Stargate in World of Warcraft.

There is a Stargate in my World of Warcraft game.

I ran across what appeared to be a Stargate in the area of Duskwood in World of Warcraft yesterday. I did not attempt to pass through it to find myself in Egypt land or some other planet, but I thought this find was interesting. I waited a bit to see if anyone was going to pass through, but then I got bored, so I left.

ClanBase – The Warcraft Retrospective – Thursday 21 January

Part 1 – Tales of War of The Warcraft Retrospective which takes you through the early years of pc playing and Warcraft. A fantastic walk-through on how it all started – and how it all came about.

WoWFlix: Don’t Trust a Rogue

Help! My account has been hacked!

There are so many scams going around like the Catclysm Alpha invite and the WoW Armory phishing site, that people’s accounts are getting stolen more than ever. With all of the work that Blizzard has to do to keep up with the problem, it’s no wonder they are offering the fast solution of care packages. We’ve talked about how to avoid scams as well as how to protect yourself. Here is a guide as to what to do if your account gets stolen.

Progression does not mean left behind

After another very fun guild meeting with taking down 25 man OS right after, a group of us started trying to shape our new 10 man group. The next day people logging on see a raid forming and start feeling automatically left behind.

Our guild has 3 speeds of players.

Serious raiders that like to get content done but don’t want to deal with the annoyance of a “hardcore raiding guild” that will mistreat their members at the first mistake or kick them out for a no show.

I needs moar badges

If I haven’t said it before I’m saying it now: I’m a slacker. I need many more frost badges but keep forgetting to run the random daily (or just don’t have the time). My guild just started poking our collective 10 heads into ICC but so far no luck at all.

Social Network and Forums Quick Fix

If either sites are not working, try these steps below while the DNS updates. Most problems are on the client/user side.

Achievements? I got da Achievements Mon!

Greetins’ Mon! How all joo’s be doing dis’ fine week? Joo be’s enjoying da new raiding system and all dat fancy new gear dat joo can be a getting? Dis Troll Hunter be lovin’ it mon and be styling now in all his t-9 and t-10 gear. Dem groups for de’ most part have turned out pretty good so far, wit’ just a few bad ones, but dem’ be few and far between, so I be very happy wit’ da new system and da sweet gear rewards!

Hunter 101: Punching through Armor Penetration

Hunter 101: is a series posts on The Hunting Lodge for the Hunter that is just starting out or is now returning back to the class.  Each week we will review how you can help improve your skill playing a Hunter in WoW.  So grab a desk, class is about to start.

I get a lot of emails from people asking my thoughts on Armor Penetration.  I usually say the same thing over and over again.  It’s worthwhile and for high level Marksmanship hunters it makes sense to stack it for the DPS advantage.

That being said, Armor Penetration is probably one of the hardest stats for hunters to understand

In Which Lass Pisses and Moans

There’s going to be nothing of educational value in this post, so most of you will probably skip it. And I wouldn’t blame you in the slightest. This is going to be precisely the type of post that, if it were written by anyone else and appeared in my feed reader, I would “Mark as Read” without a second thought. Most of you will no doubt do the same. For those of you who do actually read this post, my apologies.

Nature vs nurture?

It never occured to me that healers are usually played by girls. I was DPS for 2+ years and most of the girls I knew back then also played DPS. I avoided healing, actually, it felt like way too much responsability for a noob like me. And then… in a moment of boredom I rolled a baby druid and discovered that healing is fun and rewarding, and that I actually like the responsability.

Macro tutorial: Minimizing actionbar space

So we all have too many buttons right?
Imagine a world where 1 action bar button could do 2 things.

Well it’s actually relatively simple!

So… Why didn’t I get a raid invite?

As a raid leader, part of my job is to choose who comes on a raid and who sits in Dalaran waiting in the random heroic PuG queue.

At first glance, this sounds like a glamorous job that everyone should aspire to in the game of WoW. I almost always get to go on the raid. I can choose who comes and who stays. I have control. What’s not to like?

How to Spell Noob

6 days of healing with Rank 1 Earth Shield and Riptide…

PvP as an Enhancement Shaman

I enjoy PvP and make a habit to pay attention to other classes abilities in battlegrounds. It’s always nice being able to counter whatever they dish out. I guess PvP is the closest I’ll come to “FPS’ in World of Warcraft so you’ll see my playing Battlegrounds a lot. The past few weeks I’ve been checking out more Enhancement Shaman videos and so I decided to include one of my favorites above.

Jet Plane

In a few minutes I leave for the frozen North. My daughter asked if I’ll be at the Antarctic…. nope, only Fairbanks, although I guess it’s pretty close! ;P

Crowd Control

A lot of people feel that Crowd Control should be more prominent. You should have to Polymorph more, or Banish, or even Sap. I am not entirely sure I agree with this. I’m not sure I disagree with it either. I remember the days of Sapping or Sheeping, and they were kind of cool.

However, when I think of Crowd Control, I think of those demons in Tempest Keep. The ones with the Buzzsaws of Doom. You may remember them. If you failed to CC them, they started launching buzzsaws at the raid, doing massive damage before you could get them locked down again. Even the gap between Banishes was dangerous. Kind of honestly, I would rather not see trash like that again.

Countering a Misconception

On our Festergut 25 attempt this past Monday, I was blessed with being placed in the melee group. This meant I didn’t get the barfs and could stand still and DPS the boss except when I was gifted with a spore I had to run to a ranged team. My DPS increased by 1300-1500 thanks to this placement And as expected, there was at least one public case of ruffled feathers over this placement.

LFD System Potential Impact On How We Used To Make Friends.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I’ve had reasons to think about it for various reasons or just thinking about things and remembering how it used to be before the new LFD System as well as back in tBC. Just my belief that the new LFD System has had a impact on how many people on their own realms make new friends and will continue to make new friends as well. A bit likely that more people will become strangers on their own servers or already are.

Maybe its just me and my observation but I’m wondering if other players have noticed it as well who actually used the system allot now as well as before in the old system. I also kinda believe that the new LFD System is also a bit antisocial or fosters more antisocial behavior which also impacts making new friends. For a person on their own realm doing LFD System content due to cross server members there is not much chance of making friends and not much chance of doing much communications either when in group.

Breakfast Topic: What are you doing to protect your account?

While it is certainly nothing new, it seems that you can’t spit without hitting someone who has, or has had, a compromised account. These WoW account predators are getting more clever by the day, with using everything from keyloggers, sham contests, betas and security checks, to even grabbing an account and immediately attaching an authenticator to it.

The High Inquisitor: Why Doesn’t Azeroth have Changing Seasons?

It’s the dead of January, and my usually decently warm spot in the world on the eastern coast of the U.S. is downright frigid. Even my friends in Florida have been seeing wintry temperatures below freezing. It’s days like today that I’m happy to escape to Azeroth.

…But wait! The different zones of Azeroth remain basically the same year-round. Northrend is a chilly place no matter what time of year, seemingly stuck in a perpetual winter. And Durotar… well, have you ever seen snow there, or anywhere else that it doesn’t fall regularly?  What is going on with the seasons of Azeroth!?

THL Podcast Ep. 19: The Boys are back in town and decide to have a 3-way

Welcome Back to The Hunting Lodge Podcast! That’s right! The Boys are back in town! Brigwyn and Daewin are back together again after the holiday break.  We hope you’re not like Dae recovering from some bug, but are in good health, and full of vim and vigor as we kick of a new season and new year!

And guess what! We had a very special guest host joining us.  So if we seem even more distracted than usual, well you can blame the fact we had a lady with us.  Yep, hard to believe I know but Dae and I cleaned up the Lodge.  Threw all of the dirty clothes in the closet, and shoved the games under the bed.  Okay, maybe we didn’t go through that much hassle, but I did put on a clean shirt and made sure Daewin did also.

