Last time, we took a sneak peak on the upcoming class changes in Blizzard’s newest patch, 3.1.0 for the Priest, Rogue, and Shaman (and we did a lot more digging for this article to make sure the info was as up-to-date as possible). Some of them change abilities that have been around in World of Warcraft since it was first released, and others are being added that some players feel are long overdue.

First, we have our Warlocks. This class will be receiving a hefty helping of new abilities, as well as a big dump of other abilities. First, some talents will have their ranks reduced to gain the benefits of more talents than before.

A nice bonus to Affliction Warlocks will be the removal of Siphon life as an ability. The effect, which was once active, is now passive and embedded into Corruption. Now, you will only have to cast one spell instead of two for a similar effect, unless it’s dispelled of course.

With this upcoming patch, many changes are occurring to armor and armor reduction that will affect Feral Druids, greatly. And to make up for these nerfs, Blizzard will buff Druids accordingly. A new ability that the Druids will recieve, is Savage Defense. Every time a Druid in Dire Bear form gets a melee critical strike, the Druid will gain a damage shield for the next melee attack against the Bear, that will absorb all damage equal to 25% of their attack power.

Another ability being changed by the armor reduction changes is Faerie Fire. Instead of a set number of Armor to be reduced, Faerie fire now reduces armor by 5%. As I will talk about in a little bit, this effect applies to Sunder Armor as well. Lastly, Cat form Druids will recieve a damage boost to their sustained damage in groups.

Warriors are also affected by the changes to Armor and Armor Reduction, and they also have many more changes in general. One of the nicer changes, is that Warriors will now gain rage from parrying, dodging, and from absorbing damage.

Now to Sunder Armor, this ability will now be similar to Faerie fire. It will only reduce the Enemy’s armor by 4% per application. Because of this, every boss will have their armor changed to reflect this.

The main reason for this change, is for Clothies and PvP. Our cloth-wearing friends, were having their armor reduced to 0 by sunder and faerie fire stacks and were getting demolished and obliterated in PvP. This change to Armor reduction fixes that problem, and hopefully everyone will last a bit longer.

Excited so far? You haven’t seen anything yet. Coming up in the final segment, the Mages, Hunters, Paladins, and Death Knights.

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As Wrath of the Lich King is completing it’s fourth month, Blizzard is working on the next major patch, 3.1.0. While adding new abilities, this patch will also contain many class changes that have been solid pieces of World of Warcraft for years. I am going to share with you some of these major changes.

Let’s start with Priests. The Priest will mostly get additions to their repertoire of abilities for PvP utility and group utility. One of these changes is a new talent in the discipline tree called Power Word: Barrier. This spell acts like Power Word: Shield but for an entire group, instead of one player.

The Shadow Priest’s survivability is also being improved in the fact that Shadowform will reduce magical and melee damage taken, and dispersion will remove snares. This will make Shadow Priests a harder opponent to vanquish in PvP.

The Holy Tree is getting some very nice additions as well. First, Prayer of Healing will become group-specific, you will be able to choose whichever group you want to cast it on (like in raids). Also, holy Nova’s Mana cost will be reduced, and Circle of Healing will heal for more, to further increase the utility of these spells. Blizzard has also noted that, “Other spells will be improved as well.”

Next, we have our Rogue friends. The Rogue will be receiving some nice bonuses, but nothing too fancy. Some of the nice changes will be the lowering of the cooldown on Adrenaline Rush, and the talent Lightning Reflexes will add passive melee haste.

A very nice bonus to Rogues, is to Mace Specialization. This talent will also grant haste and armor penetration, hopefully to make One-Handed Maces viable, for Rogues, once again.

Blizzard loves Shamans, and their new buffs are pure testament to that fact. Unleashed Rage will be reduced to two talent points, down from five, but will also add an increase to critical strike by 1% to 2%. Also, Storm, Earth, and Fire, will now increase the damage of all parts of Flame Shock, both initial and periodic.

These bonuses pale in comparison to what Blizzard will be doing to Water Totems. Healing and Mana Stream totems have been combined into one. This merge has also occurred for the Poison Cleansing and Disease Cleansing totems.

As you can see, these changes are nothing to sneeze at. Next time I we’ll look at the changes coming to the Warlock, Druid, and Warrior classes.

Editor’s note: As with anything “future” you have to take it with a grain of salt.  Until we have had an opportunity to see some more of the PTR in action, most of this is conjecture and we are hard at work delving through the available patch info and the PTR to update the following articles to more accurately reflect exactly what you can expect from 3.1.0.

