Posts with tag wow-guide

The Queue: The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Commemorative Shaving Mug

by Mathew McCurley May 26th 2012 at 12:00PM

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

If you know me a tiny bit or follow my Twitter, you know that I'm sort of a nerd when it comes to shaving. Not content with the Mach 3 quad-blade whatever and desperate to save cash, I decided to search for something better. Like most young men of the internet age, I found mantic59 by way of a forum post or somesuch that lauded the benefits of traditional wet shaving and fragrant lathering, and my life changed forever. If you're interested, start here, and watch them all.

Anyway, I've never considered myself a true shaving fan because the visceral reaction to my fandom was never profound. It was fun for me, sure, but the outward expression of the thing was just not there yet and it was my personal experience. However, when I saw Truefitt and Hill showing off their Jubilee Commemorative Shaving Mug for the Queen of England's Diamond Jubilee in 2012, I wanted it. I want it bad, and I'll do anything to get it. Then it hit me; I'm sure excited about a shaving mug. Could be a whole lot worse.

So, men, I implore you. If you shave, shave like a man. I can give you no better, no more sagely, and no more important advice. You'll be better for it.

Questions?

ancientn00b asked:

What happens if we enter a cross realm zone and someone is there with the same name? Will it be like in dungeons where their realm name is after their name? Also will we be able to join with them in a party to quest together?

Filed under: The Queue

WoW Moviewatch: Skullcrusher Mountain

by Michael Gray May 25th 2012 at 6:00PM

So, unlike many among us, I didn't learn about Jonathan Coulton through sheer cultural osmosis. I learned about him through machinima. In fact, my proto-love of JoCo was entirely created through this video... Skullcrusher Mountain.

Not to be too frank about it, but it took me some time to realize that JoCo wasn't entirely a WoW filk artist. I know that seem crazy but my deep love of Spiffworld's work led me astray. And while I now have a more nuanced understanding of JoCo and Spiffworld, I still look back to Skullcrusher Mountain with the sense that the song was written for WoW.

Anecdote aside, this video is still a legend. Over 1.3 million views testify to its glory. Enjoy your stay!

Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

Raid Rx: Recap of recent healing changes

by Matt Low May 25th 2012 at 1:00PM

Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poohbah of World of Matticus and a founder of Plus Heal, a discussion community for healers of all experience levels and interests Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading, the Matticast.

There's been some large changes to healing for some of the classes in recent builds. This week, we'll recap and go through the classes to see what's new. You might be interested to know that at level 89, my priest has 250k mana. Who wants to wager that 300k mana is the maximum cap at level 90? Remember with the new intellect and mana system coming in with the expansion, intellect stats no longer raise the mana pool anymore. Your mana regeneration is governed strictly by your spirit levels.

Priest

Lightwell receives a few tweaks to the healing numbers. More importantly, it now has a glyph that completely changes the functionality of the spell. Glyph of Lightspring turns Lightwell into an automatic healing ability with a catch. Lightwell will only heal players with health lower than 50%. It will only perform the check once every 5 seconds. That is a fair compromise to me. I've never been truly satisfied with Lightwell since my experience has shown me that most players never click on it when it really matters. At least this glyph helps remove control from them and I gain the knowledge of my Lightwell kicking in when it'll be needed.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Raid Rx (Raid Healing), Mists of Pandaria

The Queue: Bloody Mary

by Michael Sacco May 25th 2012 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. Mike Sacco will be your host today.

One of my favorite songs this year, from the new Silversun Pickups album. I adore it. You might, too!

JaredLorenz asked:

How will cross-realm zones in MoP affect herbing and mining nodes? Will these nodes still spawn realm specific? Also, will the zones always be cross-realm, or only when sparsely populated?

Yes, you'll share the same nodes. The devs said they'd keep an eye on that to make sure it wasn't affecting gameplay in any drastic way. And yes, realm-sharing is based on population and also won't happen in current-expansion content.

