Posts with tag 2.3

Nearly every patch includes new items for players to farm up. While these additions are typically new tradeskill recipes, occasionally other goodies are thrown into the mix. The upcoming patch 2.3 contains both of these types of items for your farming pleasure (or annoyance). I'll quickly cover the items, where they're dropping and the creatures that drop them in order to create a consolidated resource to help plan your farming once the patch hits the live realms.

First off is the new leatherworking bag. The pattern for the Bag of Many Hides can be found through the mass slaughter of the Gordunni ogres in the Barrier Hills above Aldor Rise in Shattrath. This recipe will allow a leatherworker to create a 24 slot bag to hold the essential tools and materials of their trade.

When I first heard about the leveling improvements that are forthcoming with patch 2.3, I was very happy. As an admitted alt-o-holic, creating and leveling alts is the main thing that's kept me interested in WoW for the past three years. When the last expansion came out, I had five level sixty characters, with one more nearly there, and I've been diligently leveling them up to seventy since then. My ultimate goal is to level up one of each class at some point and I'm only three more characters away from success. The next patch will definitely help push my Shaman, Mage and Priest up through the ranks.

When the long wait times for character copies subsided, I transfered my level forty shaman to the test realm in order to check out the improved experience gains. The good news is that the change was certainly noticeable. While I don't have any hard data, with full rested experience, I was able to gain about three levels in just a few hours while doing quests that were mostly green to me. The bad news is that I've been spoiled by the new experience rate and have been unable to continue leveling my alts on the live server.

Have you experienced anything similar? Are your alts being neglected until 2.3 comes out?

Since it's looking hopeful that patch 2.3 will be released within the next couple of weeks, it's probably time to start getting prepared for all the long-awaited features that are being added to the live realms. Aside from Zul'Aman, guild banks are probably the biggest new item coming out with the patch.

While guild leaders will undoubtedly be delighted to delete their bank alts, (some of the guilds I've been in have had as many as five or six,) and will also have to make difficult decisions about which members get access to the loot, I'd like to focus more on the impact upon individual players rather than whole guilds. Most players that have been in Azeroth for awhile probably have a bank alt that's mainly used to store trade goods and sell things on the auction house. In 2.3, according to all reports thus far, it should be possible to set up a one-alt guild so that your bank alt will have access to much more storage space.

Wowhead updated its database earlier today. While most of the new items were to be expected, (such as the new leatherworking bags, the new ammo and the quest items for the new daily heroic quests,) there was one that came as a surprise. Apparently, a new first aid book has been discovered in patch 2.3: Artisan First Aid - Heal Thyself.

The appearance of this item creates a lot of questions. Does this mean that characters will no longer have to do a quest to earn artisan level first aid? Or will this book merely be a reward for the current quests? Will this book be sold, and if so, where?

While the first change has been on the PTR for awhile now, it seems to have gone relatively unnoticed. The old Field Repair Bot 7A has had its mats decreased and is now stackable. The new mats, as pictured above, are 16 x Thorium Bars and 2 x Fused Wiring. I've been able to make a few bots on the PTR and can confirm that they also stack up to five.

In addition to the recent changes to the latest PTR build, players are reporting that additional items can now be stored in the Fel Iron Toolbox. The new items include motes, primals and blacksmith hammers. The storage of the elemental ingredients will definitely help out while attempting to maximize bank space. Let's hope that this change was intentional and doesn't get reverted in a future patch.

The first official installment of patch 2.3 is now available to the Blizzard Background Downloader. While it may still be several weeks until the patch is activated on the live realms, this is nonetheless a sign of hope for many players who have been eagerly anticipating the new content. I have no doubt that the patch release date guessing game will come up at least once in guild chat while I'm online tonight. (I might even be the instigator.)

Many people I've grouped with in game have complained of extra latency while the Downloader is running. If you start to notice this problem while playing tonight, you can always alt-tab out and suspend the download. Also, you can always access the options for the Downloader through the WoW Launcher which, in turn, can be enabled/disabled from your login screen. Additionally, if you'd like to start downloading without starting up WoW, you can use the Background Downloader icon in the WoW folder on your hard drive. For further questions, be sure to check out the Blizzard support page for more help on the subject.

A couple of different sites around the net are claiming that the recently leaked photos of the rocket chicken, paper toys and the dragon kite are attached to the latest loot cards from the WoW card game. Previous speculation had linked them to the engineering profession, which wasn't a bad guess considering the new schematics that are already being added to that profession in the next patch.

