Posts with tag tier-8

I had concerns when Blizzard first announced the way bosses would be unlocked in Patch 3.2's new raid instance, the Argent Coliseum. Blizzard has announced that while the first boss is available immediately, other bosses will be unlocked week-by-week. It's not the first time an artificial barrier has been put up for raid progression -- hello Sunwell -- so I guess I'm not shocked by it, but progression wasn't really what I was concerned about.

In our current raiding system, each boss drops a pre-determined set of loot. Some bosses drop a token which can be turned in for a piece of armor matching that particular slot, and the boss will always drop this same slot token. Thorim will always drop a shoulder token in Ulduar 10, for example.

So the issue is, with the Coliseum officially being our new tier of raiding, with gear that far outclasses Ulduar gear, and with the Coliseum bosses being unlocked each week, it means that players could get screwed out of upgrades. Your chestpiece might not be the greatest, so if you were looking forward to upgrading it, you'd be pretty crushed to find out that the T9 chest token only drops off of the final Coliseum boss -- which will only be available (at best) a month or (at worst) several weeks more than that due to RNG.

It turns out that Blizzard was thinking the same thing I was. That's why, with 3.2, Coliseum bosses all drop one of three universal armor tokens -- the Regalia of the Grand Protector, Vanquisher, or Conqueror.

There are a lot of things in the patch 3.2 test realm notes that jumped out at me, but the changes to the Emblem system seem like an especially big deal. The developers made it quite clear that they wanted a tiered token system in Wrath of the Lich King, they didn't want players just farming Heroics all day and night to get the best possible gear. In patch 3.2, it looks like they're backing off on that pretty heavily, likely an attempt to reignite interest in running Heroics. If you haven't seen the patch notes, here are the points I'm referring to:

• Any dungeons that previously dropped Emblems of Heroism or Valor, such as Naxxramas or Heroic Halls of Stone, will now drop Emblems of Conquest instead. Emblems of Conquest can still be converted to Valor or Heroism.
• Both the 10 and 25 player instances of the Crusaders' Coliseum drop a new Emblem of Triumph.
• The heroic dungeon daily quest will now reward 2 Emblems of Triumph and the normal daily dungeon quest will reward 1 Emblem of Triumph.
• The existing achievements to collect 1, 25, 50, etc. Emblems of Heroism, Valor, and Conquest have been converted to Feats of Strength since Heroism and Valor Emblems are no longer attainable.

After the break you'll find the patch notes for Patch 3.1.3. This patch will not be appearing on the PTR, and will instead be making its way directly to the live realms. There is no date set for the live realms release at this time.

These notes are only the initial notes and subject to change. You have been warned.

Some highlights:

• Druid Tier 8 Balance Set: The 4-piece bonus no longer has its effect consumed by Starfire casts in progress when it triggers. The chance for the effect to be triggered has been reduced down to 8%, as it was originally inflated to compensate.
• Hunter's Mark: The ranged attack power bonus from this ability has been increased from 300 to 500.
• Improved Barkskin: This talent now also grants 80/160% additional armor while in Travel Form or not shapeshifted.
• Overkill: Talent redesigned. Now increases energy regeneration by 30% while stealthed, and for 20 seconds after breaking stealth.

A friendly reminder: the new Druid forms artwork will not be present in this patch. This is not a major content patch.

The full notes after the break!

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Bornakk just announced on the forums that Jewelcrafters are about to see a new nerf, and as a result, people are already beginning to weigh the benefits of switching to a different profession for min-maxing, or working out how they are going to re-itemize their gear.

Bornakk:
In the next major content patch we will be removing the prismatic quality of the jewelcrafter-only Dragon's Eye gems. Like other gems, they will have to match the socket color to receive a socket bonus. When this change occurs, players with qualifying jewelcrafting skill will be provided a yet to be determined amount of Dalaran Jewelecrafter Tokens as compensation.

This probably won't be enough to entice players to drop the profession, but it is a bit of a blow. Stratfu points out that because Mage T8 is equipped primarily with yellow and blue sockets, the only way to actually meet socket bonus requirements will be to use sub-par gems.

The JC-only Runed Dragon's Eye offers +32 spell power, and currently fits into any socket, conforming to meet the necessary color requirements. This is compared to the +19 spell power that the rest of us folks get from Runed Scarlet Rubies. While Jewelcrafters will still be able to use these gems, they won't be able to stick them just anywhere.

We here at WoW Insider are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.