How to manage a full-time job and WoW in 4 easy steps

Two weeks ago I started a new job. Not a big deal… except it’s my first 9 to 5 (6, actually) job, and that’s been messing with my WoW schedule.

Until now, all my jobs had been very flexible – I regularly played in the morning and then worked from noon until raid time. This had a few very obvious advantages: farming when no one was online, less lag in Dalaran and so on. And, of course, much more time to play.

Get your motor runnin’…

You may remember in my 2010 looking forward post one of my achievements was the to get the lovely mechano-hog. Luckily last night I turned badass… I even had a full set of leathers! (arf arf)

World of Warcraft: Armory Updated; Second Dev Chat Tomorrow

The WoW Armory has received a pretty significant update today. The Armory now features a 3D model viewer, replete with robust features such as a fullscreen mode with quality options, background selection, and the ability to view your character performing a variety of emotes and animations. Your interactive character model can even be embedded on your favorite social networking site or guild site forums!

Bad Attitude is Bad

Three new folks later in our Halls of Stone run and I had to laugh.

The first person left because they were called to dinner.  Apparently by Mommy.  After needing for an off-spec item, purple no less.  Not before posting the one fight where they happened to top the damage output list.  (I didn’t want to embarass sonny by posting the overall damange report for the instance.)  So off went sonny boy, to eat dinner.

Beast Mastery PvP Spec Redux

So last you heard from me, I was getting ready to try out a Core Hound for use in arena. To bring some of you up to speed, my only arena team this past season has been a 2v2 with a Ret Paladin. I like 2v2 because it only requires one other person, and in my case, I don’t need to rely upon a healer. I’ve never had very good luck with 3v3 either due to schedule conflicts or just not being able to find the right people.

Learning the Wrong Lesson

The first third of Pit of Saron: 5v2

I think my tank in yesterday’s Heroic Pit of Saron let me die on purpose to teach me a lesson. And this tank wasn’t completely in the wrong. If rule number one of DPSing is: Manage Your Threat, I was failing.

Disclaimer: Cassandri is a Shadow Priest. I will do, to the best of my ability, what Shadow Priests do best in any given situation. I should also point out that I will focus fire a few select mobs even if the group is too busy AoEing. Because, well, kill the dangerous one first, hey?

Food update

I realized this weekend that my long-ago comments on consumeables were lacking.

Kibler’s Bits are a cheap, easy way to buff your ghoul as an unholy DK. Your pet gets 20 strength and 20 stamina. On most servers you can find the buzzard meat for 20-50 silver, or if you’re bored you can farm them up easily in Hellfire Peninsula without competition.

On the other hand, min/maxers should know that Spiced Mammoth Treats are in fact, better. It gives your ghoul an extra 10 strength and 10 stamina. They also cost more, with mammoth meat being a northrend meat and is used in some decent raid foods, particularly by non-fishermen/cooks – and a northrend reagent (Northern Spices). It may run you any where from 1-3.5g depending on your server.

Should Tanks and Healers Get the Biggest Rewards?

Gordon, from We Fly Spitfires, recently wrote a controversial guest post on World of Matticus, Tanks and Healers Should Get The Biggest Rewards.

I think a lot of the controversy comes there are several issues entangled together in this piece. If we unravel the issues, I think a clearer picture emerges.

Gordon says:

Tanks and healers are the most important classes for any group…These are the two most important classes that exist in any MMORPG. But the DPS? They’re just meat in the room.

This statement is true for certain levels of play, but completely and utterly false at different levels. At the lowest levels of skill–for example, normal dungeons, easy heroics, Naxxramas–yes, the tanks and healers are the most important. A solid tank and healer can carry the DPS to victory. A bad tank or healer will probably wipe the raid.

On Shimmering Druid Wings

My baby horde druid is now in Northrend, and having attained level 71, has her pretty epic flight form. This shot, however, is from right after she got her plain old regular flight form, at level 60, in Hellfire Peninsula, but I love this Christmas Eve shot for the gorgeous sky.

I’m no fan of HFP due to many bitter memories of quests that took hours and respawns that randomly went from taking forever to all popping at once on top of you back in the early days of BC.

Icicle DPS Tanking Toy

World of Warcraft story goes viral

When Howard County Sheriff’s Department deputy Matt Roberson told the Perspective how he tracked down a man wanted on drug charges through the immensely popular online game World of Warcraft, it sounded like the kind of story the Internet would love. But it surprised just about everyone by going viral.

The story, “Long arm of law reaches into World of Warcraft,” published in the Dec. 30 edition, quickly became the most-read article in the paper’s 20-year history. Perspective digital media manager Tim?Turner said he thought it might find an audience online. It certainly brought enormous traffic to the paper’s Web site.

Spider-Man 4 canceled; Warcraft movie soon?

Sam Raimi will no longer be directing Spider-Man 4, and neither will anyone else for that matter. Sony Pictures announced today that they are canning the current Spider-Man franchise and will be rebooting it in the summer of 2012 with an entirely new director, cast, and crew.

Chinese World Of Warcraft Saga Drawing To A Close | Edge Online

Chinese World Of Warcraft operator NetEase is expected to be fined by government agencies for “gross violations” of regulations, but will be allowed to keep running the popular online game.

As reported earlier this week, Chinese regulators the General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP) and the Ministry of Culture (MOC) appear to have reached an agreement over the rules NetEase must abide by if it is to continue to operate World Of Warcraft.

World of Warcraft, your boss and succeeding at work

For a lot of people, politics, corporate strategy and philosophy are the sort of topics that lead to thoughts of using a cheese-grater on an inner thigh. If you’re a cubicle jockey in an office, or someone questioning their existence in the meatspace, then WoW may be able to help. When I say help, I don’t mean in the ‘yep I’ll call in sick and play WoW for three days straight to show those idiots’ sort of way. I’m talking about the real-world opportunities that WoW can provide you as far as leadership development, strategic thinking, political nous or plain old perspective on the important things in life.

Man Arrested For World of Warcraft Fraud

Clearwater’s Christopher H. Bouffard is in some trouble. The authorities allege the 23 year-old committed fraud by selling World of Warcraft characters online, and then not delivering the promised Night Elves and/or gnomes. He’s being charged with scheming to defraud and two counts of grand theft.

World Of Warcraft – Armory Gets Update

If you’re stuck at work, unable to play WoW, you might want to waste some time playing with the new Armory. The Armory now features a 3D model viewer of your character in all your gear, complete with options for displaying a variety of emotes and animations. You can set your default pose (and even background screen) by logging into the game.

2009 & The Year That Was

Yeah better later than never. Seems kinda late to be writing about reflection of things looking back at 2009 and how I played WoW. My holidays were just busy, I happened to have worked through all the holidays while most people enjoyed the time off from school and work. Writing a review of 2009 in WoW wasn’t exactly close to top of my list of things to do. Sleeping during my short days off was just a bit better choice.

Resource Theory

There are a few main types of resources that drive class abilities in most MMOs. This is a categorization of the ones I’ve seen.

1. Net-Loss Resource

This is a resource which, at the end of the encounter, is lower than it starts. The classic example of this is mana. Classes with mana start at full, and spend it as the fight progresses.

One of the advantages and disadvantages of mana is that all abilities are available right at the start. As well, there is no innate restriction to using any sequence of abilities, until the entire resource is exhausted. This can cause burst damage in PvP, but it does grant the character maximum flexibility to deal with whatever situation may arise.

Putricide nerf incoming?

Sadly, I’m almost certain the answer is yes.

On the three servers I have level 80 raiding toons, no guild has killed Putricide on 25-man.

My guild has expended our 10 attempts without getting into phase three. We’re a pretty good group. We had no problem with the ugly brothers. At least a few guildies had attempts/kills of Putricide on PTR. We’re not world-class, perhaps, but overall, we’re a solid bunch. We did make solid progress in learning the fight and got deeper and deeper into it with most of our tries.

Do you focus on your professions while leveling a toon?