Now, Dyrk at the Gutterspeak blog claims to have some new information about the rocket chicken, which will apparently be the second rarest item of the three new cards. He claims that it's a small, non-combat pet that launches itself into the air (or accidentally blows itself up) as its idle animation.

Big changes are coming to the Alterac Valley battleground in patch 2.3, and, as is often the case with these things, players are already expressing their discontent. Nethaera responded to a thread on the official forums yesterday in order to address such complaints. She reminded everyone that the developers are currently monitoring the changes to AV and are tweaking the honor earned in order to keep the overall gain as similar as possible to the current rate on the live realms.

The most interesting part of her post, of course, regards a change being implemented regarding the mechanics of capturing a mine. When a mine is captured by a player, his or her team will be awarded a steady stream of reinforcements. According to Neth, the capturing team will receive about one reinforcement every forty-five seconds or so. Since I haven't played the new AV on the PTR, it's difficult for me to develop an opinion on this change. What do you think?

Update: Blizzard poster Salthem has posted a few more details of the change to the mines.

Testers are reporting on the official PTR forums that the gains for Wintersaber Trainers reputation have been drastically increased. This Alliance-only grind has long been the worst in the game, with quests originally rewarding 50 reputation points at a time.

Considering the fact that players start at neutral with the faction and receive their one and only reward at exalted reputation, that's about 42,000 points to earn (or about 840 quests to complete) without any motivational incentives gained along the way. It retained this infamous status even when the reputation gain was raised to 75 points in patch 2.0.1, but now it has reportedly been raised even further to 250 points for each quest completed.

Befitting the grueling nature of the grind, there has been a lot of solidarity between those undertaking it, inspiring "Wintersaber Support Group" threads on the WoW forums for as long as I can remember. Understandably, a lot of the players that have already earned their "stripes" are concerned that their dearly won Winterspring Frostsaber mount will become more common, thus lowering its uniqueness and invalidating their hard work. On the other hand, many players, like myself, are relieved that this grind has finally become realistically achievable. Where do your opinions lie on this issue?

MMO Champion has reported that new "Specialty Ammunition Vendors" have been discovered on the PTR in patch 2.3. These vendors, Archer Delvinar and Marksman Bova, can be found in once empty structures in the Scryer and Aldor areas, respectively, in Shattrath City. Not only do they sell the best types of normal vendor ammunition outside of Halaa, but they also stock ammunition that has reputation requirements. Instead of running over to the Cenarion Refuge in Zangarmarsh every time you need to stock up on Warden's Arrows, you can now buy the same ammo in Shattrath.

The same vendors also carry ammunition that is currently only available from vendors in Honor Hold/Thrallmar and the Caverns of Time. Currently the cost of all the ammunition sold by these vendors appears to be tied to Aldor/Scryer reputation level, but still requires the specified faction requirement to actually purchase and use.

Of course, the best news is that these vendors also carry a new type of ammunition. The Mysterious Arrows and Mysterious Shells require revered reputation with the Violet Eye and provide 46.5 additional damage per second. A stack of 200 costs 1 gold without any price reductions from reputation.

Clearly these new items are meant to fill the gap between Adamantite and Timeless ammunition and help hunters that are tackling Magtheridon, Serpentshrine Cavern and Tempest Keep increase their damage output. With the new Adamantite Stingers also being added 2.3, hunters will have more options than ever before when choosing a type of ammunition.

There's yet more Patch 2.3 news, this time for people who have been having problems with sound ever since the sound upgrades in 2.2. As Cicero noted from his experience on the test realms, "all my sound problems were gone. I can hear myself cast again, no more clipped sounds..."

Those of you who have been suffering unduly may wish to go to the test realms and try it out. I haven't been able to do so myself due to some computer limitations, but I wonder if our readers who have visited the test realms can comment on any differences they can hear.

Are things really as good as Cicero says?

Yesterday a new build of patch 2.3 went live on the PTRs, and while the blues don't seem to have updated the patch notes, World of Raids has the full scoop on the changes. Here's what's new:

• 5 new PvP trinkets, available for 30k honor plus 40 AV marks from the honor vendors, or for 75 Badges of Justice from G'eras (man, that guy's item list is getting long).
  
