Posts with tag level-90-boost

New level 90 boost trailer pushes Warlords... with gnomes!

by Elizabeth Harper Mar 9th 2014 at 2:00PM

We knew level 90 boosts were coming, but in this new Warlords of Draenor trailer, Blizzard's pushing the boosts as a reason to buy. You can escape the endless leveling desert and finally play with your friends by buying Warlords -- which is all well and good, but it does strike us as a bit odd that Blizzard is promoting the game by suggesting that playing the game up to level 90 is something tedious and awful that you would not want to do.

However, the obvious highlight of this trailer is gnomes making their cinematic debut. Finally, we see a gnome taking center-stage... as a level 61 wandering aimlessly through Tanaris. (That's why you haven't hit level 90 yet, Mr. Gnome -- you're in Tanaris. Maybe if you'd gone through Un'Goro and Silithus and then headed to the Dark Portal you'd have made some progress.) But now that this gnome is finally level 90, we can only assume that we'll be seeing more gnomes showing up in future, right Blizzard?

[Thanks to many tipsters who sent this in!]

Editor's note: Pre-purchase of Warlords is not available at this time -- no official announcements have been made about pre-ordering just yet.

Filed under: News items, Warlords of Draenor

The Queue: Garrosh, Gul'dan, and other madness

by Alex Ziebart Mar 3rd 2014 at 11:00AM

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

For a Sunday, you all sure were talkative yesterday! That's a good thing and I appreciate it.

MasterX asked:

I'm interested in why Garrosh didn't slaughter Gul'dan when he had the chance in WoD. He should know full well he's solely responsible for betraying the Orc, their culture, and later their entire race to the Burning Legion. Just because Garrosh stepped in, doesn't mean he won't betray again.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, The Queue

Next steps after boosting a paladin tank to 90, part 2

by Matt Walsh Feb 28th 2014 at 4:00PM

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Protection specialist Matt Walsh spends most of his time receiving concussions for the benefit of 9 other people, obsessing over his hair, and maintaining the tankadin-focused blog Righteous Defense.

It's always weird coming to the end of an expansion and seeing the road before you suddenly much shorter than you remember it was the last time you gave it a serious look. Very soon things will radically change -- the gear that made us gods will be obsolete, health pools will be laid low, and the stats that we had come to loathe will be no more. As they say, all good things must come to an end. Pandaria is no different.

This is a path we've walked before, in the twilight of every expansion. As the content winds down in its own interminable fashion, and we run that end raid for the umpteenth time, we find solace in trying new experiences through the prism of alts. As I discussed in last week's post, with the advent of the boosting feature, many folks will be trying out paladin tanks for the first time -- especially since they now have the advantage of skipping the (painful) journey of leveling a tank entirely. This guide is for them.

Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It

Things we know about the level 90 character boost

by Matthew Rossi Feb 27th 2014 at 5:00PM

There's a lot of confusion about the upcoming level 90 character boost and how it's going to work. While we won't know the final form of the service until it's been rolled out, it's been active on the PTR for a while now, so we can draw some conclusions based on how it's working there. Of course, the usual caveats apply - none of this is set in stone, it's the PTR, things can change.

You cannot apply the 90 boost to a level 90 (and presumably above) character. So don't worry about that happening.
You can apply the boost to an existing character on your account, or you can create a new level 1 character at the time you apply the boost.
If you boost an existing character who is at or above level 60, you get a Veteran's Bonus that boosts your professions to 600. You won't have to go back to level them, which is nice.
You pick a specialization during the process, which informs the starter gear you get.
You do not have to apply the boost immediately upon purchase. If it is not applied, there's an icon on your selection screen that tells you it's ready to be applied.
Until the boost process is completed, you cannot log in that character. This seems common sense to me, but it's still worth mentioning.
We still don't know how much it's going to cost, but recent statements during last week's press event make it seem likely that it will be at the $60 we saw briefly.

Filed under: Blizzard, News items, Warlords of Draenor

How to play a boosted level 90 hunter

by Adam Koebel Feb 26th 2014 at 8:00PM

Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing how to get started with the hunter class.

Do you still need convincing on why you should boost a hunter to 90? Go check out my 10 reasons why from last week. So you've got a fresh level 90 hunter in front of you -- what now? What are all these abilities? How do pets work? We've got answers for all that. Without the benefit of having abilities and mechanics slowly introduced while leveling, you might be a little confused when you first log in. Don't fret, you'll be turning monsters into pin cushions and taming an army of pets in no time.

You can check out my previous getting started with hunters article for help in choosing a race and specialization for your hunter. Once you're past that step, we can dive into the meaty bits. We'll start with the absolute basics. What to do the moment you log in with a fresh 90 hunter. First, I want you to take a peek in your spellbook. Don't panic, we'll sort out what's important here.

