Darkguard of Thrall - Bam! Crit!

Filed under: Shaman, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Expansions, Factions, Enchants, (Shaman) Totem Talk, Wrath of the Lich King

One of the ways to gear up as you level and prepare for endgame in Wrath of the Lich King is by making use of the reputation gained via questing for various factions in Northrend. In addition to the main Alliance or Horde factions the Alliance Vanguard and Horde Expedition, there are a variety of other groups you can meet and ally with as you explore Northrend, often through daily quests, and these factions offer gear, head enchants and other items of interest to you as an up and coming shaman. Today, we'll go over what each group has to offer and which ones you might want to prioritize depending on your spec and interest.

One group to mention in particular is the Sons of Hodir: unlike other factions, they don't have a Tabard which you can wear in level 80 dungeons and heroics to gain reputation with them. However, they do have quite a few dailies to unlock as well as a long series of quests which will get you started, and in addition to the usual gearing reasons to unlock and progress in this reputation they also provide shoulder enchants that equal or exceed the best outland ones, so they're a group you'll eventually want to work on.

Continue reading Totem Talk: Wrath faction gear for Shamans

Totem Talk: Wrath faction gear for Shamans originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Making money

The AP is reporting that Microsoft's game advertising division (called Massive, Inc., not to be confused with Massively), has signed a deal with Blizzard to offer advertising on their upcoming Battle.net revamp, presumably to premiere with Starcraft II. This is apparently out-of-game advertising, i.e. the ads you'll see upon login to the service, not necessarily on in-game billboards or other nonsense like that. Battle.net is Blizzard's online service -- they've used it since way back in the Diablo days, and they've always had ads for their own products in it. But now they've contracted with this company Massive, Inc. to put other ads in there, and since they've been planning for a revamp for a while, you can probably expect to see the ads in right away when the new service launches.

How will this affect us as WoW players? It might not -- Blizzard may leave WoW on its own launcher, rather than having you go through a Battle.net launcher to sign in. On the other hand, WoW is clearly Blizzard's biggest online game, and we already know that Blizzard plans to include some WoW features (achievements, accounts) in the Battle.net revamp, so it could be that they're going to unify everything under one launcher (WoW, Starcraft II, Diablo III), in which case you'd see these ads when you sign in as well.

Which makes us wonder why exactly we'd be paying $15 a month to see more ads on login, but don't panic yet -- we'll cross that bridge when we actually know it exists (for now, Blizzard hasn't announced any official plans to change the way WoW works with Battle.net, other than the fact that one account will work across all games). We'll keep an eye out for any other new Battle.net news -- there's definitely something big in the works.

Blizzard makes deal with Massive for Battle.net ads originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Undead, Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Humor, Classes, Wrath of the Lich King

Reader Dave M. sent this little gag to us from Blizzard's "Account Cancel" page. He was leaving the game (and frankly, we're sorry to see him go), and he noticed that if you choose "other" as the reason for leaving your account behind, you get another list of more wacky options. And among them (right between "All of my friends quit playing" and "Offline play not available") is that constant point of QQ: "Will of the Forsaken nerf."

Pretty funny that in terms of game mechanics, that's really the only listed reason for quitting ("it takes too long to move between regions" is in there as well, though it seems like a strange complaint that the game is too big). You'd think that the Ret Pally nerfs or Shaman QQ would at least be listed in there somewhere. But no, apparently for all the players that are saying "That's it, I quit" in response to nerfs, only the ones angry about the WotF nerf are actually doing it.

Will of the Forsaken nerf is a reason for quitting originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: News items, Leveling

Vaneras on the EU forums this morning responded to some criticism that everyone is already 80, etc... He makes a few interesting points.

First, he notes that they have internal numbers that the majority of players don't yet have a level 80 character. This might be a known or assumed fact by some, but for many of us it's interesting to hear Blizzard extrapolate on the issue.

Vaneras goes on to point out an important tidbit - don't assume just because all your friends are 80 that everyone else is as well. People that play all the time tend to gravitate towards other people that play all the time, and folks that only log on once or twice a week gravitate towards each other as well.

This means that just because everyone on your friends list is 80 doesn't mean the whole server is yet. I know that for myself nearly everyone's main is either 80 or high 70s now, and most have alts quickly getting up there in level too.

But then I'm reminded of my brother, who just dinged 77 a couple days ago.

This is also good to know as it means battlegrounds and Wintergrasp will be filling up more as a greater number of folks ding. That's only going to lead to more fun for everyone.

Majority of player base does not have a level 80 character originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: News items, PvP

Gnorog on the EU forums posted notice a while ago that Season 4 is over. That means that all arena teams and ratings have been cleared, and arena charter NPCs have been disabled.

Your arena points will stay with you until you reach level 71 however.

But the end of Season 4 isn't the news.