Filed under: The Queue

WoW Moviewatch: The Day After the Cataclysm Ended

by Michael Gray May 24th 2012 at 6:15PM

With more people killing Deathwing every single day, an inevitable and troubling question keeps coming up: "What will happen to the dragons now?" They gave up their immortality so that we can begin the Time of Man, and we didn't see any white-sailed ships floating to the horizon to explain their scaly fate. So what happened?

Ineffable genius Myndflame tackled that question, grabbing vocal talent Ember Isolte to take the part of the Lifebinder. You can't miss Myndflame's knack for comedic timing and genius reversal of expectations. Finally, we know what happened The Day After The Cataclysm Ended.

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

The OverAchiever: Are pet achievements disappearing in Mists of Pandaria?

by Allison Robert May 24th 2012 at 5:00PM

Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, it's myth-explodin' time.

Last week in the comment thread for OverAchiever: Achievements to do before it's too late, there were a few notes from readers who were worried that noncombat pet achievements were going to disappear in Mists of Pandaria. This shocked me, because I could have sworn I saw pet achievements flash across the screen during the spam I always get when I copy my main to a beta or PTR, and I hadn't been aware that these achievements were actually missing from the General category. I was also sure there would have been some pretty high-profile news about it if developers were planning to axe them. Especially with the introduction of Pet Battles, it seemed like a very strange time for Blizzard to get rid of related achievements.

Then again, these are also the people who put the Aldor Rise elevator and Warsong Gulch rep in the game, so we already know they're capable of real cruelty.

OverAchiever's pretty much pointless if I don't use it to investigate stuff that I could have warned readers about well in advance, and pets are serious business. So, another character copy onto the beta later, I have an answer for you about what's going on.

Filed under: Achievements, The Overachiever

What is Mists of Pandaria?

by Michael Gray May 24th 2012 at 4:00PM

You can hardly load up a WoW site without getting barraged by panda news. That information seems obvious -- after all, we're all sitting around drooling for the new expansion. But if you're the kind of player who prefers staying spoiler-free, then the substantive news about Mists of Pandaria versus the minutiae can seem overwhelming. So let's kick back on our armchair in the clouds and take a good, high-level look at the new expansion.

First things first. Mists of Pandaria is the fourth expansion to World of Warcraft. We've already had The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, and Cataclysm. This is the (very, very) basic story so far: In The Burning Crusade, the Horde and Alliance went off to Outland to bring down the machinations of a handful of elves and demons. While they were gone, though, the Lich King rose back up and attacked. Once the Lich King was defeated, a big, bad dragon woke up and wrecked shop on Azeroth. In Mists of Pandaria, the Horde and Alliance have dealt with external threats and are now turning their eyes to one another.

Filed under: Mists of Pandaria

Addon Spotlight: 3 addons you shouldn't forget for your alt

by Mathew McCurley May 24th 2012 at 1:00PM

Each week, WoW Insider's Mathew McCurley brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same.

Now is the perfect time to work on that alt you've been keeping locked away, sad and lonely for so long in his little alt box. You've got time now, right? Deathwing is long dead, and things are pretty chill. I even heard there's a new island out there to explore one of these days, most hopefully in July or August, which would be pretty cool.

Ironically, when I'm leveling most of my alts from an early level, I don't enable most of my addons. What's the point? Group and raid content that requires any addons is far off in the future, the number of abilities I have at the time doesn't reflect the button matrices that I've built for level 85, and there is practically no similarity to playstyle. So I turn off my addons, save some very crucial ones.

If you're looking to go addon-light for your next alt, I've got some addons that you're going to want to keep around because they make your life a thousand times easier. WoW's UI has gotten a lot better in recent years, but it still isn't perfect. These addons bring it a little closer to that perfection.

Filed under: Add-Ons, AddOn Spotlight

The Queue: Thank you, Queue.

by Adam Holisky May 24th 2012 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. Adam Holisky (@adamholisky) will be your host today.