Filed under: Hunter, (Hunter) Scattered Shots

Lichborne: Pros and cons of boosting a death knight to level 90

by Daniel Whitcomb Feb 25th 2014 at 4:00PM

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done.

So you want to play a death knight. You've looked at the class, you've read our descriptions, and figured, yeah. That's something I'd be into. Or maybe you already have a max level death knight but want a second one for fooling around or trying new specs without giving up your carefully crafted setups on your main.

Whichever one it is, I say welcome to the club. That said, at this point in time, you have a unique choice to make, one you wouldn't have had to make it the past. Do you just start up your death knight alt, or do you wait a few weeks and use a level 90 boost instead? Today, we're going to look at the pros and cons of buying a level 90 boost vs. simply leveling your death knight from scratch.

Filed under: Death Knight, (Death Knight) Lichborne

Ion Hazzikostas explains level 90 boost pricing

by Olivia Grace Feb 25th 2014 at 12:00PM

WoW Insider posted last week about the level 90 boost that appeared momentarily on live servers during maintenance, and now Eurogamer has had the chance to discuss it with Lead Encounter Designer Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas. Ion had this to say:

We realised as soon as we came out with Warlords of Draenor boost to 90, we knew that there was going to be demand for more than 1. It's tremendously awkward to tell someone that you should buy two copies of the expansion just to get a second 90. That's odd. So we knew at that point we were going to have to offer it as a separate service.

When pressed on the price, he responded as follows:

In terms of the pricing, honestly a big part of that is not wanting to devalue the accomplishment of levelling. If our goal here was to sell as many boosts as possible, we could halve the price or more than that - make it $10 or something. And then hardly anyone would ever level a character again.

But levelling is something that takes dozens if not over 100 hours in many cases and people have put serious time and effort into that, and we don't want to diminish that.I am not an economist, I'm not the one setting the dollar value myself, but it's not the profit maximising price. That was not our aim here.

Ion's explanations make sense, but it does not alter the fact that $60 is a huge amount of money, more than almost anyone ever thought the service would cost. Ion's interview with Eurogamer certainly implies although doesn't confirm that the $60 price point is correct, or at least was intentional at the time.

[Thanks for the tip, silvertongue0!]

Filed under: Blizzard, Warlords of Draenor

Breakfast Topic: What will you do with your level 90 boost?

by Elizabeth Harper Feb 23rd 2014 at 8:00AM

While there's been plenty of discussion about whether level boosting is good or bad for the game, we do know that everyone will be getting a free boost to level 90 with Warlords of Draenor. For those of us actively playing the game now -- who already have at least one level 90 and perhaps several -- this raises the question of just what to do with our boost. Should we kick-start a new alt (like a hunter)? Jump into a different faction for a change of gaming perspective? Or maybe take advantage of this to hop to a server to play with friends away from our usual WoW realms.

There are plenty of things we could do, but the question remains: when you pick up Warlords, what are you going to do with your level boost?

Filed under: Breakfast Topics

Next steps after boosting a paladin tank to 90

by Matt Walsh Feb 22nd 2014 at 8:00PM

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Protection specialist Matt Walsh spends most of his time receiving concussions for the benefit of 9 other people, obsessing over his hair, and maintaining the tankadin-focused blog Righteous Defense.

With the introduction of level 90 boosts on the horizon, many players are going to be trying new characters, classes, and specs they may have never tried before. I expect this means that many folks are going to give protection paladins a go for the first time, which is a very exciting prospect, because the spec makes for a very fun tank playstyle.

In order to help those new folks hit the ground running, I'm kicking off a two-part "quick start guide" that'll break down the spec in the 101-iest way possible, to give those new tankadins a barebones foundation that they can use to jump right into getting their faces pounded in. For today's post I'm going to talk about why one should choose to spend $60 or their free Warlords-given boost on a protection-specced paladin, and what they need to know to safely jump into that first dungeon.

Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It

Arcane Brilliance: Next steps for playing a fire mage at level 90

by Stacey Landry Feb 21st 2014 at 8:00PM

A draenei mage holds a fireball while surrounded by a field of fire.

Every other week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. Stacey Landry is the resident mage here, bender of space and time, conjurer of delicious confectioneries and expert at dressing well while setting things on fire.

Congratulations! You've always wanted to play a mage alt but somehow never find the time, or perhaps you're considering a new main for Warlords of Draenor. Either way, you've decided to boost a mage to level 90 or re-spec your mage and you are faced with a decision. What spec would you like to play? We're going to talk eventually about all three excellent specs, but for now we're going to start with fire.