Season 5 will begin on December 17th for those players that have reached level 80. That's just a few days away. For those that haven't, the skirmish brackets of 71-75 and 76-80 are available. The time is now to start organizing your arena teams and get them in gear for the upcoming events.

With all the changes in Wrath the next arena season promises to be interesting. Here's to bigger and better weapons! /cheers

Arena season 4 over, season 5 to begin December 17th originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Hunter, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Tips, Quests, Bosses, Guides, Wrath of the Lich King, (Hunter) Scattered Shots

Welcome to Scattered Shots, the weekly Hunter column where we could really use a plane to head back to Shattrath and pick up more ammo since we haven't bummed a teleport to Dalaran yet.
So. You've breezed past the early 70s. You've checked out the reputation gear for Hunters, and now you're ready to grind. So you've picked up your tabard, and you realize that you still have a question left to answer: Which dungeon should I run? What dungeon has the gear I need to get suited up and ready to run Heroics?

Scattered Shots is here to help. We're going to look at some of the best pre-Heroic drops for Hunters in Wrath, and hopefully give you some idea of what way to go when you look for your next dungeon, or at least what drops to cross your fingers for.

This guide will focus mostly on normal dungeon drops, although where a quest reward, reputation reward, or relatively easy to craft crafted item is a good option for the slot, we'll highlight it as well. By the end of this guide, the Hunter that didn't quite finish their Karazhan runs during Burning Crusade should hopefully have an idea of where to get a good outlay of gear to prepare them for heroics, and eventually for Naxxramas itself.

Good luck on the drops, and good luck winning the rolls over those enhancement shamans!

Continue reading Scattered Shots: Normal dungeon gear for Hunters in Wrath of the Lich King

Scattered Shots: Normal dungeon gear for Hunters in Wrath of the Lich King originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Raiding, Wrath of the Lich King, The Queue

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.

I have an extra-special request for all of you! We've had a few people asking for recommendations on other class-specific blogs, and I think that's a good thing to light the Reader Signal for. So in addition to your questions and feedback, recommend class-centric blogs in the comments below! Personally, I read A Dwarf Priest and World of Matticus when I'm looking for something Priestly. Now, to the questions...

shadowsun asked...

I have yet to get Wrath (I know, "PRAISE BE") although I am getting it this Thursday. I was wondering about the new raiding system. Which is harder, 10-man or 25-man? For example is the 10-man easier in the point that you need less players but harder as in they need to be more well geared? Or is the 25-man harder?

Continue reading The Queue: Shields, forums, and more on raid difficulty

The Queue: Shields, forums, and more on raid difficulty originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, WoW Moviewatch

AFK Pl@yers over at Myndflame have created Wrath of a Couch Potato, inspired by Seth Green's acclaimed "Robot Chicken" series. The movie runs a little over 8 minutes in its entirety, and the experience is kind of intense. I suggest watching it somewhere you can really pay attention.

I hate to gush, but I really loved this movie. It's packed with laugh-out-loud moments, and each segment lasts only long enough to deliver a solid joke. The production values are through the roof. Each scene is well framed, and put together with an eye for detail. There's more than a few quotes in here that you can expect to permeat the Trade channel's zeitgeist for the next few months. So, to be fair, if you get annoyed by people endlessly quoting good machinima films, you might get annoyed from what comes out of "Wrath of a Couch Potato."

Click here now to check out Wrath of a Couch Potato.

[via Myndflame]

If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.

Previously on Moviewatch ...

WoW Moviewatch: Wrath of a Couch Potato originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Fishing, Items, Factions

The only way to increase your faction standing with the Kalu'ak is to complete the numerous tasks at the various quest hubs in the Borean Tundra, Dragonblight, and Howling Fjord. After all those quests are done the only way to further increase your standing is to work on the various daily quests associated with the faction.

But what are some of the goodies you can get when you're exalted?

The hottest item is the Mastercraft Kalu'ak Fishing Pole that has the double whammy of allowing underwater breathing and increasing your fishing skill by 30. It's a must have for any master angler, and will come in handy as you fish off the cold icebergs of Northrend. You can get pole for just over 100 gold when you hit exalted.

Another must have is the pet penguin that you can get when you reach exalted. The little guy is cute and is someone that wants to sit next to you as you use that big purple fishing pole you got.

You can pick up these rewards from quartermasters in either Mora'ki Harbor in Dragonblight or in Kamagua in the Howling Fjord.

Read on after the break and see what you can grab from these fun loving Wilfred Brimley looking folks.

Continue reading Kalu'ak reputation rewards

Kalu'ak reputation rewards originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Walkthroughs, Quests, Guides

We've completed our first set of Wrath Dailies outlining ways to increase your reputation with the Kalu'ak faction. The three quests that you can do are all available to you when you hit Northrend, and are generally pretty easy to swing through if there's not a lot of other people around.