When it comes to my professions, within the World of Warcraft, at times I’m all over the place. At times I don’t level them until I’m close to 80. Additionally, when starting toons on a new server they rarely keep the same professions they initially chose.

But that’s all about to change…
This past weekend I decided to create another toon. However with my little Shaman it’s different. I decided to create another toon. Since I already had ten on the Bronzeberd server I had to let one of my bankers go. My Shaman filled in the #10 slot. I’ve always liked Shamans, played around with them for a little bit Alliance side, but well the Draenei Shammies didn’t do it for me. This past weekend I created an Orc. No surprise there, I love their lore, and my favorite toon to play within WoW are female orcs. Not to mention my favorite in-game buddy (Teddee) raids (and joins my toons on in-game adventures) with his Shaman. He’s amazing, so I sort of blame him for making me wont to create a Shammie. Better to blame him, than to simply admit I’m an altoholic, right? My Shaman is a enchnater and a skinner.

It’s Epic on the Inside

Electromagnetic Gigaflux Reactivator: more Epic than actual Epics

The last couple of weeks have been lazy summer holidays for me. During this time I probably should have been PUGing ICC 25 and 10s on Lathere and making sure I logged in to complete the daily heroic each day. I instead decided to be a bad little tree and not worry about my Emblems of Frost and did what I felt like doing: unwinding with some solo game play and leveling.

Shine Up Your Boomkin!

CURRENT FOR PATCH 3.3!

Here’s a complete Gemming and Enchanting Guide for Balance Druids in WoTLK World of Warcraft.

This guide includes two sets of gem/enchant suggestions: One for the beginner and another for “pro” raiders

BONUS: Complete Materials Lists + helpful suggestions to help you reduce your raid gear-enhancing costs!

EVERY BALANCE DRUID RAIDER NEEDS THIS GUIDE!

Blizzard: Run Oculus, win fabulous prizes

Despite the nerfs in Patch 3.3, it’s pretty obvious that whole lot of people still hate Oculus, enough so that they immediately bail when it comes up as a random dungeon. Apparently, it’s a substantial number of people doing this, enough that Blizzard’s taken notice and taken action.

But they’re not removing it from the system. Instead, they’re incentivizing it — or, if you prefer to be a bit more pessimistic, turning final boss Eregos into a loot pinata in the most direct way possible.

Gank Fest

Our WoW time lately has been very hecktic trying to raid casually while we wait for the latest patch which will drop today. Most of us have been working on our alts so we have more 80s that can be easily geared just by grinding heroics, and with the promise of shinny new gear even farming ulduar. Before we get there we get to actually level those toons. My priest is almost capped on both inscriptions and alchemy now and is sitting at 69 at the moment. I will have some time off during December so it might be time to get him to 70 and have some fun healing.

Big update and Halls of SUCKSTOBEAWARRIOR

First I want to apologize for my lack of posts lately. See I love blogging… but I love WoW more then blogging. So when I get home and sit at my computer I want to play more then blog. Before 3.3 it wasn’t such a huge deal… but now? I have SOOO much I want to do that finding time to actually blog is a bit hard.

Videos

Visit Zygor

Why Do You Pull So Fast?

A nice and simple question and a fairly lengthy new thread I saw and read on my Blue Tracker asked by Skeletorrior on the WoW Forums: Why do Tanks Pull So Fast? The reason It caught my attention again was more so because just a few days ago I had a chat discussion with a few guildies that brought up the question in guild chat. More so especially since Patch 3.3 with the new LFG system and with many of them now running allot of random heroics.

Wherefore Art Thou

As you all know (hopefully), I am still playing WoW, but my playing time has dropped significantly. I recently got my 5th toon to 80 but just can’t bring myself to work on #6.. It’s not even very interesting working through the quests my Paladin still has to do at level 80 now. He could use the gear upgrade, but I keep wondering if I shouldn’t just try to do Heroic runs (of course, his tanking sucks, so I have to go as DPS.. so it takes forever to get a group in the random). So.. I have mainly been logging in to raid. We’re getting the first wing down in 10 and 25 man now without much trouble. Ready to move on this week. Woot!

What to Wear: Frost Emblem Gear for Shadow Priests

Patch 3.3 brought with it a new top-end emblem (Emblem of Frost), and a nice assortment of gear to fill in some lingering holes or help with the never-ending hit-swap dance. Personally, for now, I am hanging on to my badges to see how my luck fares in our ICC 10 runs, and how our progress goes in ICC 25. I’m not at all tempted to purchase my first few pieces of tier gear. Overall, other than the shoulders, it’s looking like it’s not worth wearing until you have the 4-piece bonus, or have been able to upgrade pieces via the marks that drop off each wing’s final boss. So, after giving it a couple more weeks, I’ll decide if I want to take the plunge and upgrade my less than 245 iLvl pieces, or wait until I have the 300-something badges for 4 pieces of tier gear.

Disenchanting Option

The new disenchanting option in the default loot systems is interesting. Coriel is an enchanter, so it’s always available whenever I do a random heroic.

In general, I like the option when doing random heroics. It’s very convenient, and it saves me the trouble of handing out shards at the end. I’m somewhat sympathetic to those enchanters who feel it has taken away the profitability of enchanting, as they’re probably correct. But I don’t really look at professions as a means to make money, so more convenience for me is more important.

Gunship: a DPS DK Perspective

Time to talk about that fun fun fight known as the Gunship!
On normal 10- and 25-man mode, this fight is extremely easy for most raid groups. There is some execution required though, and lazy play can still result in a wipe.

Make sure you have your rocket equipped, especially if you switch specs. I’ve seen too many players not be able to cross to the other ship because they forgot. Now might be a good time to remind you to always ensure you have a presence selected – when you switch specs it disables any presences.

…… but with all the new gearing options available with ICC now being opened (partially) to players, one might find themselves a bit confused/overwhelmed with what options in gearing they have to maximize their rogue DPS potential.

Peaking Into IceCrown Citadel

I did on my Shadow Priest. Damn then Giants hit hard as hell and can rip a group to shreds triggering them silent alarms. Almost friendly with the Ashen Verdict. Well I know I can do at least 3k+ dps easily at least depending on available buffs so far in my fully Epic geared one week old new 80.

Buddhist’s Final Video: Fare-well and Best-of mashup by mortalseraphim

And Then There Were 5

Finally.. Finally.. Finally.. What I never thought would happen.. Happened.. Of course, I am talking about Furis, my Paladin, hitting level 80. I’ve been leveling him up for a while in the off-raid times and such. When he hit 79 I finally actually believed that he would make it to 80 some day (maybe even before Cataclysm). Last night, he/we did it. I finished up in Zul’Drak. I was just starting up quests there and turned in one last one to the Ebon Blade there and Kaboom.. Or was it more like a Ding.. Hmm. Ding probably..

Handling the Primordial Saronite

If you haven’t already made your way into Icecrown Citadel and checked out the quartermaster, you may not be aware that unlike ToC and Ulduar 25-mans, wherein many yummy crafting patterns fell from the bosses, you will be needing to purchase your 3.3 epic crafting patterns. Specifically, you will need to have appropriate reputation levels (honored for one pair, revered for another pair or patterns) plus a primordial saronite to purchase each pattern.

On a personal note

You haven’t seen much of my primary focus topic here recently – raiding as a dps DK – because I still haven’t found a long term home for raiding. Sorry!

Blizzard Helps Cops Track Down WoW Fan, Suspected Drug Dealer

Wanted on drug dealing charges, Alfred Hightower skipped the country after a warrant was issued for his arrest. But he didn’t stop playing World of Warcraft and that’s how police caught him.

The Howard County Sheriff’s Department in Indiana discovered that Hightower, was a big fan of some “warlock and witches game”, eventually piecing together that it was World of Warcraft.

16-year-old boy found

The 16-year-old Barrie boy who was believed to have run away with a 42-year-old Texas woman he met online has been found at a shopping mall in Orillia, according to the boy’s family.

