Posts with tag mace

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination, combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. This week, I'll be sharing my report from BlizzCon 2010 for rogues.

As a member of our shadowy brotherhood, my duty to investigate and report on the rogue class is never over. Even though I was enjoying the festivities at BlizzCon 2010 and testing out the new demon hunter class in Diablo 3, I still made time to take care of business. The class Q&A panel is one of the best places to communicate directly with the WoW development team, and so I staked my place in line before the prior panel had even ended.

When my turn finally came, I had to first pay my respects to the developers. I had asked them at the prior year's BlizzCon if we would ever see a Vanish fix implemented, and Ghostcrawler avoided promising anything. Fast-forward a year and we finally have a Vanish that I'm proud to call my own. I opened my time by giving them their much-deserved thanks. I then took the opportunity to ask about something near and dear to my heart: off-hand weapon speeds. Axes and daggers were simply never meant to be used at the same time. Their art styles don't even match!

Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a new WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related. It's time to gear us up some healers! Let's take a look at all the phat loot the coliseum has to offer.

The Crusader's Coliseum offers a wide variety of gear and equipment for both new and veteran healers. It's time for us to start equipping ourselves in order to be prepared when Icecrown Citadel hits. While we're not exactly going to be healing Arthas to death, it's a good idea to start working on our stuff now.

We'll start with Trial of the Champion for the fresher 80s before we move to Trial of the Crusader where all the good stuff is.

Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, where each week blogger and columnist Alex Ziebart answers your questions about the lore and history of the World of Warcraft. Ask your questions in the comments section below, and we'll try to answer it in a future edition.

This week I have a special request: I want any questions you might have about potential future expansions. Any questions at all are welcome, but I'm on a speculation kick recently, so next week's column will probably focus on the future and then we'lll be back to our regular deal after that. So no matter whether you think the Maelstrom could be next or something else entirely, ask!

Mark asked...

"Any chance that the Vrykul will be a playable race in a future expansion?"

As much as Martin Fury would have been appropriate here today, we'll stick to actual player items for now. Here's a nice big scary mace to hope for from Ulduar's first boss this weekend.

Name: Ironsoul (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory)
Type: Two-hand Epic Mace
Damage/Speed: 594 - 892 / 3.50 (212.3 DPS)
Attributes:

• +105 Strength, +126 Stamina
• Improves crit strike rating by 69 and armor penetration rating by 84.

Name: Demise (Wowhead, Thottbot, WoWDigger)
Type: Epic Two-hand Mace
Damage/Speed: 522 - 784 / 3.50 (186.6 DPS)
Attributes:

• +90 Strength, +103 Stamina
• Improves hit rating by 49, which is excellent -- melee can almost always benefit from more hit
• And improves haste rating by 89

A brand new legendary weapon is coming to the game in patch 3.1. Val'anyr, the Gavel of Ancient Kings will be a new Atiesh-like weapon, formed from 40 "Fragments of Val'anyr," likely found within Ulduar. MMO-Champion also has the tooltip of what happens after the fragments are assembled -- you get a "Shattered Fragments of Val'anyr" that starts a quest, which will eventually reward a Paladin, Priest, Shaman or Druid with the hammer itself.

We don't, however, have an actual tooltip of the mace itself, so while these tooltips suggest a healing mace, this could work the same way as Atiesh, where you could finish the quest to reassemble it by choosing one of four options, each with different stats for classes and specs. So while these tooltips show healers, there could also be a DPS and/or tank version of the mace as well. In fact, I'll say it right now: this is probably a Hunter weapon.

But either way, there'll be another Legendary item in the game soon. to 5.

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Patch 3.1 brings us Ulduar, dual specs, significant changes to all the classes, and more! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.

All right, rogues. So by now some of you have likely read our list of 3.1 changes for our bloodthirsty class, and if not, you should! Right now! Make no mistake, these are some very cool changes, and even if this is the whole list (it's not), I'm pretty happy with how things are shaping up--not just for rogues, but for all the classes mentioned so far.

If you haven't read through them yet or if you're not a big theorycrafter, you can take a moment and read through our analysis of how 3.1 will (so far) affect you, the rogue.

Let's have a look!

One of the nice things about WoW is that it allows you a variety of choices for your character. You really aren't pigeon holed into one thing or another. There are some cases in the upper echelons of the game and theory crafting where one weapon or armor choice becomes superior – but that's only if you want to take the game to such a level.

And even then, min-maxing to that extent isn't really necessary to be successful in raiding anymore.

I've come across this in my play recently. My weapon of choice (and hence the forever awesome Christopher Walken music video attached to this article).

As a Shaman I have a choice of various slow 1H weapons, giving a variety of different stats that I'd like to have. When entering the starting zones of Wrath I can pretty much find any combination that I want to fit my needs. As a protection Warrior I've found the same thing, even at times finding it more advantageous to use a DPS based weapon over a Def based weapon.

For the Shaman (which I need to point out is just my favorite alt at the moment) my weapon of choice has shifted away from slow maces to whatever sexy fist weapon I can pick up. The DPS output is roughly the same, if not better in some cases, and I just like the way it looks.

Yes, I said it. And I'll take the beating that's about to begin.

