Posts with tag PvE

Daxxarri clarifies PvP and PvE gear changes in Mists of Pandaria

by Mathew McCurley Mar 7th 2012 at 5:00PM

Daxxarri took to the forums to clarify for players that the world will not end when the relative items levels of PvE and PvP gear change in the next expansion. Players have been confused as to what Blizzard meant when it indicated that PvP gear in Mists of Pandaria will be a lower item level than its PvE counterpart but more effective in PvP because of the addition of a free stat to the item's budget that boosts its effectiveness against other players.

Blizzard is making this change for many reasons, one of which is to stop player abuse of PvP gear's item level to inflate their scores to enter dungeons via the Dungeon and Raid Finders earlier than they should. Resilience is being changed to a PvP-centric stat that does not cost anything in an item's budget and enhances the item's effectiveness in PvP. The item's effectiveness in PvE, however, would be that of similarly leveled PvE gear.

This turns the best PvP gear into relatively decent PvE gear with a lower item level. The highest tier of PvP gear will still be the best gear for fighting other players because of the new stat that the highest tier of PvE gear is lacking, regardless of item level. If you PvP, wear PvP gear. If you PvE, wear PvE gear. Now, however, going between the two won't be as severe as it is right now.

Hit the jump for Daxxarri's posts and explanations in full regarding PvP and PvE gear.

Filed under: PvP, Mists of Pandaria

Is choosing a server becoming obsolete?

by Anne Stickney Jan 13th 2012 at 5:00PM

Let's hop in the wayback machine for a minute, because I enjoy doing that. Once upon a time in the days of vanilla WoW, players who had just purchased the game were faced with a choice upon logging in for the first time: What server would they call home? There were three different server types, each with their own flavor: PvP, for those that wanted to log in and have the opportunity to whale on the opposing faction at any given opportunity; PvE for those who would rather avoid fighting with other players and simply enjoy the content; and RP, for those who wanted to create character stories and roleplay with other characters. Later, the RP-PvP realm was introduced for roleplayers who really wanted to whale on the opposing faction as well as roleplay.

But the choice went beyond a simple matter of what type of game you wanted to play. Each server had its own cast of characters, and as the years went by, these players turned into friends and foes alike. Servers weren't just about how you wanted to play; they were a collection of people you interacted with on a daily basis. Guilds were composed of people with the same ideas in mind, but those guilds weren't the be all and end- all of your interaction with people in the game. Every server had that one guy who was always cracking jokes in trade chat. Every server always had a ninja or two. And of course, there was always the guy who didn't seem to get what social interaction was all about.

These days, we have cross-realm grouping via Real ID, the Raid Finder for those who don't want to bother with joining a raid guild, and now we've got the up-and-coming feature that will allow us to group with players cross-realm for raiding old content as well as the new stuff. So the big question is this: Do servers even have a purpose anymore?

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion

Gold Capped: This is the wrong way to do epic gems

by Basil Berntsen Dec 9th 2011 at 1:00PM

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail!

Epic gems are here, and they're designed differently than we're used to. To be specific, they're designed without fairness baked in, which is somewhat of a new feeling for people who weren't around buying epic gems in The Burning Crusade.

Fairness is actually the wrong word for this. Life isn't fair, and neither is WoW. Instead, I'll talk about balance. Blizzard has gone to great lengths to ensure that the game remains fun for as many people as possible by trying to avoid changes that suddenly disadvantage an arbitrary subset of players or shift the desirability of choices made a long time ago.

Balanced changes don't force competitive PvP and raiding group to play the gold-making game to be on a level footing with the competition. They also don't provide a tangible itemization difference between the profession perks of different crafting professions.

Filed under: Economy, Gold Capped

Choose My Adventure Live: Join Roblinator in a dungeon

by Robin Torres Mar 7th 2011 at 1:00PM

Choose the adventures of Robin Torres as Roblinator the goblin shamanator or join in with <It came from the Blog> on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H).

This week, I'll be doing a random dungeon. Please join me if you are in your early level 20s. Alternatively, you can watch me in the stream above and participate in the chat room after the break.

Update: The stream is now over. Please click on the image above for the video replay.

Filed under: It Came from the Blog, Choose My Adventure

Choose My Adventure Live: Come dungeon crawl with Roblinator

by Robin Torres Feb 21st 2011 at 1:00PM

Choose the adventures of Robin Torres as Roblinator the goblin shamanator or join in with <It came from the Blog> on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H).

This is a PvE week, so Roblinator will be attempting a dungeon -- hopefully with some of you. Join us in game or in the chat room after the break. We also have lots of polls this week to vote on after the break.

Update: The stream is now over. Please click on the above image for the video replay.

Filed under: It Came from the Blog, Choose My Adventure

Choose My Adventure Live: PvP with Roblinator

by Robin Torres Feb 14th 2011 at 1:00PM

Choose the adventures of Robin Torres as Roblinator the goblin shamanator or join in with <It came from the Blog> on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H).