Druid: Testing out the Balance tree

With my latest Druid it was always my plan to check out the Balance tree however I didn’t have any intentions of taking that leap until I hit level 70.

One blogger changed that…
Kaozz of EtcMMO recently popped by my virtual home. Since I like to follow the few visitors that pop by my place I returned the favor and fell in love with Kaozz’s writing style.

2009 Wrap Up, The Pink Pigtail Inn List

And the prize for 2009 Best Gold Sink goes to…

Larissa over at Pink Pigtail Inn has started a 2009 awards show! I am so excited by this its like Azeroth has it’s own Oscars and:

The category winners will get fame and honour, a special seat at The Pink Pigtail Inn and a virtual toast.

Oooh, how exciting does that sound? Anyway as I love to ramble I found it too hard to give succinct nominations via a comment on her blog, and instead decided to post it as a blog of my own. So below are the Hots & Dots nominations for 2009:

BM PvP Guide – Part One: Talents and Glyphs

Welcome to part one of my Beast Mastery Hunter PvP guide! My goal with this series of posts is to help you better understand the spec, and to provide you with the necessary tools and information to enable you to have success as a Beast Mastery PvPer.

One bridge too far

I pity the fool… who thought that was actually a good idea. Now let me start by saying I don’t have any issues with Mr.T.
In fact when I was 8 years old I watched A-team on a regular basis and remember enjoying it quite a bit; But when it comes to MMORPGs

Yes, I was away on Vacation. No, that’s not really why the blog wasn’t updated.. .. But I have a post ! Right now!

One of the things that has re-emerged with the ICC raid is the need for CC on the Saurfang fight in the first wing. The “dogs” you have to deal with are not supposed to touch anyone in the raid so they need to be CCed while they are burned down.

WoW Schools Releases Reaching Gold Cap Course for WoW Players

WoW Schools, an organization dedicated to educating players to play World of Warcraft better has released its first Reaching Gold Cap Course.

Stephenson, MI (PRWEB) December 31, 2009 — On January 5, 2010 WoW Schools is releasing a highly anticipated Reaching Gold Cap Course that teaches players how to reach the infamous World of Warcraft gold cap. The course is compromised of strategic lessons that provide players with the knowledge they need to make intelligent in game decisions to maximize gold.

Barrie teen missing after meeting woman online

A missing 16-year-old from Barrie — who apparently took off with a 42-year-old Texas woman who came to visit him after the two met online playing World of Warcraft — has been found.

Andrew Kane left his home Wednesday morning and had not been seen until he was found at a Galaxy Theatre in Orillia. The woman, Lauri Price, was located along with him.

Introduction Guide to World of Warcraft Part 1. Starting out.

New to the World of Warcraft or considering trying it? Hopefully, this will help you to get started in the game. It can be overwhelming at first. PART 2(sorta) www.youtube.com

World of Warcraft Mods: Are They Worth the Compromise?

If you are new to the game of World of Warcraft, you are probably getting used to a lot of the basic terminology that is used. One of the terms that many players look into is mods. There are a large number of World of Warcraft mods that are available to players around the world. Popular websites like Curse host a number of these modifications. However, it is important to understand that Blizzard Entertainment did not create these mods, nor do they condone the use of these modifications.

World of Warcraft storms into journalism with free preview of …

There is no doubt about it that World of Warcraft has become so much more than just a game. For over 11 million people, it’s part of their culture. Many MMOs (Massively Multiplayer Online) games have tried to reach the same dizzying heights from other fantasy RPGs (Role Playing Games) such as Warhammer Online to space-shooters including Star Wars Galaxies and Tabula Rasa. None have prevailed so far.

Hmm, okay.

Well, yesterday I put a post up and a couple of back-dated sales pages for a couple of the guides I’ve released recently, and then I must have done something else because my blog then spun out of control and I got my hosting account suspended for using too many CPU resources and probably crashing one of their Database servers.

Oops.

The Twelve Days of Winter Veil: Day five

Only five days left to WoW.com’s 12 Days of Winter Veil contests. Today we are giving away two BlizzCon 2009 goodie bags, including all original contents. Winners will recieve, among other things, a code for Grunty The Murloc Marine in-game pet, the Noobz Raynor action figure and an official BlizCon 2009 authenticator. You can view the full contents of the goody bag in the gallery below.

Brigwyn the Hunter answers the meme challenge

I typically avoid doing memes like the plague. It seems that just as you get one finished, you end up being tagged by another one.

But when I found out that Nochecazador from Of Marks and Beasts had tagged me for this one, I couldn’t resist. It’s questions actually made me think a bit more. Heck, it almost felt like a mini-interview, and you guys know how I love interviews. Anyways, here it goes.

If You Could Run THM For a Day

I asked this question on Twitter a while back, but didn’t get much feedback (aside from a couple nice back-pats that, while appreciated, didn’t tell me much). I realize that’s likely my own fault. While our Twitter account does have a respectable following, it’s certainly not where our primary audience hangs out. (And you’re totally missing out on some completely random gems there, people. Hint, hint.) Anyway, I thought I’d throw the question out there again to see what I get back.

Lord Marrowgar De-Boned by Red Devils!

Uh-rah! The Red Devils have downed the first boss in the new raid instance; The Ice Crown Citadel! Lord Marrowgar is a four-headed, bony freak standing guard just past the entrance to the Citadel. Clearing trash just to reach him is a major pain, but Marrowgar himself spawns no adds.

We have to do it every day.

After our walk today, in a matter of fact tone, I mention to my lovely wife: “You know. We have to do it every day.”

She thought that was funny.

And into Sethekk Halls we went. Again.

As it turned out, this very day was to be our last day.

Yay!

Not all that much going on in the WoW front (other than my paladin dinging 79 a few days ago). Waiting for 3.3, which is supposed (unofficially) to come out next Tuesday.. But, that’s not what this post is about.. This post is about my new computer.. Well, new computer to be. You see, for the holidays I ordered myself the parts to make a semi-decent rig. Nothing “SPECTACULAR”, but pretty good all the same. Definitely an upgrade over what I have already…

Patch 3.3 First Impressions

Awesome! Fast, reasonably balanced groups. A good variety of instances. I’ve even used it for low-level groups with alts (did Shadowfang Keep, Blackfathom Depths, Scarlet Monastery Graveyard, and Regular Old Kingdom) and everything worked pretty well.

Regular heroics are nice, but the low level dungeons are what interest me the most. I’ve always liked doing those dungeons with a level appropriate group, but it used to be so hard to form a group. Now hopefully, it will be much easier.

World of Warcraft / Quiz School

Questions: 10 | Attempts: 1. Created By wowabug 5 mins ago. This quiz is of World of Warcraft all expansions up to Wrath of the Lich King. Some words may be misspell t. Your Name ». Question Excerpt From World of Warcraft …

World Of Warcraft: Cheating Issues | Gaming Bomb.com

Have you ever thought of how effective World of Warcraft cheating is? World of Warcraft became a real revolution in the gaming world. It has been proved to be the most sensational and awesome role-playing game in the world since the …

Assembling a raiding Beast Master

Hello readers and happy holidays! I hope you are all having a relaxing break, and don’t have a multitude of ruffians that are in your charge for the next week or so until their mothers come back and claim them. Obnoxious, rowdy ruffians who continuously want to play Pokémon with you and will not leave you alone for even a moment’s reprieve… But anyway, on to Beast Mastery!

Nobody comments when you’re on top

The new Looking for Dungeon tool has been working really very well. I’m using it to get level up some while I save the quests to do with my wife.

Some things I’ve noticed:

1) Most all the Tanks I’ve run with in these random instance have been Paladins. I’ve had one Warrior tanking, and one Druid tanking (and we finished both instances as well.) But, for the most part, it’s been Paladins tanking. They have the perhaps unique ability to allow DPS to be as messy, sloppy, over-aggroing as they want.

