Posts with tag tol-barad

Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, time is of the essence. Where have we heard that before?

I recently talked to a player who managed to solo most, though not all, of the Glory of the Hero achievements from Wrath. He mentioned ones like Share the Love that been impossible to complete without putting a group together, and as you can imagine, getting four more players for heroic Wrath achievements isn't the easiest thing in the world at 85. People who want the achievement for their alts are rarely interested in doing a meta piecemeal, and this is probably going to get worse, rather than better, once account-wide achievements go active. Once someone's got a red proto-drake on one character, they almost certainly won't repeat the process on one of their alts.

The vast majority of achievements get easier as you level up, but the canny achievement hunter will pay attention to the ones that don't. As the game changes, players' priorities and interests change, and older content has a tendency to fall by the wayside. It's best to strike while the iron is hot.

The good news: Raid testing has begun on the patch 4.3 PTR. The bad news: It's not a Dragon Soul boss. Alizabal, Mistress of Hate, is the third and final (?) encounter of Baradin Hold, and she's downright eager to be slaughtered by Azerothian adventurers. Even better, Blizzard Lead Encounter Designer Daelo wants your feedback, you murderers.

Even if you won't have an opportunity to tackle her on the PTR, you can still find out a fair amount about the encounter from datamining and our new friend the Dungeon Journal. We know Alizabal uses the abilities Blade Dance, Seething Hate, and Skewer. We also know she wields this thing. Good to know, that.

---

Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!

---

Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, you have to die before I get a new chocobo. Regrettable, but ...

We're back with the Mountain O' Mounts series, and today we're going to examine the 10 mounts available to each faction as a result of slaughtering everything and everyone in your path. If you're the type of player who likes to put the "war" back in Warcraft, you'll enjoy the array of options available to a dedicated mercenary.

Also read:

• Combining The Ambassador and Mountain O' Mounts
• Mountain O' Mounts in Outland
• Mountain O' Mounts in Northrend
• Mountain O' Mounts in 5-man dungeons
• Mountain O' Mounts in raids
• Mountain O' Mounts from achievements

New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide. WoW Rookie is about more than just being new to the game; it's about checking out new classes, new playstyles, and new zones.

Tol Barad can be a massive, confusing, hot mess to anyone who isn't already accustomed to its evolution. Don't worry, though -- despite all of the dailies quests, NPCs, and various fluff, Tol Barad is actually fairly simple.

There are two parts of Tol Barad. There's the "always open" quest area and the battlefield area. The quest area is Tol Barad Peninsula, while the battlefield is just plain Tol Barad.

Winning Tol Barad gets you honor and other fabulous prizes. Winning is about flag control, similar to Arathi Basin. Essentially, there are three flags located in a triangle inside larger fortification. When you stand near the flag, a slider will move in the direction of your faction. The more people near the flag, the faster it goes.

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

Hey, it's Mat here, filling in for Mike Sacco. I love filling in for Mike Sacco! He's so dreamy...

Also, that's a moose. Quit bugging me.

Sky asked:

Question for the Queue:

If the 140 VP reward for 'tier 2' heroics went live, players would be able to reach the weekly valor point cap without having to raid. Do you think this is good or bad for the game?

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.

Mike Sacco was unable to tackle your usual Friday edition of The Queue this week, so I'm going to use this opportunity to make up for my oh-so-brief Monday editions of The Queue and answer a few more questions than we typically do each day. Onward!

Noyou asked:

With Activision pulling the plug on Guitar Hero and True Crime, how will that impact WoW, if at all?

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.

It's another Monday morning, which means it's time for another short edition of The Queue. Weekend recovery is always rough, because there's something about Sunday that drives the inquisitiveness out of all of you. I dread Super Bowl Sunday.

Doge asked:

Whenever I find a keystone in archaeology, I hear a certain many-toothed abomination say something. No text or anything, just the sound. Any idea why? It's quite disconcerting. Are my pursuits in archaeology making me fall under the sway of the Old Gods? Or is it just a bug?

Tol Barad was promised some changes earlier this month by Cory Stockton, and with the updated patch notes for Jan. 28, 2011, we have our first look at the changes coming to the battle for Tol Barad. Attackers and defenders will be receiving bonuses to their capture speeds based on the number of keeps they currently own. Tol Barad attackers will get a 200% increased cap speed bonus when they control two of the keeps, making taking the final keep easier against a zerging opponent. Tol Barad defenders will be get a 200% increased cap speed bonus when they control all three keeps, in order to force the attackers to try and pry one keep away from the defense and hold it to prevent their bonus.