Being a fire mage has always represented the somewhat reckless side of wizardry. Fire mages used to take talents that would increase their damage done in exchange for damage taken. (Nothing ventured, nothing gained!) Modern fire maging is a little less risky than that and comes with many advantages. You might enjoy playing a fire mage if you want:

Filed under: Mage, (Mage) Arcane Brilliance

Scattered Shots: 10 reasons to use your level 90 boost on a hunter

by Adam Koebel Feb 20th 2014 at 11:00AM

Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing the reasons why you should be playing a hunter.

As you may have heard, Warlords of Draenor will be available for pre-order soon, and with each purchase comes one free level 90 boost. Still wondering which class you should use your boost on? I'm here to make your decision a whole lot easier. Here are 10 reasons why you should use your level 90 boost on a hunter.

1. Feign death

Hunters only die if we choose to die. Feign Death makes a hunter's repair bill is a mere fraction of what it would normally be. It's not just about repair bills though, it's about being able to avoid fighting things you don't want to fight. It's about avoiding corpse runs. And you would be surprised how often it fools people in PvP. Other classes are jealous of Feign Death, but they put up with it because we can mass resurrect to save them a corpse run. I put this at number one because it is, without a doubt, my favorite hunter ability. On second thought, it's probably tied with number three on the list. It's really hard to choose.

Filed under: Hunter, (Hunter) Scattered Shots, Warlords of Draenor

Level 90 boost appears up on live servers for $60

by Olivia Grace Feb 18th 2014 at 12:35PM

While we were expecting that the level 90 boosts may appear sometime after the patch's launch, we weren't thinking that they would crop up today before the pre-orders even went out. And we certainly didn't think they would be priced at $60.

It seems likely that this is not intended to be up yet, given that pre-orders are not live, so there is a possibility that this is a test number. A member of WoW Insider staff, Matthew Rossi, was able to log on and see this on his server, between restarts. Whether it will still be there when servers come back up later today remains to be seen.

This is a far higher price point than many were expecting, but that can be viewed as a good thing or a bad one. A good thing because it puts the price on leveling at a point where the work that goes into a 90 still has value, a bad thing because it's expensive.

Filed under: Blizzard

Weekly news roundup with Panser of TradeChat

by Adam Koebel Jan 29th 2014 at 12:00PM

Panser of TradeChat is back with this week's WoW Insider Weekly News Recap. We take a look at last week's most interesting news and tidbits of information including all of the new things found on the patch 5.4.7 PTR. Panser also has a clip showing the process of purchasing a level 90 boost in game. The full list of topics covered this week include:

If you like the show, make sure to subscribe to TradeChat, leave comments, and tune in next week for a new episode!

Filed under: News items

Patch 5.4.7 PTR: Is this the level 90 boost gear?

by Adam Koebel Jan 28th 2014 at 8:00PM

Our friends over at Wowhead have datamined some gear from the patch 5.4.7 PTR. Included are full sets of ilvl483 armor, cloaks, jewelry, and weapons. The source of this gear hasn't been confirmed yet, but it seems like the perfect starter gear for a brand new level 90. It's sufficient to get you started in the first few LFRs or random PvP battlegrounds at least. You can view all of these new items at the links below:

Remember that this is datamined information and nothing has been confirmed. However, it does seem likely once you consider similar quality greens are given to boosted level 80 characters from the Scroll of Resurrection promotion. We'll be sure to keep you updated as the PTR progresses.

Filed under: News items, Rumors

Patch 5.4.7 PTR: Level 90 character boost UI

by Adam Koebel Jan 28th 2014 at 11:00AM

The level 90 character boost, which is slated to arrive with patch 5.4.7, has appeared in limited form on the PTR. You can currently buy the boosts with test currency but the characters created are not yet playable and only show up as "processing" in the character select menu. Once you purchase a boost, a new button is added to the character select screen which lets you initiate the process. You can choose from an existing character or create a brand new one on the spot. If you're using a fresh character, it asks you what specialization you want to start with. It's as simple as that. As previously reported, there is mention of a veteran bonus for characters who are already level 60 or above. The veteran bonus grants you a boost to your two primary professions.

Anyone who decides to pre-order the digital version of Warlords of Draenor when it becomes available will receive one of these character boosts for free. A pre-order is not required for the free boost, but pre-ordering will let you use your boost before Warlords launches. It seems likely that additional boosts will be sold in the Blizzard shop when this goes live, but there is no concrete information yet. Once we're able to test this functionality further we will be sure to provide more details such as starting gear and the extent of the veteran bonus.

Filed under: News items

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