Posts with tag champions

Where does he get those wonderful toys? Pandaren rares and loot

by Anne Stickney Dec 9th 2012 at 6:00PM

If there is one thing I have perfected in eight years of playing this game, it is filling my bags with useless stuff. I'm not talking about armor bits and pieces for transmog, or weapons with pretty glows, or bags full of crafting material like cloth or leather. No, I'm talking random baubles that will make you look like your neighbor. Or fling you in the air, without worry of what happens when you eventually hit the ground.

You know, stuff. Everybody likes stuff. And who has the best stuff in Pandaria? Rare mobs, of course! But which rares have the good stuff? Which ones will let you summon a fleet of angered puppies in party hats to fight at your side? Or inexplicably get you ready for a day at the beach in the middle of a raid? Or turn you into a statue with no apparent purpose other than sitting there pretending to be a statue?

You want useless stuff? Oh we've got all kinds of useless stuff for you, sorted by category.

Filed under: News items, Mists of Pandaria

Mists of Pandaria rare spawns offer unique challenges

by Anne Stickney Oct 1st 2012 at 2:00PM

Mists of Pandaria rares offer unique challenges

Mists of Pandaria asks the ambiguous question, "What are we fighting for?" In the case of most players, it's loot and gold. There's a lot of fighting to be found in Mists, but in the case of Pandaria's rares, they offer something along with the gold and loot, something far more valuable -- experience. Not experience points, although you'll get it if you're in the process of leveling. No, the rares of Pandaria offer experience playing your individual class, and playing it well.

There are several different types of rare champions scattered all over Pandaria -- hozen, jinyu, mantid, mogu, saurok, yaungol and pandaren. But these champions aren't like any rares you've seen on Azeroth. Rather than allowing players to simply stand there and beat the stuffing out of them, these rares have unique abilities that require tactics and skill to counter. Are they impossible to beat? Absolutely not, once you've figured out how to counter their bag of tricks.

But you cannot simply stand and beat them up anymore. Movement is absolutely key, and so are stuns, interrupts, and other abilities that define a class. Rather than allowing you to just spam your main attack, you're forced to practice moving out of the way of attacks, which are clearly defined on the ground. You can't let them cast every spell, or you'll certainly die. And kiting is definitely helpful in most cases as well.

Filed under: Mists of Pandaria

Maintenance for Tuesday September 8th

by Adam Holisky Sep 7th 2009 at 10:45PM

We've had some serious maintenance in the last few weeks, and it looks like they've come to an end. The extended maintenance that's been going on has been to fix the much hyped "Additional instances cannot be launched" error, and by all accounts the bug has been fixed. But let's not kid ourselves, there'll be at least a dozen comments claiming differently after this post goes up. But it's all good, because eventually the cross-server instances are going to take care of that problem entirely.

The maintenance tomorrow will run from 3:00 a.m. PDT / 6:00 a.m. EDT until 11:00 a.m. PDT / 2:00 p.m. EDT.

Since WoW will be down, I recommend checking out Champions Online if you haven't already. It's a nice comic book MMO that has some real potential. One thing I really enjoy about it is that its graphics are not super amazing -- they look like comic book graphics. In that sense, it's a very immersive graphical experience.

Kyle Horner of our sister site Massively wrote the WoW player's Guide to Champions Online. Check it out for more information about a nice game you can play during WoW's downtime.

Filed under: Realm Status, News items

Patch 3.2.2: 5-man Coliseum jousting woes to be addressed

by Daniel Whitcomb Sep 2nd 2009 at 5:00PM

I'm sure a lot of us have had this experience: You finish up jousting down the three champions in the first encounter of the 5-man Trial of the Champions, then all hell breaks loose. Your tank goes to lock down the Warrior, but in the meantime, the Rogue, who fell on the other side of the coliseum, makes a beeline to your healer, who was the person who dismounted him. Then the Mage, who's on yet a third side of the arena, starts blasting down your Mage who never seems to get any stamina on his gear. Your tank tries to rein everybody in, but since the bosses still have the aggro they built up from the jousting stage, they're near impossible to peel. Everyone dies.

Filed under: Patches, Bugs, News items, Instances, Bosses, NPCs

World of Warcraft Patch 3.2 Loot Guide

by Mike Schramm Aug 4th 2009 at 10:30AM

WoW.com has covered patch 3.2 extensively. Everything from the surprising changes to flying mounts, to the latest and greatest loot, and all the changes in between. In our patch 3.2 class, raiding, and PvP guides we take a look at exactly what changes and how the changes will affect your playing.

New instances and raids are fun and all, but let's not forget what we're all here for: the loot. With the new patch out on servers, there's a whole slew of new items and gear to win and collect. Here's a quick roundup of everything we know about the new loot coming in patch 3.2, from the badges you pull from dead bosses' bodies, to the sweet epics you can turn them in to get.