I signed up for World of Warcraft just for the free week they offered. I played a couple of times, said hello to my old characters, started a new one, realized I had both no idea how to play and no particular reason to do so, …

World of Warcraft: The Magazine needs a new Editor-in-chief

A few of our readers (thanks, guys!) spotted this posting popping up on the various job boards recently — Future US, the company publishing the World of Warcraft magazine that’s due out any day now, is apparently seeking a new Editor-in-Chief. Say what? They haven’t even released the first issue yet, and they’re already seeking a new head honcho? We did a little poking around, and it’s true — Dan Amrich, the man who originally held the position, has moved off already to another gig with Activision (though it seems coincidental that he’s going to work for Blizzard’s parent company), and Future is stuck seeking a new EIC even before issue one releases.

Quiz: World of Warcraft Lore Quiz

How much do you know about World of Warcraft? Do you read quest stuff? None does! But at least you know a few of the story. And tonight, you’re gonna know how much you know of the lore of WoW. Shall we?

The Ultimate World Of Warcraft Quest Hints Information » Gadget …

The task of searching for World of Warcraft quest hints on the Online can be a overwhelming task as there are so a lot of websites and articles regarding the subject. They are all providing information at you concerning how best to take part in World of Warcraft and what the best quest guidelines and hints are. This is not as plain as it appears because every one of these information and thoughts show personal knowledge and every one has his particular set of skills.

Post-workout, Curry basked in the naked glow of her own body and played World of Warcraft before tweeting a naked pic of herself of her page. …

The Part Of Raiding About Self-Defense

Raiding is a fun and interesting part of World of Warcraft.

Not only is it more chaotically challenging than regular leveling content or 5-player dungeon content, but it more solidly introduces the concept of teamwork within the game setting.

How World of Warcraft Have Becomed this Unstoppable Addictive Game …

World of Warcraft is by far the most popular Massively Multiplayer Online Game game ever created. Millions log in every day to quest in the gigantic world of Azeroth to slay dragons, other epic foes, and possibly most importantly, each other. What makes these games so compelling?

World Of Warcraft – What Exactly It Is? | Hot Astronomy

One of the most popular and used games of the present time is a massive multiplayer online role-playing game named the World of Warcraft. Whenever you log in the game you will see that thousands of WoW player from all over the world are in the game and it is not important whether you log in in daytime or in the night, situation is the same – thousands of people are still there, playing their favorite game. The Warcraft servers are situated in all corners of the globe – from Japan to the USA. The task which are fulfilled by these people at any time are mining, grinding, selling. All these gamers are connected by one and the same goal – to earn as much as possible and to level up as fast as they can. Passing of another level can take from several hours to several days. Leveling in WoW is a very long-lasting process. Some people spend months in front of their monitors trying to reach 60thlevel, some need weeks to do the same. You cannot wait to get to the level 60 fast if you can spare just a couple of hours a day. If you want to level up your character faster than in several months, you have to spend much time playing World of Warcraft. Do more quests, kill rivals, visit Auction house more often in order to get more scores. If you decided to succeed in the World of Warcraft, you have to know more about quests. Quests are tasks that you receive from a WoW character, which is not a real gaming person.

World Of Warcraft : Some Aspects Of Gaming To Bear In Mind As A Beginner

As someone who is just starting out playing World of Warcraft, you may find yourself becoming frustrated or disenchanted due to the steep, difficult initial learning curve that the game presents you with.

you need to recollect that everyone has to start at level one ; naturally it can be useful to be conscious of a few tips to help get you going. Learning to invest and get the best items will certainly save you both gold and time, making World of Warcraft not only simpler to understand but more pleasurable to play also.

In some ways, popular social games like Mafia Wars and Sorority Life are already massively-multiplayer online (MMO) games—they’re played online, there are millions of people playing, and players need to work together to get ahead. But people hungry for high-quality, World of Warcraft-style games on their phones and social networks currently have limited options. Companies like ngmoco and Playdom are working to change that, and so is a new startup called Good Game Productions.

Geek Job Alert — Editor-in-Chief of World of Warcraft Magazine

If you’ve been sitting at home trying to find a way to pay bills while not missing your scheduled raids into the Vault of Archavon, then Future U.S. and Blizzard Entertainment have come through for you.

Taiwanese Man ‘Finishes’ World of WarCraft

The World of WarCraft features nearly a thousand achievements, and to this point, nobody has managed to collect them all. But one player has at least come very, very close (via Computer and Video Games).

A Taiwanese man has reportedly completed all 986 of the game’s achievements. He’s shown Azeroth’s critters how much he loves them (To All The Squirrels Who Shared My Life), equipped an epic item every available slot (Epic), and slain 15 turkeys in three minutes (Friend or Fowl?)

Warcraft is on Facebook

Warcraft We are selecting our favorite BattleCry submissions to share with the Warcraft Facebook community. Check out our latest fan and employee submissions, as well as exclusive unlocked content! Your BattleCry submissions will unlock additional art pieces as we continue constructing the mosaic.

Designers reveal their favorite memories as World of Warcraft turns five

World of Warcraft turned five last week.

By way of comparison, heroin is 135, cocaine is 154 and we’ve been making alcoholic beverages for 9,000 years. I would put the debut of World of Warcraft on par with these events, comparable to when the first caveman fermented the first grape.

My Circle of Healers Contribution

I haven’t written for a while, I apologize! The Muse went on vacation and instead the Work-a-holic moved in for a while and I’ve been cranking out behind-the-scenes work.

I’m always on Twitter, tho, so if you want to follow my adventures there or send me a message, that’s the best place

Now, on to the show!

I was inspired by Divine Aegis, who in turn was inspired by World of Matticus and Miss Medicina.

Free 7 days of game time for select unsubscribed players

Blizzard is offering, via email, select inactive accounts the chance to return to the game with free seven days worth of game time. These emails are what appears to be a special unannounced promotion for those that have left Azeroth, coinciding with the five year anniversary of WoW.

We can confirm these emails are legitimate, the links and headers all point back to blizzard.com servers. And indeed a blue over in the Customer Service forums has more or less confirmed that it’s legit.

The Heart and Souls of Icecrown Citadel

With the final battle against the Lich King just on the horizon, Lead Content Designer Cory Stockton and Lead Systems Designer Greg Street discuss what awaits players inside Icecrown Citadel and offer a glimpse at the design process behind Wrath of the Lich King’s ultimate raid and dungeon encounters.

What were you looking forward to most about developing Icecrown Citadel?

Cory: I think the most exciting thing about developing Icecrown Citadel was just knowing that we were working on the final chapter of the Northrend expansion, and that we’d really be able to give players that ultimate sense of completion of the storyline. Arthas is a huge character in Warcraft lore, so we took a lot of pride in making this the best experience we possibly could.

World of Warcraft’s 5th Anniversary, Pilgrim’s Bounty

The 5th anniversary and Pilgrim’s Bounty are now both underway so be sure to log on to participate and get your companion pets! Between the two you can get an Onyxian Whelpling and a Plump Turkey, both of which count towards Lil’ Game Hunter.

When is good, good enough?

I have been really struggling with the question of “When is good, good enough?” when playing WoW.

For example, when do you have enough gold in the game?  Is it when you’ve hit the gold cap on your character?  Is it when you’ve earned The Bread Winner achievement?  But that’s just gold, there’s other areas that have seem to have gotten a bit out of hand.

Hunter Trinkets in Wrath

We get a lot of questions and search engine traffic regarding Hunter trinkets, so it’s about time we updated an older post on the same subject. Trinkets can be some of the hardest items to find and upgrade, particularly while leveling. This is something every class struggles with at every stage of the game, so today we’re going to talk about trinkets in Wrath that you’ll want to keep an eye out for.

Note: I’ve deliberately left faction-specific trinkets off this list to avoid confusion and help keep things brief. The list below is organized by item level, lowest to highest. Trinkets from the PTR Patch 3.3 are not included in this list.