I really appreciate what you did for me yesterday, Queue. After months of farming, Heroic Lightening Rod finally dropped for me. Of course, it put me deep in the EPGP hole, but hey, I'm happy. This baby is going to last me well into leveling in Mists.

And hey! Apparently you all disagreed with me about Diablo 3 having the same amount of gore as WoW. That's okay though, I'm still happy.

Captainfreddy asked:

If you could ask Blizzard any non-lore related WoW question and they'd have to give you a straight answer, what would it be?

Filed under: The Queue

Arena Pass 2012: The final phase has begun!

by Olivia Grace May 23rd 2012 at 7:00PM

The final phase of the 2012 Arena Pass is upon us! This is Ranked Ladder Phase 2, which follows predictably after Ranked Ladder Phase 1. From this point forward, entry is closed, so if you'd been hoping to get your foot in the Arena Pass door, I'm very sorry, but you're too late.

At this point, ladies and gentlemen, it's on like Donkey Kong for the final two weeks. Team rosters are closed, so no team-shuffling is permitted. However, you can create a new team. If you're having roster difficulties or anything of the sort, you'll have to leave or disband your current team and create a new team, which of course will start again in the rating wars.

What are you fighting for? Well, the top 1,000 teams. That's up to 6,000 players, since a 3v3 roster can have up to six people on it, who will all receive a Vanquisher title on the live realms for all characters over level 71. You must have competed in at least 100 3v3 matches on the same character in the same team. Leaving the team is not advisable, since that could reset your score within the rankings and even reset the game's memory of how many matches you've played.

To earn Murkimus, the armored murloc pet, you'll need to play 50 3v3 matches on the same character in the same team. Again, leaving that team may well reset the number of games played, so err on the side of caution.

By having bought into this Arena Pass, once you upgrade your WoW account to Mists of Pandaria, you've secured access to the L90 Arena Pass realm. Blizzard is currently saying that only people who've bought into this Arena Pass will have access to the L90 one, but I suspect that might be subject to change, unless it runs in addition to the usual 2013 Arena Pass.

As Vaneras puts it:

Vaneras

During these final two weeks, true champions of the Arena will swim to the top of a river filled with their opponent's tears.

source

Good luck!

Filed under: PvP

WoW Moviewatch: Tanked a Boss

by Michael Gray May 23rd 2012 at 6:30PM

So, rumor has it that a certain burly warrior has returned to tanking. I'm pretty excited to see my good friend back in the sword and board club, so I couldn't let the event to go by without a little shout-out. Mr. Rossi, this one's for you.

Tanked a Boss is an old machinima. It's like five years old. In internet years, that's like prehistoric times. I think we were all playing WoW on TI-8 calculators back then or something. With that in mind, don't judge this video too harshly. Just kick back, let the off-key singing transport you to a magical realm of threat and mitigation, and welcome Mr. Rossi back to our tanking ways.

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

Know Your Lore: Archimonde the Defiler

by Matthew Rossi May 23rd 2012 at 2:00PM

The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

Let this scar signify the first blow against the mortal world. From this seal shall arise the doom of men, who, in their arrogance, sought to wield our fire as their own. Blindly they build their kingdoms upon stolen knowledge and conceit. Now they shall be consumed by the very flame they sought to control. Let the echoes of doom resound across this wretched world, that all who live may hear them and despair.

He came to destroy the world, and he nearly did. If not for the combined efforts of the orcs of the Horde and their allies under Warchief Thrall, the human refugees led by Jaina Proudmoore, and the night elves under Tyrande Whisperwind, Archimonde the Defiler would have walked up to Nordrassil, the World Tree that sits atop Mount Hyjal, and he would have consumed it utterly. With it, he would have gained all the power of the Well of Eternity that has seeped up the tree's massive roots over tens of thousands of years, making him quite possibly the most powerful entity Azeroth has ever seen, even including beings like Deathwing, the Old Gods, and potentially even Sargeras himself.