Filed under: Patches, Items, Analysis / Opinion, News items, Instances, Bosses, Leveling

Patch 3.2: Trial of the Crusader impressions

by Michael Sacco Jul 11th 2009 at 12:35AM

Without much fanfare, Patch 3.2's new 5-man instance, the Trial of the Crusader, opened on the PTR tonight. Lead Encounter Designer Scott Mercer, AKA Daelo, noted that the instance is still a work in progress and that there would undoubtedly be bugs in the encounters.

I immediately assembled a crack team of terrible players, including uneducated elemental shaman Sneep of <Goon Squad> Horde Mal'ganis US, betraying his faction and playing a draenei; my obligatory hunter girlfriend; my dead-weight editor and prot paladin Alex Ziebart; and probably the worst druid raid leader I've ever had in my current guild, Talid.

Making sure our shoes were velcroed properly, we boldly went where champions tread. On Normal difficulty, of course.

Upon entering the instance, though, our hearts sank when we realized that there were mountable Argent Warhorses along the walls. "No!", we cried. "Anything but jousting!"

But our cries went unheard. That is, until Daelo popped into General chat to let everyone know that mounts were only used in one encounter. Dodged THAT bullet!

And so we mounted up on the Warhorses and spoke to the Silver Covenant herald, Arelas Brightstar, to begin our challenge.

Filed under: Patches, Instances, Bosses, Mounts

Breakfast Topic: The ardent Argent

by Mike Schramm May 25th 2009 at 8:00AM

Just in case you hadn't realized already, the news we got last week about patch 3.2 made it clear that the Argent Tournament is going to play a sizable role in our future Wrath of the Lich King activities, so if you, like me, have been lazy about completing all of the various tasks the tournament offers, now might be the time to change that outlook and get to work over there. By the time 3.2 rolls around, there will be even more rewards to be attained by champions of the various cities, so if having a squire of your own hasn't been temptation enough, maybe the promise of future content has helped.

And speaking of help, in case you need some, we've got you covered as always, from guides to the various dailies to a review of the rewards available. The question today is: have you been convinced yet? A good number of you have probably been rolling in the AT since 3.1 dropped, and probably have a whole stack of Seals already (if not the Hippogryph mount itself). But for those of you who've been lagging behind, has the promise of new AT-related content in 3.2 lit a fire under your Stabled Quel'dorei Steed? Or are you meh on on the idea of grinding out daily quests just to get more PvE content to grind out?

Gallery: Patch 3.1: The Argent Tournament

Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Breakfast Topics

Seals? In MY purse? It's more likely than you think

by Michael Sacco May 20th 2009 at 8:00PM

Amidst all of the cost rebalancing for Champion-level rewards in the Argent Tournament, the CMs have indicated that there would soon be new ways to obtain Champion's Seals. With the advent of patch 3.1.2, it seems Blizzard has started to follow through on that!

We received a bunch of tips in the mail over the past day or so, all letting us know that their Champion's Purses -- one of the reward choices for Champion dailies -- could randomly contain a whole 'nother Champion's Seal. This is a pretty big deal, especially since you have multiple chances per day. Players are reporting the percentage to be somewhere between 25% to 50% per Purse.

Not too shabby! This also means that those mounts you want -- including the recently-reduced Argent Hippogyph -- might be a little more within your reach, and faster at that.

We'll keep you informed of changes sure to be forthcoming, given that the CMs also mentioned that the Hippogryph cost reduction was (in part) due to their desire to add even more rewards in future patches.

Filed under: Patches, News items, Factions

Lichborne: PvE Gems for Death Knights

by Daniel Whitcomb Feb 1st 2009 at 11:00PM

I know there's gems around here somewhere.

Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly dose of Death Knight discussion.

Now that we've covered most standard pemutations of gear gathering in past Lichborne columns, I figured this week would be a good time to start talking about taking the extra steps to really trick out your gear. This week, will focus on gems. Not only will this help you take your gear to the next level, but it gives me a good excuse to talk about some new discoveries and discussions going on as we try to figure out the best ways to squeeze the most DPS out of a Death Knight. So to start, let's talk about which statistics you'll want to focus on when you gem.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Tips, Jewelcrafting, Guides, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King, (Death Knight) Lichborne

Lichborne: Gearing up to tank Naxxramas

by Daniel Whitcomb Jan 18th 2009 at 9:00PM

Welcome to Lichborne, The weekly Death Knight column, where your host is recruiting only the most pro critters for his raiding team.

So by now, I'm sure many of you Death Knights have managed to follow our last tanking gear guide and have put together a pretty decent tank set that's gotten them through a few heroics, but now it's time for the next step: Getting ready to tank Naxxramas. You'll find that while a lot of your gear is probably "good enough," you'll still want to look for a few important upgrades to kick you up another notch so you can be at your best coming into Naxxramas to tank. Let's look at a few heroic upgrades that you can grab to be the best tank you can be heading into 10 man Naxxramas content.

Before we start, there's two things you should remember: One, I'm pretty much following the logic I laid down in the Death Knight statistics primer a few weeks back, so if you want to know why I picked a certain item, the answer is probably there, and two, whatever you do, remember to hit 540 defense skill. You'll need that to survive against the bosses.

Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Tips, Instances, Guides, Death Knight, (Death Knight) Lichborne

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