So I totally bought the new vanity pets being sold online at the Blizzard Store. I bought Lil’ K.T. for myself and the Pandaren Monk for my girlfriend. It was an instant purchase and no-brainer for me since we’re two avid companion pet collectors and, honestly, the price wasn’t outrageous enough to deter me.

Sidetracked : DA

I got a little sidetracked this last week with Dragon Age: Origins. Very awesome single-player RPG from Bioware. If you like those things (and if you liked Baldur’s Gate 1/2) then you should try it out. I have been enjoying it immensely (might be a review coming up if/when I finish it).

Myth Busted: Fast Weapon Upgrades

That’s right folks, you heard it here first, speed is what matters, slow speed weapons.

If you follow Elitist Jerks threads then there’s absolutely no question whatsoever that slow/slow is the way to go for Enhance. But let’s face it, not everyone reads EJ, not everyone stays up with the latest theorycrafting, and not everyone knows what’s best for their class.

Micro-Transactions

Blizzard has officially launched a micro-transaction shop for WoW, directly selling non-combat pets for real money. I am rather disappointed in them.

I don’t really like micro-transactions. Maybe it’s naive, but I prefer to have a very simple relationship with game companies. They make a good game, I give them money for that game, and they use that money to make more good games. They don’t try to play tricks, to nickel-and-dime their costumers, to expend effort on “capturing consumer surplus”. I’d rather they spend their time and effort on making better games.

Musings on Modern WoW Life…

Ok, I know, I know… this blog has been comatose for weeks. It’s not that the Red Devils haven’t done anything; it’s just that we haven’t done anything new. Well, ok – we did clear the newly updated Onyxia, but I can’t say it was much of a challenge for us.

At this point we are able to clear Vault, Onyxia and ToC all in one night, which kinda’ leaves us with little else to shoot for on our other raiding nights. As a result, we are once again plagued with a lack of raiders logging in! A few of our more “hard core” members would like to fully clear Ulduar through Algalon, but now that the instance is considered outdated by many, we can’t get enough players together to make a serious attempt.

The Antechamber of Ulduar: Auriaya

We’re going to do something a little different today. Instead of looking at class mechanics or specs, we’re going to look at  Ulduar. As you all probably know, Ulduar is similar to Naxx in the way that it is divided into four sections. This section is called The Antechamber of Ulduar and comes after you break into Ulduar. We’re going to be taking a look at the bosses within the Antechamber of Ulduar who are blocking your way to the Keepers of Ulduar. Today, we’ll be focusing on Auriaya.

I was intrigued back when the new queue system for Wintergrasp was announced because I thought it might give the Horde on my server at least a puncher’s chance against our better geared and better organized Alliance enemies. Unfortunately, the exact opposite has taken place and our control of the zone has become an even rarer occurrence than before the queue was implemented.

Rogue T10 Set Bonus

The rogue T10 set bonus have been revealed thanks to some happy data-mining gnomes. First things first, let’s give the standard disclaimer here that this are from the PTR and may change slightly of completely.

With that out of the way, let me just say:
OMG OMG OMG GIMME GIMME GIMME I WANTZ IT!

Spell Haste: Bad for the Game?

Spell Haste is an interesting stat in theory. It reduces the cast time of your spells, and is supposed to be a double-edged sword, increasing the Damage-Per-Second of your spells, but also increasing the Cost-Per-Second. However, for a variety of reasons, I think having Spell Haste on gear has actually weakened the game in several respects.

PTR Maintenance, 3.3 Patch Notes Updated

The PTRs are down for maintenance to update to a new build of 3.3. In addition to this, the 3.3 patch notes have been updated with quite a bit of new information, so I’ve posted the notes in full for a refresher.

We finally did it! Well, we didn’t clear the place, but we finally got down the first 2 bosses in ToGC 10.  Yeah, Heroic ToC! Northrend Beasts finally gave it up to us (that was such a pain).  It’s really important that nobody dies and everyone is paying attention at all times. Nothing I was interested in dropped from him though (all plate, boo!).

Where the 4-in-1 Experiment Breaks Down, Part 1

When Blizzard released Trial of the Crusader they said this 4-in-1 setup (10, 10-heroic, 25, 25-heroic) was a new idea and something they are going to experiment with to see how it works. I’m glad they are trying new things and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in an MMO, it keeps the game fresh and pushes the genre forward. However this 4-in-1 experiment is fundamentally flawed as it recreates the a major design flaw in The Burning Crusade. In this multi-part article I posit what that problem is, why it is a problem, and a suggestion for the future.

Our guild, Unorthodox, has been around since the launch of BC. I joined them a few months in, while they were still working their way through Karazhan in two groups. Like all guilds then the biggest hurdle was making the leap from two teams of 10 to one team of 25. The Kara-to-Gruul’s leap was the biggest chasm in the game. If your guild couldn’t make the leap to Gruul’s you faced having your members poached by guilds that already had, thus furthering the divide between the 10s and the 25s. And unlike WotLK, there was no 10-man progression beyond Kara in the Burning Crusade. If you weren’t ready to tackle Gruul’s Lair after facing (not just) Malchezaar (alone but the legions he commands) then you were facing losing your raiders (and potentially the legions they command).

So You Want to Role-Play a Hunter

Whether you’re just starting a new character or you’re looking to enjoy a different style of game-play, getting into role-playing can seem a bit overwhelming at first. There are tons of possibilities for character development, back story, personality and social interaction. There are also tons of “rules” or bits of RP etiquette that you may be completely ignorant of. I’m no role-play expert, but I do like to dabble now and then. If you really want to dig into the world of role-play, there’s a plethora of amazing blogs to help you out with that (and I’ll link them at the end of this post). Today, I’m simply going to share some food for thought for those of you looking to role-play a Hunter.

Breakfast Topic: What Tropes does your character embody?

Ok, I’m going to make sort of a pretty geeky confession here: I have been known to read TV Tropes. In fact, I have been known to waste hours that could have been better spent writing (or raiding) reading TV Tropes.

I’ve been taking Fizz along on Daily Heroic runs.. Are my friends just dragging him through.. Um.. yeah.. Do I feel bad about it? Sure. But, I’m hoping that the main thing wrong with his DPS is gear (it could be me, but I am not willing to agree to that yet.. ). From what I hear, the fastest way to gear up is to do the daily heroic and run heroics in general. Now, getting them to run him through many heroics a day isn’t going to happen, so I stick to the daily. It is going to take forever.

Shamans Go Nova in 3.3

The initial patch notes for Patch 3.3 are out and are strangely almost all changes to starting new characters and the first 15 levels. However there is one bomb in the patch notes… a Shaman bomb!

Fire Nova Totem: This totem has been replaced with a new spell, Fire Nova, which is available at the same ranks as the old Fire Nova Totem. Existing characters will automatically learn this new spell in place of the totem. With a Fire Totem active, shamans will be able to use Fire Nova (fire magic) to emit the same area-of-effect damage as the old Fire Nova Totem from the active Fire Totem, not consuming the totem in the process. Fire Nova will activate a 1.5-second global cooldown when used and has a 10-second spell cooldown. The caster must be within 30 yards of the totem to use this ability, but does not need to be within line of sight of the totem.

Empirically Measuring Class DPS

I saw a really interesting discussion on EJ about those Top 50 DPS class leaderboards. The argument is that, because the leaderboards take the top 50 parses, the class with high variance–perhaps due to a high crit rate–in their DPS end up higher on the boards than classes with low variance.

For example, if you took two classes that did 5000 DPS, one with a 50% crit rating, and the other with a 20% crit rating. If each class did 100 fights, and you picked the Top 20 fights, the class with the 50% crit rating is going to be on the top. This is because the Top 20 fights are fights with a greater than average critical strike rate, inflating the damage done.