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Dual Wield or Dual Handers: The Great Debate

Right now a great debate is going on as to the weapon style of Tanking Frost Death Knights. Some claim that dual-wielding is the way to go because there is a talent for it in the frost tree, nerves of cold steel, and that the only tank weapons, aside from the Titansteel Destroyer, are one-handed weapons.

The other side claims that two-handed weapons are the way to go arguing that nerves of cold steel is for dps frost Death Knights, and that although most of the tanking weapons are one handed, the boss’ chance of parrying you is increased, and ultimately more stress on the healers.

Blizzard has posted that they did not intend for dual-wielding to be a tanking alternative, but they do not have problems with it existing, and are happy that people have taken it up as an option. So where does that leave us?

In all reality we’re not sure Blizzard really intended Death Knights to become main tanks at all.  I mean, look at those tooltips.  Both talents seem to be better suited for a DPS spec than tanking.  But since we have to live with the fact that DK’s want to tank (and yes, some make very good tanks), we might as well talk about it.

Really good DK tanks who have also tanked as a warrior or paladin will tell you that being dependant on rune combos and cooldowns makes tanking as a DK a much more challenging proposition.  However, when they blow all their cooldowns they are basically unkillable for 30 seconds.  That’s a LONG time to be OP.  Patch in Frenzy, Maexxna enraged, pop all your stuff and it’s pretty easy going on healers.

However, Healers will also tell you that healing a DK tank can be an out of body experience most of the time.  DK’s take a LOT spikier damage than any other tanking class, so healing a DK is very scary (unless you’re a tree, and then you begin to feel like you could heal anyone through anything).

Both side’s arguments are broken down into one core issue: survivability. Let’s start with the dual-wielding point of view. Almost all tanking weapons are one-handed, thanks to previous classes only having the option of a shield. This has created the longstanding tradition of having one-handed maces, one-handed axes, and one-handed swords as choices for the average protection pally and warrior.

This weapon trend passes into the tanking Death Knight, but they will use two one-handed weapons instead of one. This extra weapon will make up for the stats that are lost with the shield, and give an extra rune, an extra swing, and more threat. These things taken into consideration make the dual-wielding tank a viable choice for Death Knight tanking.

The two-handed point of view argues otherwise. Due to the fact that you have two one-handed weapons, your chance of getting parried has more than doubled; and parries from bosses are really scary. When a boss parries, they attack you instantly, and it resets their swing timer.

This is especially problematic for bosses who hit extremely hard (think Prince Malchezzar, Phase 2). This, however, was answered by Blizzard and now the bosses that hit extremely hard are ones that cannot parry (Patchwerk).

The threat still persists, however, that a dual-wielding tank will be parried much more often, therefore they will sustain more damage from any other boss than a two-handed death knight.

In conclusion, both sides are right, and when you choose your style, you must consider both arguments. You may have more bonus stats and an extra rune while dual-wielding, but you will absolutely take more damage. Likewise, with a two-handed weapon you reduce the chance of being parried, but you are reducing the amount of avoidance you have in general.

We’ve seen good tanks with both styles tank heroics and raid bosses with no problem and do a damn good job at it, although the number of really good dual wielding DK’s is very low, but that probably has a lot to do with gear choices.  We’ll discuss those choices in another article.

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WotLK Quest Achievements Howto Part 1: Mine Sweeper

As many of you probably know, there are a hefty amount of achievements under the quest tab generally involving the completion of quests in zones. Yet, there are two achievements that are commonly overlooked by people every day, and they are really easy to do if you have lady luck, patience, planning, and time. These achievements are: Mine Sweeper and Rapid Defense.

Both achievements add ten points to your total (which if you’re like me means everything) and completing them will finish off the quest section of the Wrath of the Lich King tab (considering you’ve done everything else). I am going to cover with you a little guide of sorts to show you the easiest and best way to do both achievements.

In the Storm Peaks, a few seconds west of K3, is Sparksocket Minefield. This little area is covered with land mines, each on the verge of detonating as soon as you take a step. This is the location of the Mine Sweeper achievement.

To do this correctly, you must be blown up by the land mines, while never “landing.” In this, the word “land” is misused. When you hit the ground, a timer starts and you cannot be on the ground for more than two seconds. This leaves you enough time to take one or two steps at most to get to the next closest mine.

