoy an unexpected agenda?]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/21/breakfast-topic-do-you-enjoy-an-unexpected-agenda/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/21/breakfast-topic-do-you-enjoy-an-unexpected-agenda/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/21/breakfast-topic-do-you-enjoy-an-unexpected-agenda/#comments One of the things I like to do in World of Warcraft is use the game as an insomnia cure. When like tonight I have a strange or unsettling dream and can't get back to sleep, I log in and run some heroics, do some PvP, or go explore a place in the world I haven't been to in a while. This is how I ended up tanking the new and improved Abominable Greench at 4 a.m. as an arms warrior. Who says you can't tank as arms? Me, I say that. But he died, the reindeer was saved, and I went on my merry way, only to be pulled into a full-fledged PvP war at the gates of Orgrimmar.

A group of Alliance players was bringing the war to us. They even pulled Gamon into the fray. Gamon still hits pretty hard even at the end of the expansion with us all geared significantly higher than we were a year ago. Much back-and-forth mayhem ensued as each side found Gamon attacking one of theirs. We pushed them out of Org only for them to push back in, and I got to hit Bladestorm in the middle of a whole lot of people.

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Breakfast Topic: Do you enjoy an unexpected agenda? originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 21 Dec 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> facebookfeedgame-discussiongamer-discussionworld-of-warcraft-discussionworld-of-warcraft-topicswow-discussionwow-hot-topicswow-issueswow-topics (Matthew Rossi) Wed, 21 Dec 2011 08:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Proc weapons and the future of itemization]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/17/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-proc-weapons-and-the-future-of/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/17/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-proc-weapons-and-the-future-of/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/17/the-care-and-feeding-of-warriors-proc-weapons-and-the-future-of/#comments Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host.

For the first time since the brief period following the launch of the pre-Cataclysm patch, arms has achieved parity with fury as a PvE DPS spec. Granted, this required a painful mauling to fury's DPS output and relies heavily on arms' ludicrous AoE potential as well as getting your hands on a Gurthalak. The proc on the weapon can add as much as 15% of your current DPS; in raids and on heroics, I've seen the Tentacle of the Old Gods put out more DPS than Rend and Deep wounds combined. Even on a high-trash dungeon where you can use Blood and Thunder to spread Rend around, Tentacle can still put out a respectable 5% to 6% of your total damage.

The sword is just as good for fury (I did in fact try out a fury build with it off-hand to test if it procced, and it did, quite frequently). While it won't make up for the nerf fury took, it does put me in mind of weapons like Bryntroll and Shadowmourne, proc weapons that did excellent damage in a warrior's hands from the end of the ICC era. I'll admit it's unfair to use Shadowmourne as an exemplar here, as the weapon was a legendary, but that's OK -- this isn't meant to be a pure comparison.

Proc weapons have a long and storied tradition in World of Warcraft but they've also somewhat fallen from favor, since they're never as reliable and predictable as pure stats. People would argue the Blackhand Doomsaw vs. Arcanite Reaper into the small hours back then. But I think Dragon Soul's two proc weapons (Gurthalak and Souldrinker) have me thinking a lot about where weapon itemization has been and where it's going, and what that means for us warriors.

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Proc weapons and the future of itemization originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 17 Dec 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> Blackhand-DoomsawBryntrollclass-helpguideGurthalakHalberd-Of-SmitingLast-Wordpatch-4.3ShadowmourneSouldrinkertalenttalentswarrior-guidewarrior-infoworld-of-warcraft-class-guideworld-of-warcraft-guideworld-of-warcraft-patch-4.3wow-class-guidewow-class-helpwow-guidewow-patchwow-patch-4.3wow-patch-4.3-newswow-patch-newswow-talent-guidewow-warriorwow-warrior-info (Matthew Rossi) Sat, 17 Dec 2011 20:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[5 ways to improve the Raid Finder]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/15/5-ways-to-improve-the-raid-finder/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/15/5-ways-to-improve-the-raid-finder/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/15/5-ways-to-improve-the-raid-finder/#comments I'll admit it: The Raid Finder feature has been a lot more successful than I expected it would be, and for the most part, it works not only better than I had thought but better than I could have ever hoped. I've run multiple alts through both halves of the Dragon Soul via Raid Finder, and while it's easy to tell that the fights have been reduced in complexity from the raid, they do still require some coordination and execution to get through -- enough to make a full PUG of the Raid Finder a hair above just showing up and getting loot, which is nice.

The Raid Finder does the job of making complex raid content accessible for players who might otherwise never get to see these fights and it does it well. That being said, there have been some issues with loot, player behavior, and even the way the Raid Finder selects players in my runs that I wanted to address, aspects that could be improved or streamlined to give us all a better Raid Finder experience.

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5 ways to improve the Raid Finder originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 15 Dec 2011 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> patch-4.3Raid-Finderworld-of-warcraft-patch-4.3wow-patchwow-patch-4.3wow-patch-4.3-newswow-patch-news (Matthew Rossi) Thu, 15 Dec 2011 21:00:00 EST WoW Insider <![CDATA[Know Your Lore: The paladin tradition]]> http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/14/know-your-lore-the-paladin-tradition/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/14/know-your-lore-the-paladin-tradition/ http://wow.joystiq.com/2011/12/14/know-your-lore-the-paladin-tradition/#comments 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.


Uther the Lightbringer to Arthas, Arthas: Rise of the Lich King by Christie Golden
"Lad, no one feels ready. No one feels he deserves it. And you know why? Because no one does. It's grace, pure and simple. We are inherently unworthy, simply because we're human, and all human beings--aye, and elves, and dwarves, and all the other races--are flawed. But the Light loves us anyway. It loves us for what we sometimes can rise to in rare moments. It loves us for what we can do to help others. And it loves us because we can help it share its message by striving daily to be worthy, even though we understand that we can't ever truly become so. So stand there today, as I did, feeling that you can't possibly deserve it or ever be worthy, and know that you're in the same place every single paladin has ever stood."

There are several paladin traditions on Azeroth. Two are directly interrelated, stemming from the same basic source and coming together in a modern form. Another was originally a mockery of those traditions, now worked into a reflection that suits those who use it. Yet another was brought to the world with the Exodar, a tradition that goes back thousands upon thousands of years. The final one is newborn, a philosophy born of recent meditations on the horrors of war and the need for balance against the darkness.

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Know Your Lore: The paladin tradition originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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]]> Aponi-BrightmanefeaturedGavinradguideguide-to-loreLiadrinlorelore-guiderole-playrole-playing-guiderp-guideTuralyonUtherworld-of-warcraft-lorewow-guidewow-lorewow-role-playingwow-role-playing-guidewow-rpwow-rp-guidewow-rping (Matthew Rossi) Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:00:00 EST WoW Insider