The Hunting Lodge Podcast: Episode 7 – Naked Harpooning or Patch 3.3 and Other News

Hey gang! This is Episode 7 of The Hunting Lodge Podcast!

I have to warn you, this one is going to be a long one.  Not so much because we really wanted it to be that long.  More for the fact that we just had too much fun!  I really hope you’ll enjoy the fun with us.

So here is a heartfelt and sincere thank you for making this a blast to do each and every week.

3.3 Class Descriptions, Blue Posts

Quick note before getting into today’s news. As I mentioned a few days ago, I’ve sent a PM to several hundred of you to get feedback on a project we’ve been working on. If you’ve been active in the guild recruitment forum (your thread has had activity in the last week or so) then check your inbox.

For those of you that didn’t receive a PM, I’ll leave you with this teaser image and you can PM me if you want to know more.

Glory Of The Hero

Over the course of the last few weeks, I’ve been devoting almost all of my playing time towards finishing up the rather daunting, to me at least, Glory of the Hero achievement. I’m proud to say that as of last week I wrapped up the last few required achievements needed and now I’m flying around on the fancy Red Proto-Drake you see above.

I wanted to write a short post about the individual achievements we struggled with the most so that anyone else thinking about taking a run at this has a basic idea of the challenges ahead of them.

Collecting Bear gear as a Cat

So you have been doing the kitty thing and since your focus is DPS you don’t have the DKP to pick up the best tanking gear for the off chance you are needed to fill that role one night. So what is a poor kitty to do to make sure he/she is geared as well as possible to pick up a nights tanking duty. Here is my list of possible gear to get without sacrificing anything on the kitty side. Please note I am paying no attention to Heroic 25 versions, just know they are the same name of what I listed but have better stats. I also make no effort to post both the Alliance and Horde names.

Class Channels

There is one feature of Aion that WoW should absolutely steal: class channels.

In Aion, one of the automatic channels you join is dedicated to your class. All Clerics are in the same Cleric channel, all Templars in the Templar channel, etc. I find that these channels are invaluable.

Class channels provide a new or inexperienced player with immediate access to the wisdom of higher-level players of the same class. I’ve seen discussions on how to gem, advice on which path to take, and general all-around help.

Anub’arak Down… Colliseum Cleared!

The Red Devils finally managed to scrape together a raid group and down the last boss for their first full clear of the Colliseum! And let me tell you, it was brutal! We had to pug the last few spots to get started. Even then we didn’t enter the instance until 8:00 and our normal raid time is 7:00! As expected, the pugees didn’t stick around very long. Fortunately they did stay long enough for more Red Devils to log in and we were able to replace them with guildies when they began to mysteriously DC after wipes. That was when we started making some real progress. Bottom line – I’m glad we filled with pugs rather than call off the raid. It worked out this time!

Our very first Onyxia-25 run and the Raging Deathbringer dropped. I wasn’t sure about this weapon so I waited for it to go to rolls thinking that if I won I’d run some sims with it. And I won. I can’t seem to win a Kodo mount on my Druid… but I can win what looks like a crappy axe. But hey I put the axe to work for the greater good of all Enhance-kind.

After 16:25 minutes of swinging on the boss level target dummy in Darnassus I got 33 procs. That comes out to a 2 PPM. The Shadow Bolt damage did not scale with spell power because the average damage was 1724, which is on the high end of the 1458-1874 range, but by no means amplified by spell power.

The Hunting Lodge Podcast Episode 6 – Nekkid Dorgans or What’s up with all the Blizzard Hate?

Welcome to Episode 6! That’s right we’ve made it through 1/2 a dozen shows and not showing any signs of slowing down.  As a matter of fact, thanks to all of you listeners we just keep growing and growing.

So here is a heartfelt and sincere thank you for making this a blast to do each and every week.

Now on with the show notes!

Alterac Valley Changes, Recent In-Game Fixes, Blue Posts

Clarifications on Changes to Alterac Valley

Quote from: Bornakk (Source)

With the launch of patch 3.2.2 today there have been some changes to the Alterac Valley battleground and we wanted to clarify what exactly has been done.

BlizzCon 2009 Tournament Videos and Replays

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And you thought travel changes were done

You guys are correct, we reduced the expert riding skill price in 3.2.2 to 225g. We also changed the faction discounts for the riding skill vendors in Honor Hold and Thrallmar to use Stormwind and Orgrimmar faction.

Breakfast Topic: Worgen and Goblin dances

Reader Andy sent us a good topic to talk about this morning: dances for the new Cataclysm races. Every time we’ve sat down to play the new expansion, we’ve punched in the /dance and /silly emotes, and we haven’t seen a single thing implemented for Worgen or Goblin males or females, so as far as we know, it’s completely up in the air on what dances they’ll choose for each one. You have to think that Blizzard has some idea already (or maybe they’ll just be included in those long awaited dance studios), but we haven’t seen it, so what do you think?

We’ve got a lot of work to do now that 3.2.2 is out. Here are the six things you need to do when the servers come back up online.

1. Add Flame Shock to your rotation
2. Glyph for Flame Shock
3. Buy the Totem of Quaking Earth
4. Kill Onyxia
5. Lower your ArP weighting
6. Be prepared for PvP changes

Let’s go over each of these in turn.

1 & 2 – Flame Shock

Flame Shock used to last 12 seconds, the glyph would stretch it out an additional 6 seconds, and being a DoT it couldn’t crit. This was enough to keep it out of our rotation and off our minds.

Now:

Flame Shock: The duration of all ranks has been increased by 6 seconds.

and

Glyph of Flame Shock: Redesigned. This glyph now makes Flame Shock periodic damage able to be critical strikes.

Make this an 18 second DoT that can CRIT! The new optimal rotation is FS -> ES -> ES -> ES, making for a 3:1 ES to FS. The new optimal rotation is FS -> ES -> ES, making for a 2:1 ES to FS. Or to simplify things, just cast FS when it’s not up. This does add another layer of complexity to our already complex optimal rotation, but such is the way of Enhancement. (see comments below for macro ideas)

The end of a jouney…

For months I’ve been getting burnt of the game (booooooooring~), a couple of weeks ago I took a slight break of the game to see if it helped, but I can’t say I was missing it. So, effective today, my account has been cancelled.

I would have probably cancelled earlier, but I was waiting to finish the Brewfest event since it was the only one that I had missing for the Violet Proto-Drake.

Brigwyn Invades the Hunting Party Podcast

Name Bytor’s new Spirit Beast contest!

If you send me an email with your idea of the perfect name for Bytore’s of Snowdog’s Blog new Skoll Spirit Beast to thlpodcast@brigwyn.com. The one that Bytore selects will recieve their choice of a BlizzCon 2009 magnet or Authenticator. (Unless you live outside the US or Canada and then we will make other arrangements)

News and Information

• Reason for kiling the Arena 2v2 teams
• Will we ever see raids like it again?
• No Attunment for Onyxia
• Ghostcrawler addresses questions about Hunter Mechanics
  

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download forbidden kingdom the divx

Topics of the week

• Gear levels and raiding: When are you ready? and What’s an upgrade?
  Daewin and Brig discuss people ignoring upgrades for the sake of a specific iLevel and how it impacts your raid.
• Does it really matter when you started playing?
  We talk about how the game has changed and if it really matters if you were around during the original release or just started 6 months ago!

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Unreleased Cataclysm Trailer

Prepare yourselves for a leaked trailer that was never shown at BlizzCon! Credit goes to Crendor for “discovering” this.

3.2.2 Mount Changes

Quote from: Mumper (Source)

You guys are correct, we reduced the expert riding skill price in 3.2.2 to 225g. We also changed the faction discounts for the riding skill vendors in Honor Hold and Thrallmar to use Stormwind and Orgrimmar faction.