In the end, however, the mortal races banded together in a desperate alliance and held Archimonde and his Burning Legion away from the tree long enough for Malfurion Stormrage to play a final, desperate plan that Archimonde couldn't anticipate, because it involved self-sacrifice, the loss of the night elven immortality. For Archimonde, who had lived for more than 25,000 years constantly coveting power, the idea of giving it up was unthinkable. Combined with his ego and arrogance, he was effectively blind to the danger, and so he died.

We hope. Make no mistake -- Archimonde, of all the Burning Legion, came the closest to actually destroying Azeroth. Neither Sargeras nor Kil'jaeden ever walked Azeroth bodily. Archimonde did. Neither Sargeras nor Kil'jaeden ever set eyes on the Well of Eternity. Archimonde stood mere yards from it, drawing the power from Nordrassil. The Defiler very nearly did exactly that to all of Azeroth.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Lore, Know your Lore

The Queue: Help me, Queue, you're my only hope!

by Adam Holisky May 23rd 2012 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. Adam Holisky (@adamholisky) will be your host today.

Queue, I need your help. I need the heroic Lightning Rod to drop for my warlock tonight. See, the problem is that it dropped once and went to a player who has subsequently not raided. Not complaining about that, he's a nice guy. But ... it's like it's not going to drop for me, ever. I'm sitting at the top of the EPGP charts by far, and when this baby drops, it's going to be mine.

So can you all send some good loot love my way and make it drop tonight when we kill Ms. Wolf Hat?

If you do, I promise to write you another Queue tomorrow. And if it doesn't drop ... you're getting that LOLcat Queue I promised a while back.

PhilDGiles asked:

Have you ever answered a Q4Q with "absolutely" or "absolutely not" and it turns out to be the opposite? XD

Filed under: The Queue

Keys to PvP: Keybinding, movement and clicking

by Olivia Grace May 22nd 2012 at 7:00PM

WoW Insider covers the world of player vs. player action in Blood Sport for fans of Battleground, world PvP and Arena play. Steering you to victory is Olivia Grace, who never clicks anything but her fingers.

My last column dealt with the basics of macros and focus targets and their use in PvP. This time, we're tackling an even more heady topic, one that is arguably even more key to PvP success than macros and the use of focus targets. This article is a rare occasion when I will assert that one course of action is better than another!

Clicking is a tricky subject. People may be surprised to see it in the title up there hanging out right next other key PvP skills. I would like to say that, with one caveat that will come up later, I wouldn't encourage clicking in PvP.

First and foremost, what is clicking? When PvPers (and for that matter, probably PvEers) talk about clicking, they are referring to the practice of putting your abilities on your bars and clicking them with your mouse. In order to do this and move at the same time, you pretty much have to move with your keyboard.

OK, so now that it's completely clear what clicking is, why is it bad? First and foremost, let's look at movement. Moving with your keyboard is slow. It's really slow. If you don't believe me, stand your character still and spin through 180 degrees with your keyboard. Now do the same with your mouse. Much faster! Rather like the difference between a d-pad and a thumb joystick on a console controller, mouse movement is far more intuitive, far easier to fine tune and far faster.

Filed under: PvP, Blood Sport (Arena PvP)

WoW Moviewatch: Night Elf ERP

by Michael Gray May 22nd 2012 at 6:00PM

Work warning: The song's about ERP. Now, the lyrics are actually fairly tame and the graphics don't show particularly naughty bits, especially when you consider that we're talking about ERP -- but still, it's about ERP.

Night Elf ERP by Sharm and Khayllys tackles that naughty center of WoW's roleplay world: ERP. That's the adult version of roleplay, and I'm not going to explain it much deeper than that. The song manages to avoid being a long homage to Goldshire, though you can't talk about this subject without at least mentioning the inn there.

This video was fantastic. I loved it. It was funny, lighthearted, and gorgeous. It maintains this sense of self-deprecation that takes the bite off its lyrics. Sharm's vocals bring the beauty, and Khallys really put forth some glittering eye candy. My hat's off to you.

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

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