• It's not a blog, it's not a vlog, it's not a podcast, but it's still worth a mention: Irae AoD, a European guild, scored the world first for the achievement One Light in the Darkness, defeating Yogg-Saron with the assistance of only one Keeper. The video is embedded above, but if you want the Yogg-Saron encounter completely unspoiled for you when you get there, you might want to avoid watching it.
• Flasks have never been more convenient than they are in Wrath of the Lich King, and the addition of Feasts has made raid consumables even easier to acquire. Bellwether of 4haelz is a little torn on them, though.
• Everyone loves to tinker with their UI, right? Moonkin.info is pretty happy with their compilation, and has shared it with the rest of the world. Boomkin, you might want to take a look.
• Ming gets back into the oft-neglected 5v5 arena bracket, giving the old school Euro Comp another go.
• Shields Up! continues their guide to Tier 8 Best in Slot gear for Resto Shaman.

There's an additional list of in-game fixes released tonight by Bornakk. The fixes have been coming less and less over the past week, and that's reflected in the fact the game's stability has vastly improved since patch 3.1 dropped (at least for most).

We covered some of the Ulduar changes, which were announced separately this evening. Apparently Blizzard felt them important enough to mix them in with these other changes as well.

Chief amongst the changes is that the Tier 8 4 piece set bonus for Druids now works. I don't honestly know anyone that has ran into this yet, but I'm sure there's a few folks out there with four pieces of Tier 8 already.

The entire list of changes after the break.

Yesterday, Ensidia earned the world-first Yogg-Saron kill. This is not the world-first Ulduar clear, because Algalon is designed to be the hardest boss in there, but that's a story for another post. What I want to talk about here is loot.

Specifically, I want to talk about the quality of Yoggy's goods, which is the same as the quality of every other drop in normal-mode Ulduar-25: ilvl 226 for armor, and ilvl 232 for weapons. The same pattern holds on 10-man, with Yogg-10's drops being ilvl 219, like the rest of Uld-10. This is a departure from previous tradition, where the last boss of a raid would drop items of higher caliber. Kel'Thuzad, for instance, drops items a full tier above the rest of Naxx (ilvl 213 vs. 200 on 10-man, ilvl 226 vs 213 on 25-man).

There has been a certain amount of confusion about what exactly is going on with emblems in Ulduar. We've known for a while that Emblems of Valor, which currently drop from 25-man Naxxramas, are going to drop in 10-man Ulduar, and that Ulduar-25 is going to drop a new badge: Emblem of Conquest. However, there were some rumors that the EoVs from Uld-10 would be a different "color" than the EoVs from Naxx-25, enabling purchase of some gear for the new EoVs that would not be buyable with the Naxx-25 EoVs. There have also been various theories about whether Tier 8 tokens would be buyable with emblems, like some of the T7 tokens are now.

Vaneras has gone and clarified these questions and more, in a FAQ post on the European forums. I'll try to distill the information that I found useful into a few bullet points.

• The EoVs in Uld-10 are the same as the ones from Naxx-25, and let you buy the same rewards.
• Relics from Naxx-25 are being added to the EoV quartermasters; nothing else is being added to them at this time.
• Tier 8.5 gear tokens (chest and helm) will be buyable with EoCs (from Uld-25). Tier 8.0 gear tokens will not be buyable in any way.
• There will be a new EoC quartermaster with the two 8.5 tokens and additional ilvl 226 gear for purchase.

The justification for T8.0 not being buyable for tokens is that they didn't want current Naxx-25 raiders stockpiling huge numbers of EoVs to buy stuff on the 3.1 release. This does make some sense, although there are other routes they could have gone with it. Anyway, it's good to have clarification.

I guess I'm gambling that the patch won't be next week. Because there's no way I can cover all the gear available for shamans in 3.1 (both set and otherwise) for three specs in anything like two weeks of this column. In addition to discussing sets for resto, elemental and enhancement there's quite a lot of non-set gear to discuss, rings, trinkets, and so on. We know that Flametongue Weapon will be changed to reassert the superiority of the slow/slow combo for enhancement, for instance, so there's also weapons to discuss. Since I know that's not possible for me to cover in one column and probably not in two, we'll just take it as it goes. This week, we'll discuss the Tier 8 sets from Ulduar 10 and 25, the Valorous and Conqueror's Worldbreaker sets. As is usual for shamans, it comes in Battlegear for Enhancement, Garb for Elemental and Regalia for Restoration. As was the case for Tier 7, the 10 and 25 man sets have the same set bonuses and will work with each other, so if you have two pieces of Tier 8 from 10 man raids and 2 pieces from 25, you'll get both set bonuses.