Before Death Knights show up and take all of the Paladins' glory, let's take a look at the weapon that originally defined Human Paladins, the two-handed mace of heroes.

Name: Verigan's Fist (Wowhead, Thottbot, WoWWiki)
Type: Rare Two-hand Mace
Damage/Speed: 65-99 / 3.20 (25.6 DPS)
Abilities:

• +7 Stamina, +6 Intellect, +12 Spirit. A Paladin hammer of justice if there ever was one, and not just because it's only for Pallies.
• The quest you can get it at (see below) is at level 20, and the weapon is so nice for the level it'll easily last you most of the way towards the 30s. There's no two ways about it -- any Paladin poking around midlevel should be wielding this hammer. Unless you're healing all the time, this is the thing to hit bad guys with. As soon as you get it, enchant it, because odds are that you'll keep it for a while.
  
• And it's one of the best quest rewards before 60 -- in my opinion, one of the best for-the-level weapons in the game.

How to Get It: You've got to be an Alliance Paladin, which means Human (Update: or Dwarf or Draenei, of course, thanks commenters. But you still have to go to Westfall to run the quest). And at level 20, you'll get a quest called The Tome of Valor from your Paladin trainer, which will take you on a journey to save a lovely lass, and into a few instances for the level to do some weapon material fetching. It's a nice, and fairly simple quest chain, it'll get you not only this sweet weapon, but a nice shield and the Sense Undead ability, and, most importantly, it'll teach you how to be a Paladin and stand up for the Light wherever darkness encroaches (which doesn't include, strangely enough, QQing about ret gear itemization).

Blood Elf Pallys have a much easier quest, and can nab the Blood-Tempered Ranseur. But Verigan's Fist is a classic, so we're featuring that one. The Whirlwind Weapon is a good one for Warriors, but that's three different weapons -- no other weapon exemplifies a class, in our humble opinion, as much as this one. Disagree? Sound off in the comments.

Getting Rid of It: Sells to vendors for 74s 59c. Disenchants into a Small Glowing Shard. But don't get rid of it -- good Paladins always walk softly and carry a big hammer.

Our It came from the Blog guild is going to be going into instances this evening, including (I hope) at least a few runs through Wailing Caverns. While they're in there, they can get this very nice and cool-looking lowbie (read: twink) mace.

Name: Stinging Viper
Type: Rare One-hand Mace
Damage/Speed: 30-57 / 2.80 (15.5 DPS)
Abilities:

• Chance on hit: Poisons target for 7 Nature damage every 3 seconds for 15 seconds. For you non-math majors, my calculator says that's 35 damage to a proc.
• Unfortunately, there aren't any other stats on it, but it's still a nice weapon for the level (I had it on my Shaman for quite a while as I came up past 20). Especially good for offhand on Rogues, as the higher damage range and the proc help out DPS quite a bit. Pair this with a Cruel Barb or a Wingblade and you're set. (Update: also see good points for using this as a Main Hand in the comments below)
  

How to Get It: Comes as a drop off of Lord Pythas, one of the four druid snake guys you have to put down in Wailing Caverns (in order to fight the giant Murloc, that is). Seems to drop all the time-- there's an 18% drop rate on it-- but as you all probably know, going in there specifically hoping for it to drop means it probably won't. Always seems to happen that way, right? What's up with that?

Getting Rid of It: Vendors for 30s 18c, disenchants into a Small Glimmering Shard.

Mmmmmm feral druid gear. (Yes, in a Undead rogue's hand for some reason, but still.)

Name: Earthwarden
Type: Epic Two-hand Mace
Damage / Speed: 142-279 / 3.20 (65.8 DPS)
Abilities:

• 500 Armor. Yes, on a 2h mace. Hawt.
  
• +39 Stamina.
• Increases defense rating by 27, feral skill combat rating by 24, and attack power by 556 in Cat, Bear, Dire Bear, and Moonkin forms only. Yes, 556 attack power.
• 14 AP = 1 DPS, so this baby gives an extra 39 DPS when in those forms. Whoah mama.
• There are a few better Druid items floating around out there, but the armor on this especially makes it perfect for Bear tanks. Boy is it perfect-- Blizz wasn't kidding when they said, way back when, that feral gear would show up in BC. And you don't even have to raid to get it!

How to Get It: It's a rep reward from Cenarion Expedition in Zangarmarsh (one of the easier Outlands rep grinds, if you ask me). The only real problem is that you've got to get to Exalted. While it's pretty easy to get to Revered (a few runs through Slave Pens and Underbog, a few turn-ins, and a few quests after you reach Honored), Exalted will require quite a few run through Steam Vaults (although Heroic Slave Pens and Underbog will also give the rep you need). You can also turn in Coilfang Armaments, and since those are BoE, it is possible, if you've got the cash, to buy your way up to this item.

Don't spend all your money though-- even with the rep, you'll have to shell out 265g 68s 17c for it. Although if your guild is in need of tanks, maybe you could convince them to help you pick up the tab?

Getting Rid of It: If you're a Bear tank, you won't, at least until Serpentshrine Cavern, which is a long way off for most people. But a vendor will eventually give you 53g 13s 63c for it.