First walk to the very center of the minefield where the goblin is. While facing outward run at one of the mines, (when they blow up they send you in the direction you ran from) and then cross your fingers. It will explode and hopefully you’ll land next to another mine, as that one explodes it sends you into the air again, and again hopefully to get the credit. If you get unlucky and don’t land on top of a mine, if you’re close enough, then walk a little bit to the next one.

There is also a chance that you will be more than a two second walk away from the closest mine. If this happens the timer hits two seconds and your explosion count gets reset to zero. If this happens, do NOT just run into the closest mine! Chances are that it is too far away from the group and it will explode you outward even more. If you do fail, find the safe path into the middle, and start again. Practice makes perfect.

Some things to look out for:

Health: The explosions only do 600-700 fire damage, but continued explosions will drop your health. Keep a health pot or if you’re a healer pop instant heals in the air time.

If you’re a pally pop fire resistance aura, this greatly mitigates the incoming damage.

Combat log: The amount of explosions is NOT the amount of times you’re in the air, it’s the amount of mines that explode! You could get three mines to explode at once, and send you in the air once, but that counts as three explosions, not one. The combat log will show you how many times a mine has gone off.

All in all, stay on your toes, watch your health, and in this case look as you leap. For getting every achievement is one way to set yourself outside the common crowd.

Next Time Part II: Rapid Defense

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If you are still using a single screen for your computer, and we assume most of you still are (cough – Gavin – cough), you know what a pain it can be to run the game full size and do – well, anything else.  The whole routine of Alt+Tab is a mess.  But recently we ran accross a really slick little free bit of software that can end all of this for you and truly revolutionize the way you operate your computer with WoW running.

Playxpert is a revolutionary program. With its motto, “The death of alt+tabbing,” it seeks to end full-screen alt+tabbing in games by having this nifty little tool as an overlay on top of DirectX (Windows 3D) Applications. When it’s open it places a toolbar that is completely customizable with widgets inside any game you choose!

The core (included with the program) widgets are:

• An Internet Browser, so you can check your email whenever and wherever
• A Tunes player, which plays music in a specific folder, and also from popular players like Winamp
• A System Diagnostics utility, which shows how many resources are being used by your computer at the time the widget is opened. It also has live graphs showing performance.
• And last, but definitley not least, the Friends widget. This one is my favorite. Through this widget, you can talk to friends through MSN, AIM, Yahoo IM, ICQ, and more, all through windows that run in WoW!

Alongside these core widgets is a small but growing library of fan-made widgets with one for the armory, and another for wowhead, that all run in game! There is no reason to ever alt+tab again!

Another bonus of this great program is that its 100% free! The developers will add features such as custom skins that will be an optional paid offer, but the core app and the widgets are free.

Now before I post the link that you’re all eagerly waiting for, I have to discuss one bad thing. This program is Windows XP specific. It doesn’t work with Apple or Linux Operating Systems.

You can still install it in Windows Vista, but the in-game overlay is temporarily disabled as the developers work out the last kinks with the software. The developers have announced that an update is coming along shortly which will enable it.

So, if you really want to have access to information, talk to your friends, see another character’s profile, jam to music, and Dominate your server all at the same time; then go grab what certainly seems to be a slick way to Dominate with Playxpert here.

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In patch 2.4.0, a lot of new daily quest content was added. These daily quests; when fully unlocked, yield around 200 gold and about 3150 Shattered Sun Offensive Rep. Yet if someone told you you could make more without going anywhere, would you do it? There are primal farming spots right inside the areas where you complete daily quests, and they have surprisingly better drop rates than the other areas!

Bash’ir Landing: Probably one of the most least liked quests is the mana cell quest. Phasing out of the current area into a wyrm-ridden area, while picking up these little tiny mana cells that aren’t really all that easy to see either, who would expect that the phase wyrms would be a great primal mana farming spot? I researched this spot to find out the exact drop rate. I ended killing up to 104 phase wyrms in an hour, and I got 51 motes of mana and various other vendor trash. That’s 5 primals in an hour. So what do you do the next time you finish this quest? Just stay phased and keep on farming!