First up, let's look at the Conqueror's and Valorous Worldbreaker Battlegear.

Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we discuss the new gear coming for Rogues in the upcoming patch.

With patch 3.1's steam winding down, I predict its release in the next three weeks. Our most recent change was a simple increase to Deadly Throw's velocity: hardly groundbreaking. We should begin finalizing new builds, and planning our gear upgrade paths.

Between the Argent Tournament, Ulduar, and new PvP gear, Rogues everywhere will be very busy collecting all of the new leather gear that we'll have access to. Read on to find out where to pick up the best upgrades, and how to prepare by stockpiling now. And to any Warriors looking for a wishlist: Sorry guys, leather is for Rogues (& our pictured feline friends)!

Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting Druids and those who group with them. This week, our author ferrets around her inbox for several unanswered questions concerning patch 3.1.

Greetings, Druids. For a while now I've been adding to a list of questions I've had for the upcoming 3.1 patch. Some of these are questions I got from other players, some are questions that occurred to me while reading various versions of the 3.1 PTR patch notes, and others are mostly-illegible bits scribbled in the middle of testing Ulduar fights --

dasiewlerjewDIFEEIRKdfklsd? 3349FHDFHDIOJKfkdsfadioer. REIOWEL?

Must've written that one on Kologarn. I believe it is a super-secret, devilishly clever guide to the fight that brilliantly exploits group positioning to produce a clean, one-shot kill on the first attempt, but alas, we will never know. Such are the dangers posed by bad handwriting, people. Study your Palmer Method!

This evening, I will attempt to answer all of the following questions, or to point you in the direction of other bloggers who have. These deal with all three Druid specs, so let's get started!

As I mentioned when the Tier 8 set bonuses were first revealed, some of them will probably change before patch 3.1 hits live realms. Better ideas come up, bugs are fixed, things are rebalanced, all of that. It's proven true so far, because tonight's PTR build has changed a few of them, most notably the ones that had incorrect or missing values in the tooltips. Here are the set bonuses changes we've seen so far in this build:

Druid

• Balance 2Piece Bonus -- Increases the bonus granted by Eclipse for Starfire and Wrath by 15%.

Paladin

• Protection 2Piece Bonus -- Increases the damage done by your Seals of Vengeance, Corruption, and Righteousness by 10%.
• Protection 4Piece Bonus -- Shield of Righteousness now increases your shield block value by 225 for that attack and for 3 sec afterward.
• Holy 4Piece Bonus -- Your Sacred Shield can now trigger its effect every 4 sec instead of every 6.

Players will whine about anything. No, really. A thread started by some Level 6 troll (actually, he's a Gnome) whines about how the non-tier pieces that drop in Ulduar are merely recolored versions of the tier models. The poster goes on to define Blizzard's goal of "class homogenization" as including appearance, as well. He points out that the non-tier items in Naxxramas were He also accuses Blizzard of blatant laziness and lack of effort.

It's a pretty tough argument, and players throughout the thread have weighed with their thoughts on the matter. This is an issue that has been apparent since the launch of Wrath of the Lich King, where many armor pieces have largely shared the same models. Take, for example, the Spaulders of the Giant Lords, a plate shoulder piece purchased from the Sons of Hodir at Revered reputation. It shares the same model as 22 other rare plate items, from drops to crafted pieces. That's a lot of similar-looking gear. This design direction ensures that players will find an easier time finding non-set pieces that match instead of looking like a clown. This was one of the criticisms hurled at the leveling items in The Burning Crusade, and Blizzard seems to avoided it in Wrath.

As of the latest PTR build we now have access to most of the set bonuses for the tier 8 gear that's going to drop in Ulduar, including the bonuses for both priest sets, shadow and healing. In case you haven't seen them before, the bonuses are as follows:

• Healing:
  • Two-piece: Increases the crit chance of your Prayer of Healing by 10%
  • Four-piece: Casting Power Word: Shield also grants you 250 spell power until cancelled.
• Shadow:
  • Two-piece: Increases the damage done by your Devouring Plague by 15%.
  • Four-piece: Your Mind Blast also grants you 240 haste rating until cancelled.

The parts listed in bold up above are new; these numbers are just placeholders in the PTR client right now, but Ghostcrawler has clarified that the intended values are somewhere along those lines. No word yet on what "is cancelled" is supposed to mean, as far as I know.