• A new Priest talent in Discipline, called Focused Will (see screenshot). It sits right next to Power Infusion, and has no specific prerequisite.
• The Retribution Paladin season 3 arena set, Gladiator's Vindication, has had its spell damage stats replaced with physical damage stats.
• The Restoration Druid season 3 arena set, Gladiator's Refuge, has had its recently-added spirit reverted back to mp5.
• "The new pvp daily quest now rewards 11g99s and 4192 honor (up from about 2000) Edit: this was a typo, apparently on Blizzard's part. The actual reward is 400 honor, but it no longer rewards marks of honor."
• Zul'Aman's starting event "improved"
• It is no longer possible to have both a PvP title and a PvE title at the same time.
• The fish-tracking manual has been found (fished up), as well as an item that starts a (currently bugged) fishing quest.
• Many ZA weapons and armor pieces have been recolored.

For more details on all of this, bounce on over to World of Raids. What do you guys think of Focused Will? It looks a little weak to me for being that deep in the tree (not to mention its name is distractingly similar to Force of Will). Obviously a PvP talent. Arena fiends, will you be taking it?

It appears that the latest information from the PTR for Patch 2.3 regarding hunters' ranged attacks is incorrect, as are the cries of multitudes who feel that hunters shooting close up would be unfairly overpowered. Drysc says:

There's a tooltip error, it should be "5-35 yards". We want melee and ranged to be kept separate, so that when in melee attack range you should not be able to use a ranged attack. There's some amount of 'give' there, especially in fast paced PvP which can produce some temporary gray area but that's fully known with this change.

Feeding the issue of the tooltip error is a bug currently where you can indeed range attack someone while being meleed, but that's in the process of being resolved as well.

When I first saw the new "1-41" range for hunters (that's with the extended-range talent "Hawk Eye") over on World of Raids, I knew that something was wrong. To let hunters use melee and ranged attacks at the same time means that they would often do better up close to their enemies rather than far away, and would go against a lot of the fundamental concepts around which the class is based. As it is, the mechanic of switching between melee and ranged attacks is one of the exciting things about being a hunter, and, now that the deadzone is dying at last, there won't be that block of frustration getting in the way between the two.

I was standing under Moen's Nozzle of Inspiration a while ago. No, that's not an in-game item, I'm talking about my shower head. Ever since I got back from my mini-vacation this week I've just been completely blank about what to write about. There were a few topics rolling around in my head, but no stories. Suddenly, the rabbit joke appeared and everything came into focus.

You've all heard the rabbit joke. A guy is traveling down the road when he accidentally sends a rabbit to its permanent death. He pulls over to verify if the rabbit is indeed dead, and as he's standing there staring at the rabbit cadaver, a mysterious passerby stops and asks what's happening. The saddened man explains that he didn't mean to kill the rabbit, and points to the dead animal on the ground. The mysterious passerby goes to their vehicle and returns with an aerosol can. He picks up the rabbit, sprays the rabbit, and in a moment reminiscent of the Mr. Jingles scene from The Green Mile, the rabbit springs to life. The happy varmint leaves the two onlookers, travels down the road, waves, travels a little further, waves, and continues doing this until it disappears out of sight. The two relieved strangers part company leaving our original rabbit killer standing confused on the side of the road wondering what was sprayed on the rabbit. He picks up the can to read it. "Hare spray. Revitalizes hare, and gives it a permanent wave."

Well. Some people are mighty worried about what Blizzard is intending to spray on some previously nerfed rogues, and I would be one of them. I was personally so sickened by the Subtlety talent tree (that served me well from levels one to seventy) that I recently respec'ed to a common Assassination/Combat blend. While mere words can't explain how deeply amusing it is to watch something die when you're not even hitting it, I really miss the "WHAMMO" effect I used to have in the subtlety tree. It looks though, from changes on the PTR to the subtlety tree that subtlety may not be a lost art form after all. Eliah applied more than adequate emphasis to the changes in the Cheat Death talent the other day, but Doomilias over at A View From Behind has experienced the changes first-hand and even as a rogue says the changes are overpowered. He believes there is no way that Cheat Death is going to go to the live servers with a 33/66/100% spread. He thinks that a 100% immunity to killing blows coupled with a brief period of invincibility and a short cooldown is a recipe for disaster. Doomilias thinks that this "new and improved" Cheat Death is going to breed an entire nation of roguetards that will flood battlegrounds like an army of ants. What do you rogues think? I don't know what the rest of you think, but I think I'm going to copy to the PTR and spec back to subtlety and give this new stuff a try!