The best way to complete them all is to begin at one of the starting zones and work your way across Northrend. I usually start off in the Howling Fjord with The Way to His Heart since that's the least heavily farmed, then go Dragonblight for Planning for the Future, and finally end up in the Borean Tundra doing Preparing for the Worst.

The Way to His Heart

In this daily quest you have to mate two squishy sea lions. Have fun, and don't forget that soap you made earlier. And what gets two sea lions to mate better than some yummy gooey raw fish?

Continue reading The daily quests of the Kalu'ak

The daily quests of the Kalu'ak originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Screenshots, Around Azeroth, Galleries

Also known as "Camouflage: you're doing it surprisingly well." Boethia of <Gnome Pest Control Inc> on Laughing Skull-EU took this shot of her warlock, dressed in the polychromatic Malefic set, beside some matching flowers in Stranglethorn Vale. Is this a comment on how garish some of the set designs are? Or is she preparing to leap out of the foliage and gank some unwary level 35s?

Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word "Azeroth" in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing -- use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, "mounted mounts", or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran.

Gallery: Around Azeroth

Around Azeroth: Dead flowers originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, News items, Humor

The things we do in the name of Science, right? The folks over at Kamikaze Cookery decided to take one for the team, and put to the test the soothing effects of Chamomile tea and other similar herbal relaxants. The first step is pretty obvious: get loaded up on several cups of tasty, relaxing chamomile. Step two? Fire up World of Warcraft battlegrounds, and see if you can remain cool, collected, and totally frosty through the unending slaughter.

Of course, the video does more than just bust the myth that nutraceutical sedatives will somehow turn a raging bull into a quiet kitten. The documentary also shows that the heart-pounding, migraine-inducing stress of trying to play team oriented PvP games in WoW can be universal. I guess the real drawback to the test is that we're now without the crutch of tea to talk us out of the trees. I truly laughed at their not-getting-sued version of playing the battlegrounds. It's funny because it's true, after all.

Ultimately, I'd argue that a small group of people conducting this kind of stress-test is no statistically significant sample size. But, even if chamomile is 150% effective, during the battlegrounds, I have to side with Rupert Giles. "Tea is soothing; I wish to be tense."

Thanks to Nomad for the tip!

Chamomile Tea proven ineffective as Warsong Gulch relaxer originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast topics, Humor

With the ease of Wrath of the Lich King raiding we're seeing guilds kill boss after boss at an alarming rate. And I'm not just talking about 5-man heroic bosses (those seem a bit hard, actually). I'm not even talking about 10-man bosses (easy cake). I'm talking about the big bad sorry excuse for a boss that is 25-man raiding.

Some guilds can roll their face over the keyboard and kill something.

Others just have their cat play with the mouse and keyboard for a couple hours.

Still others are hiring 25 monkeys to sit in a room together clapping their hands while throwing feces at the screen. The occasional flick of their tail hits the keyboard and presses any of the numerous iWin buttons currently in game that automatically kills a level 83 mob. While the monkeys are doing this and other disgusting acts, they're also writing Shakespearian dramas, fixing the economy, bailing out the auto industry and homeowners, and ending all wars through creating world peace.

This is what 25-man raiding has become. It's so easy a caveman monkey could do it!

Do boss kills even count for anything anymore? Not really, no.

Continue reading Breakfast Topic: Should raid progression even be tracked anymore?

Breakfast Topic: Should raid progression even be tracked anymore? originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Account Security

The Armory was updated with achievement and statistic tracking last week to accompany the new game features introducted in patch 3.0.2, along with tools to compare your achievements and stats to other players on your realm. There was a lot of concern over someone the things displayed out in the open for all to see such as the Wealth stat. How much gold you've had, how much you have, things like that. Players felt it made them into targets of sorts, figuring hackers, scammers and phishing sites would focus fire a little more. Heck, some people were just plain uncomfortable with other players seeing their gold stores.

It looks like Blizzard actually agrees in this case. If they don't agree, at least they were feeling a little sympathy and wanted to calm some nerves. The Wealth category has been removed completely, and while you can still check up on other achievements and stats, you don't get a free look into someone's money bags anymore. I don't know that how much gold you have on display actually had an effect on who scammers target or not, but it's not like it was important information anyway and you might as well be more safe than sorry. Some stats are fun to see and compare, but I don't know that gold is one of those stats.

Wealth category removed from Armory statistics originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Patches, News items, Raiding, Wrath of the Lich King

Previously you could only have 40 debuffs up on a single mob. That might seem like a lot, but when you got in a raid with 25 other people all putting up their own set of debuffs and dots, etc... things tended to get a little full.

Daelo, the Lead Encounter Designer, announced today that the debuff limit has been removed*. This is a subtle yet important change for many raiding guilds.