So far, it's a good start for Tol Barad changes, and I hope that as these new bonuses are tested on the PTR we see a sharp rise in the balance in Tol Barad. Now we're just waiting on the changes that make the towers and siege engines compelling at all.

Also included in the Tol Barad notes was a change to the way the dailies, herbs, and minerals work during the battle. Now, resources will only spawn during the "quest phase" of Tol Barad -- the time when you can do the winner's dailies. There will now be warnings 5 and 1 minutes before the quest phase ends to alert players to turn in quests and get out of the micro-dungeons.

You can view the latest Tol Barad patch notes either past the break below or in our patch notes update post.

The official patch 4.0.6 PTR patch notes were updated yet again this evening. The updates to the patch notes aren't particularly long. Combine that with a certain placeholder blog post (which will certainly be removed soon) on the official Battle.net blog, and signs are good that the patch will be releasing soon. The team will be hard at work this weekend cleaning up and assembling our patch 4.0.6 resources, but until then, you'll need to be content with these patch note updates.

Updates to Tol Barad (which Mat McCurley will be discussing shortly), fishing, jewelcrafting and more are behind the break below.

There are eight new reputation factions in Cataclysm. Six of those reputations are available to the Alliance or Horde, respectively. Each of those factions offers different items or gear to adventurers who work their way through the reputations. Many offer epic gear to players who have achieved exalted reputation.

You can pick up well over 1,000 reputation by wearing each faction's tabard into a level 85 dungeon; heroic dungeons grant a little more, of course. Some factions have daily quests that will help you fly through the ranks even faster. But the tough part can be deciding which reputations to work on first.

Let's take a tour of those factions and see what kind of epics or notable gear is offered by each. If you see something that's especially appropriate to your class or role, that's probably a good hint that you should start there.

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

Welcome back to the fourth installment of this comprehensive guide to Cataclysm daily quests! In the first article, we discussed the basics of dailies and the profession dailies in capital cities. In part 2, we covered the Therazane dailies in Deepholm. Then in part 3, we went over the permanently available dailies in Tol Barad Peninsula. Today, we'll pick up where we left off and talk about the dailies obtained when your faction is victorious in the battle for Tol Barad, as well as the rewards available.

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

Welcome back to the Cataclysm daily quests series! Previously, we looked at daily quest basics and profession dailies and the daily quests in Deepholm. Today, we'll examine the world PvP hub of Cataclysm, Tol Barad, and the first half of its wealth of daily quests.

Blizzard's Cory Stockton recently posted an intriguing post on the WoW community site called Tol Barad Balance, highlighting the problems that currently exist with Tol Barad, Blizzard's design intentions and philosophy for the island PvP encounter, and some potential fixes that may be in store for Tol Barad in the near future. Tol Barad should be fun, fair, and meaningful.

In an informative tell-all, Cory Stockton, WoW's lead content designer, has posted a blog entry discussing the past, present, and future of Tol Barad, its cousin Wintergrasp, and his hopes for the balance changes that will soon be coming to Tol Barad. One particular issue mentioned is that the attacking side in Tol Barad is less favored as part of the design, but taking Tol Barad is too hard, as opposed to being just challenging. Check out the post on the WoW community site here, and check back later here on WoW Insider for my writeup and reactions to the changes.

For the most part, I think Stockton's aims, goals, and intentions are good for Tol Barad, and people need to remember that the changes listed are not the end all, be all for the zone. We've got a lot of balancing coming, so hang tight.

---

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.

---

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Sport for arena enthusiasts and The Art of War(craft) for fans of battlegrounds and world PvP. Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 Gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more.

It's the beginning of a new arena season. Recently hitting 85 myself, I noticed a lack of information about the best ways to acquire PvP gear for my upcoming adventures in Azeroth. Well, I've put together a little guide for you that I hope will aid you in whatever your PvP goals are this season.

Conquest points are the most important type of PvP currency in Cataclysm -- and they're awesome. They're incredibly easy to get, as you only have to win four or five arena games a week to get to the starting cap of 1,343. The average piece of conquest gear is bought for 1,579.4 conquest points, so even if you never break 1,500 rating, you'll be getting a new piece of epic PvP gear almost every week.

Try to save up early for your weapon, offhand, and relic/wand. These three slots are the only pieces of gear that can only be bought with conquest points -- don't make the mistake of buying other stuff with conquest points! You can just get a slightly inferior version of the other pieces via honor, but you might have to wave around that green or blue weapon for a while if you aren't wise about what you buy!