Throne of Kil’Jaeden: The two daily quests here are really interesting in design but are so far apart from all the others that half the time they are just skipped due to laziness (even I skip them sometimes). Yet this spot has something that should not be overlooked either. The Incandescent Fel Sparks drop motes of fire more than any other mob in the game. Now farming these were tough, due to the people doing dailies, so I was only able to kill 64 of the Incandescent Fel Sparks in my allotted hour of time, but I got 33 motes of fire. Three primal fires in an hour is a good deal to me. So next time you see someone running to tag a Fel Spark, don’t say to yourself, “Eh, ill still get quest credit if I’m close enough.” Say, “I have to get that spark; it might have motes on it!”

Oshu’gun: I have not tested this one myself, so I am taking the word of my guild mates and friends when I that Oshu’gun yielded a lot of useful items aside from just doing the multiphase survey quest. Herbalists lose out on this, but skinners and miners excel with this tip. As you’re doing the multiphase survey, go out of your way to kill the mobs nearby. Not only will you complete the multiphase quest, but you’re getting the quest for gathering done as well. All the roaming Clefthoof can be skinned to yield the Nether Residue needed, and also Nagrand is well known for ore deposits being everywhere. Also taking a whack at the Voidspawn in the area isn’t such a bad idea either. They currently have the highest known drop rate for motes of shadow. So Oshu’gun leads multiple money gains from doing two daily quests in the area.

These are three locations where farming is overlooked. There are probably more. Next time you are doing dailies and need every ounce of money you can get…save time by just stopping by at one spot and farming. You will be shocked at how high some of the drop rates are for some guys. I myself have done all the dailies and have realized from doing nothing extra that I have 3 primals in my bags, which on the Auction House can easily add up to a hefty sum.

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(This is the first post by our contest winner Marco, to be known henceforth as Raknathal! I think you’ll see why Raknathal was our winner. Enjoy, you can look forward to posts by Raknathal about four times each week. Happy Reading!)

Before patch 2.4.0, the arcane tome was the jewel of the Scryers. Now, it’s only a dusty old book sitting on the shelves of the Auction House. Patch 2.4.0, unleashed the Isle of Quel’Danas along with Kael’thas’ private army, the Dawnblade, creating a massive surplus of Arcane Tomes to be had. Also, to fight Kael’thas, Shattrath City has dispatched the Shattered Sun Offensive, which rewards players who are also exalted with the Aldor or the Scryers. An unforeseen opportunity arises out of these events.

What exactly happened to the Arcane Tomes and Fel Armaments? The new private army of Kael’thas, the Dawnblade, drops Arcane tomes like any other Blood Elf mob in the world, but also at greater rates. Due to the increased chance of getting an Arcane Tome and the increased activity in the Isle of Quel’Danas (Daily Quests Galore), a massive surplus of Arcane tomes has been pouring in. Due to decreased activity in other areas, Fel Armaments have become scarce, but the demand has stayed the same. Prices for Fel armaments have shot upwards, and Arcane Tomes have plummeted as a result.

After conducting some research on four realms, Medivh (Normal), Warsong (PVP), Thorium Brotherhood (RP), and Emerald Dream (RPPVP) I found conclusive information on the prices of Arcane Tomes and Fel Armaments. First, a fact from all the servers, Arcane Tomes had numerous pages of the item on sale. Fel Armaments had two or less.

On the Normal server that I researched, the average price for Alliance and Horde for an Arcane Tome was 15 gold 33 silver whereas for Fel Armaments, the average price was 24 gold 85 silver. The difference is 9 gold 52 silver.

On the PVP server, the average price for an Arcane Tome was 11 gold 37 silver and 17 gold 14 silver for a Fel Armament. That is a 5 gold 77 silver difference.

As for the RP server – I don’t know if it’s just this realm, but the numbers are extreme. The average price for an Arcane Tome was 14 gold 85 silver and for Fel Armaments it was 41 gold 27 silver! That’s a 26 gold 42 silver difference!

On the RPPVP realm, the average price for an Arcane Tome was 16 gold 16 silver and 23 gold 37 silver for Fel Armaments. The overall average price for Alliance is 11 gold 31 silver for Arcane Tomes and 23 gold 59 silver for Fel Armaments. And For the Horde (no pun intended) 17 gold 55 silver for Arcane Tomes, and 29 gold 78 silver for Fel Armaments.

So, what’s the point? Farm Fel Armaments; you can undercut the price and still make a lot of gold off the ridiculous prices. Fel Armaments is where the money is at, also it’s just good to have them because now if you want them, you can’t go to the Auction House and get a good deal like you normally would.

Where? As they say in the famous Youtube movie, Ni Hao, “Go farm some in Shadowmoon Valley.”

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