As promised last week, I'll be PvPing today with anyone who wants to join me. While in the queue, we will be questing in Azshara. If you can't join me in game, you can always watch above and chat after the break.

Update: The stream is now over. You can watch the video replay by clicking on the image above.

Filed under: It Came from the Blog, Choose My Adventure

Blizzard on 2200 rating PvP weapon availability

by Matthew Rossi Jan 26th 2011 at 8:00PM

Confused about when you'll be able to use your 2,200 arena rating weapons? Well, Blizzard has decided to clarify exactly when that will be, and the answer is not Jan. 25 (yesterday) but rather two weeks after patch 4.0.6 drops. Why, you may ask?

Daxxarri - 2200 Rating Weapon Availability

The decision to further delay availability of weapons requiring 2200 rating was not made lightly. Currently very few guilds are clearing PvE content that drops weapons of this caliber, which would make rated Battlegrounds and Arenas the primary source for top-tier weapons. We of course don't want players who are pursuing PvE content to feel as though they must engage in heavy PvP to obtain these weapons in order to be competitive or successful.

source

Understandably, some folks are upset -- probably the ones who either already have the ratings and points ready to spend, or the ones who managed to get the weapons during the brief window where there was a bug. Daxxari answers those concerns in a later post as well.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items, PvP, Raiding, Cataclysm

Free realm transfers to lower-population servers

by Kelly Aarons Dec 23rd 2010 at 7:00PM

It's that time of year again -- the time when certain realms are filled to the brim, making them nigh unplayable. The release of Cataclysm has hit specific U.S. realms hard, and Blizzard is offering to help balance out population issues. To make life easier on these servers, Blizzard is offering free realm transfers to lower-population servers.

The high-populations realms are:

Barthilas (Oceanic-PvP)
Blackrock (US-PvP)
Frostmourne (Oceanic-PvP)
Illidan (US-PvP)
Kel'Thuzad (US-PvP)
Kil'jaeden (US-PvP)
Tichondrius (US-PvP)

The destination realms are as follows:

Altar of Storms (US-PvP)
Arathor (US-PvE)
Fenris (US-PvE)
Garrosh (US-PvE)
Grizzly Hills (US-PvE)
Gul'dan (US-PvP)
Gundrak (Oceanic-PvP)
Nazjatar (US-PvP)
Shattered Halls (US-PvP)
The Forgotten Coast (US-PvP)

Blizzard has stated that while these transfers are still free, they are subject to end once the destination realms fill up. So if you or your guild are planning a move, you should start now to avoid any complications. Most questions on free realm transfers should be on this handy FAQ. As always, a realm transfer to any of the ones not listed still requires a paid character transfer.

Filed under: Blizzard

Battlegroup changes in anticipation of complete merger

by Matthew Rossi Oct 27th 2010 at 6:30PM

Recently, players from the Emberstorm and Whirlwind groups have been noticing that they're being grouped in the dungeon finder with each other. This isn't a bug; the matchmaking system has been changed to allow those two battlegroups to be matched into dungeons and BGs with each other as part of the overall goal to eventually merge all battlegroups across a geographical area (think Europe or North America) and allow matchmaking across all of them.

CM Lylirra announced these changes and addressed some bugs to the process that are making it impossible to queue for BGs, which will hopefully be straightened out. Still, bugs aside, the first step of eventually allowing an entire region to be selected from for PvP and PvE seems really exciting to me and very positive overall. Finally, I'll get to farm all the disparate old friends I have on like 20 servers! A frabjous day, all told.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion (available Dec. 7, 2010), from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, News items, PvP

Gold Capped: GDKP raiding for fun and profit

by Basil Berntsen Jun 14th 2010 at 7:00PM

Want to get Gold Capped? Every week, Basil "Euripides" Berntsen takes a short break from building a raiding guild on Drenden (US-A) to write up a guide that will help you make or spend gold. Check out the Call to Auction podcast, and feel free to email Basil any comments, questions or hate mail!

A very interesting form of raiding has been gaining popularity. GDKP stands, literally, for "gold dragon kill points." It's a badly named system, but essentially, it means that instead of some effort-based DKP system, people participating in the raid use real currency: gold.

So what is this GDKP thing, anyway?

In a GDKP raid, all items of value, whether they're BoP gear, Primordial Saronite, BoE drops, Precious's Ribbon or quest items, are auctioned off in an open bidding system to all participants. The person willing to pay the most for it will get the item in exchange for gold, and at the end of the night, all the gold that was collected is divided out among the raiders.

Filed under: Economy, Gold Capped

15 tips for brand new healers

by Bethany Myers Jun 9th 2010 at 11:00AM

This article has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com.

So you're ready to venture into the thankless realm of healing? It's not for the faint of heart. You will be begged to heal an instance you hate and blamed for deaths that aren't your fault, only to lose gear upgrades to DPS -- all in the same run! On the other hand, healing can be a nice diversion from faceroll macro-mashing, and it's definitely nice to have instant dungeon queues.