He notes that the default UI won't normally be able to show all the debuffs, but that's just a bug in the UI. The debuffs are still there and working. We don't have any verifiable information yet as to if custom mods can display an infinite number of debuffs.

Continue reading Debuff limit removed

Debuff limit removed originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, News items, Classes

What classes do Blizzard employees play?

This is an often asked question by people on the forums. Sometimes it comes with a finger pointing at such and such a developer or community manager, accusing them of favoritism for a given class because it's the one they play the most.

Over the past few days we've seen two blue responses over this issue. Vaneras over on the European forums makes note to say that the GMs play the game just as "everybody else does." They encompass all classes and all play styles.

This is interesting in that it shows that Blizzard folks are involved in both casual and hard core raiding, and casual and hard core PvPing. I find this particularly interesting, since after a long day of work at WoW Insider sometimes the last thing I want to do is sit down and trudge through some raid content. But then again, sometimes I do.

Ghostcrawler also weighed in on the issue a few days earlier, making several interesting points.

Continue reading Ghostcrawler and Vaneras on the classes that GMs play

Ghostcrawler and Vaneras on the classes that GMs play originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Items, Fan stuff, Blizzard, Contests, Making money

Blizzplanet (with a shiny new design) reports that the big Child's Play auction this year is going to feature a special prize from Blizzard: a bronze statue of the Wolfrider that was given out to Blizzard employees. Child's Play, as you may know, was started by the guys over at the Penny Arcade webcomic, and collects money every year to purchase videogames for sick children in hospitals all over the country to play. Their annual dinner auction in Seattle is always a huge event (and Tycho and Gabe are always there), but there are also lots of other local events going on, including one here in Chicago that I'm going to be attending for WoW Insider, where we'll give away some Warcraft stuff from friends of ours like Swagdog.

If you happen to be in Seattle, though, and have some money to spend on a Wolfrider statue, this could be an awesome collectible. As we said, they were previously only handed out to Blizzard employees (though a few have leaked out to the public already), and there is a much larger version that will be installed outside Blizzard headquarters (I believe they have another copy in the lobby already).

Very cool piece of art that will be auctioned off for a very good cause. The auction's going to be held on December 9th -- seats are $125, and of course the statue will go to the highest bidder of the night. We'll keep an eye out to see what it eventually sells for -- our guess is not cheap.

Child's Play auctioning off a Warcraft Wolfrider statue originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Quests, Factions, Guides, Making money

Quick! Utaik needs your help! Gather eight of the Kaskala Supplies for him or the families of the Kalu'ak town Unu'pe will starve.

This daily quest is simple yet surprisingly annoying. It's one of those that can quickly get under your skin as more and more people do it. Want to run around pickup objects while ten other people on your server do it at the same time? Then this quest is for you!

Quest Giver: Utaik, Kaskala, Borean Tundra
Reputation: Kalu'ak
Reward: 500 rep & 4.86g at level 80
Minimum Level: 68
Required Chain: None!

Read on after the break for our walkthrough of the quest, complete with a few tricks you can do to get it done quickly and easily.

Continue reading Wrath Dailies: Preparing for the Worst

Wrath Dailies: Preparing for the Worst originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King, The Queue

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.

It's Wednesday, which I've determined is the worst day of the week ever, so let's skip any delays today and jump right into the Q&A. If you disagree that Wednesday is the worst, you are wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. As wrong as you could possibly be. Just sayin'.

Robsato asked...

I recently got my warrior to level 71 and I really miss my riding crop especially since my main is a pally going at normal speed feels really slow. Is there a way to get my 10% speed increase back?

Continue reading The Queue: Trinkets, sigils and death by Orcs

The Queue: Trinkets, sigils and death by Orcs originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Wrath of the Lich King, Hardware

I swear I came up with this idea yesterday -- my hard drive has been having problems with World of Warcraft, and the thought occurred to me to buy an external USB hard drive and get WoW and all of my addons loaded on it. That way, I could not only avoid the errors on my current hard drive, but I could also take my installation with me whereever I went. I wasn't sure it would work (and after a few repairs and a reinstallation, I appear to have WoW working again), so I haven't followed it up.

But a company called Transcend was way ahead of me. In Asia, they're selling a hard drive preloaded with a working Wrath installation on it. So all you need to do to play Warcraft on any computer with a USB hookup is plug in and run. You'd likely have to adjust the graphics settings depending on which computer you plugged into, but it's a great idea. Available sizes run from 160gb to 500gb, so I'd assume as well that you can use the rest of the drive as normal.

It looks official as well, but you never know -- it could be the The9, the company that runs Warcraft in Asia, has approved it, or Transcend could just be doing this on their own. Either way, this wouldn't be too hard to make yourself here in the states -- buy an HD, install WoW, and there you go.

World of Warcraft hard drive by Transcend originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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