Whether you're changing specs at level 80 to help your guild progression, stepping into The Deadmines as a level 18 healer or twinking out a battleground medic -- here are some helpful hints as you prepare to make those health bars greener.

Filed under: Guest Posts

What hunter pets would you like to see tamable?

by Basil Berntsen May 10th 2010 at 2:00PM

Nethaera posted a call for feedback on hunter pets on the official forums:

Nethaera

We're looking to get some feedback on the types of pets that hunters would like to be able to tame and the types of abilities that might be interesting for those pets to have. Is there a type of creature in the game now that you would like to be able to tame or an ability that you've always thought should be added? Here's your chance to share a bit more about what you think could be great additions for the hunter class.

source

Head on over and make sure to get your ideas in! Personally, I'd been saying for months on the Hunting Party that they should make pet special abilities debuffs to allow hunters to use a greater variety of pets in end game raiding and remain competitive with those nasty melee classes. Wolves are cool, and all, but are boring as sin when they're all you see.

So far, they've announced that, in Cataclysm:

Wind Serpents will debuff spell damage taken
Ravagers will provide a physical damage vulnerability
Hyenas will provide a bleed damage magnifier

I'd like to see the whole list of debuffs available in some way from a hunter pet, if in slightly reduced form. Personally, I'd also love to see the Beastmaster spec's third tier mastery buff provide lower penalties on debuffs in addition to increasing pet damage.

Filed under: Hunter, Blizzard, News items, Cataclysm

Totem Talk: Enhancement glyph review

by Rich Maloy Mar 13th 2010 at 10:00PM

Axes, maces, lightning, fire, frost, and wolves, and best of all, Windfury. It can mean only one thing: enhancement. Rich Maloy lives it and loves it. His main spec is enhance. His off-spec is enhance. He blogs about the life and times of enhance at Big Hit Box and pens the enhance side of Totem Talk.

Last week I went over the talents in great detail. Exhausting, two page article detail. I also linked to two specs which included glyphs. Those specs will serve enhancement shamans everywhere well enough to get the basics done, but I didn't get into the glyphs. This is what we'll tackle today.

There are 28 major glyphs for shamans but of course not all apply to enhancement. Of those 28, two are considered must-haves for PvE (once you hit level at least 60). They are: Glyph of Stormstrike (level 40) and Glyph of Feral Spirit (level 60). And when it comes to PvP no other glyph beats Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem.

After the break we'll review the enhance-related glyphs and get into a few options for glyph setups.

Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk

Totem Talk: Enhancement talents

by Rich Maloy Mar 7th 2010 at 4:00PM

Being a hybrid class means there's not a lot of wiggle room when it comes to making specs as one spec can serve us well through 10s, 25s, dungeons, and soloing. While PvE builds don't leave much room for experimentation, I've seen far more variance in PvP specs, mostly depending on play-style.

Of course there are distinct PvP talents built into the trees and there are core talents for both PvE and PvP without which we're just not enhancement shamans. But depending on your gear, team, and how your play you can customize your PvP specs for defensive, offensive, mana-rich, or anywhere in between.

Let's start right out with the two of the more common builds right now:

PvE - 19/52/0 - this spec will serve most all enhancers well across all levels on content and is the spec I use on Stoney.

PvP - 16/55/0 - as I mentioned above there is far more flexibility in specs for PvP. I chose this one because it's a good starter PvP spec that is highly mana-conservative and defensive focused. I've seen many different takes on enhancement PvP specs and experienced players will alter to suit their own play style. But if you need a place to start, go with this.

Read on after the break for the talent-by-talent breakdown of enhancement shamans!

Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk

Tom Chilton retrospective interview on Wrath of the Lich King

by Basil Berntsen Feb 18th 2010 at 4:00PM

There's an excellent interview with Tom Chilton, the World of Warcraft lead game designer, up on GameInformer. Lots of stuff we've heard before, but there are some interesting talking points. For example:

They are looking into extending the dungeon finder to 10-man content.
Chilton hinted that we may see a new boss in the Ruby Sanctum before Cataclysm launches
They have a "general philosophical approach of getting the hybrids to where they're close to the DPS classes when it comes to DPS roles. Otherwise, those specs just turn into joke specs."
They feel warlocks could use a boost to their DPS.
Tol Barad, the Cataclysm equivalent to Wintergrasp, will be more of a Isle of Quel'Danas style daily quest hub instead of a farming zone.
Before settling on death knights for Wrath of the Lich King's hero class, they specifically debated necromancers and rune-masters.
They feel that with all the accessibility work they did on end game PvE in Wrath, end game PvP has become harder to get into by comparison.

It's a three page interview, so click through to read the whole thing! What really struck me reading this was that comment about hybrid DPS compared to pure. This "hybrid tax" concept has been harped on by posters on the official forums for a long time now, and this is a fairly straightforward way of putting it.

Filed under: Blizzard, Interviews, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm

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