There are a couple reasons we made this change. First off, we wanted expert riding to be available to more people at level 60. 600g just did not seem like a reasonable expectation for most level 60 players to have when they roll into Hellfire Peninsula. Especially after purchasing your level 60 skills. The second change, regarding the factions just made a lot more sense this way since you will not have any Thrallmar or Honor Hold faction when you enter Hellfire.

3.2.2 is here!

Patch notes for 3.2.2 are here! You can manually grab it at FilePlanet.

World of Warcraft Patch 3.2.2

The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/

The Brood Mother Returns
After years of lurking in her lair battling the many brave adventurers who travelled from afar to challenge her, Onyxia returns stronger than before to commemorate World of Warcraft’s five-year anniversary.

* Onyxia has been scaled to offer new challenges to level 80 players and is now available for testing in 10- and 25-player modes.
* Adjusted for modern raiding, but with the fundamental experience of fighting the Brood Mother still in effect, including the horrors of her Deep Breaths!
* Onyxia will now drop level 80 item versions of some classic loot items from the level 60 encounter.
* Brood of Onyxia, a very rare 310%-speed mount modeled after Onyxia herself will be available for the luckiest of challengers.

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Ready Check: Onyxia

Hi howdy and hello, everyone. I’m Matthew Rossi, famous for being tail whipped into the cave on our first Onyxia 10 attempt yesterday. Twice. Despite having been a veteran of the original raid, which means I’ve heard this kind of ranting many, many times. What I’m getting at is, there are certain things you do not do in a successful Onyxia kill (then and now) and if you go in cocky, thinking that you’re mister fancy pants Conquerer of Ulduar, then she’s going to embarrass you. If, on the other hand, you just go in and kill her, it’s much less embarrassing all told. As long as you keep her mechanics in mind, she’s not a terribly complicated or hard fight, but she’s been updated and tuned fairly well for an 80 raid.

So Brewfest is here, the quests are quite fun.

Honestly this is my first year doing brewfest, I never understood why it was such a popular “thing”. However, I have done as much as I can possibly could with the limited time I have had lately. I do find it to be my favorite … um … (why can I not think of the word for this thing)… O right lol …. my favorite WoW holiday (thats the word, you know that really common word that anyone with 20 plus IQ should be able to remember) … yeah.

Earth, Wind & Fire World First by Stars

Congratulations to Stars of TW-Crystalpine Stinger on their world first completion of Earth, Wind & Fire (25 player) by defeating Archavon the Stone Watcher, Emalon the Storm Watcher and Koralon the Flame Watcher within 60 seconds of each other.

Patch 3.2.2: Heirlooms to grant XP bonus in Battlegrounds

One of the more confusing and misunderstood aspects of the Heirloom XP bonus and leveling system that has been going around lately has been their application in PvP Battlegrounds. Some people say that the 20% combined XP increase from the chest and shoulders applies, some say it doesn’t. Lots of smart folks provide answers, but until now there really hasn’t been an answer on the part of Blizzard — who has the final and authoritative say on everything.

Ahoy mateys! In celebration of ye olde Talk Like A Pirate Day 2009 I’ve some pointers for ye bilge rats out there. Ye want to party like a pirate on TLAPD? Then ye need te dust off ye Shaman and sharpen ye Enhancement axes.

First Mate Stoneybaby presents ye 8  Reasons (Enhancement) Shamans  make the best pirates:

Faction Change Available In Europe

The Faction Change service is now available for European players.

Ancilorn (Source)

The new World of Warcraft Faction Change service is now live in Europe. As we mentioned previously, [http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=9895129741&sid=1] we’ve been in the process of developing a new service for World of Warcraft that will allow players to change their faction from Alliance to Horde or Horde to Alliance for a fee. After purchasing a Faction Change for a character, a player can choose any race of the opposite faction that is compatible with the character’s class. Please note that all achievements and quest lines relating to the Argent Tournament are reset when a character uses the Faction Change service.

Brewmaster Guide Update

Print News | Category: World of Warcraft News – Wrath of the Lich King – Achievements
Brewfest be startin’ next high tide’ an’ we`ve recently updated our Brewmaster achievement guide! ‘t seems that Kisirani has confirmed that th’ Wolpertinger quest be makin’ a comeaft this voyage! This quest be introduced in Brewfest ’07 but had been removed in Brewfest `08 due t’ bugginess. Check ou’ th’ guide wi’ ’tis shiny new updates here!

Maintenance for Tuesday, September 22nd already announced

Yeah, believe it or not, unlike last week, when Blizzard didn’t confirm the lack of maintenance until somewhere close to midnight pacific time, this week we already have confirmation. There will be extended maintenance from 3 AM to 11 AM pacific this Tuesday.

Deathknight Level 70 Tanking Gear Set

Level 70 DK Tank

My DK has got it goin’ on!

She hit level 70 and swapped into the Cobalt gear set that’s craftable by Blacksmiths in their early Northrend professions levels:

[Cobalt Helm]
[Cobalt Shoulders]
[Cobalt Chestpiece]
[Cobalt Bracers]
[Cobalt Boots]
[Cobalt Legplates]
[Cobalt Belt]
[Cobalt Gauntlets]

Then, after affixing Armor Kits and various enchants with the Outland and early Northrend materials I had laying around in this Enchanter’s bank, I headed to the Auction House and picked myself up a few [Eternal Belt Buckle]s and a [Solid Chalcedony] to fill this current belt’s gem slot as created by the belt buckle.

I’ve been really busy gearing up my Priest the last few weeks and, friends, let me stress that if you aren’t running Regular Trial of the Champion several times a day you are missing out. This instance is far and away the simplest and fastest way to level your alts with more than respectable gear.

When I made the switch from my Hunter to my Priest I was rolling deep with Hateful PvP gear. I managed to heal a few Heroics with that Hateful gear but things were sketchy at best. Luckily, the awesome guild I joined was more than willing to run Regular ToC on a loop for me over the course of several days.

The Armor Penetration Nerf

I would like to begin today with a little history lesson.

BOOOO…no one likes history, just tell us what we need to know.

Relax, it’s going to be quick. Remember in BC and (for the most part) before patch 3.1? I know it was awhile ago but think hard. Remember when Armor Penetration (ArPen) was…awful? Seriously, ArPen was arguably the worse stat in the entire game and you might as well have avoided it like the plague (save for Grim Toll which actually gave enough of it to make up for it’s general weakness as a stat).

You’re boring me buddy. So ArPen used to be bad, I remember, what’s your point?

My point, my patient-deprived, figment of my imagination, is that in patch 3.1 ArPen received a significant buff: A 25% increase in the effectiveness of ArPen.

The Hunting Lodge Podcast: Episode 4 – My Soundcard tried to eat my podcast

And thank you gang for joining us for Episode 4 of The Hunting Lodge Podcast!

NOTE: Before we get into the show notes we just wanted to apologize for the sound quality this week.  We finally figured out that our sound issues are related to an old machine and sound card.  We replaced both of them for next weeks cast.  So we’re sorry for the quality this week, but really feel next week will be much, much improved.- Brigwyn and Daewin

Now on with the show notes!

This week was a full week and we had all kinds of interesting things to talk about.

Player Spotlight: Maalakai of Premonition

Maalakai is considered by many in the WoW community as one of the best PVE warlocks in the game.  He’s the warlock officer in <Premonition>, the top-ranked U.S. guild and has been a part of numerous world-first boss kills and 17 U.S. firsts.

He’s the first in our new regular feature on top players in the game. Mouse over Maalakai’s armory link to see some of the firsts he’s been a part of.

I’m on this melee kick. Go figure, huh? I just took my Druid Feral, I started a DK (sitting at 57 current though), and most recently I started a DPS Warrior alt. I decided to do some powerleveling on the Warrior so I picked up the heirloom shoulders, chest, 2h axe, and gun. The 0nly thing I’m missing for BoA gear is the trinket, but I needed to spend Emblems on full epic gems at the same time too, so no trinket. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BigHitBox/~3/UeXndkRyL4k/

So there I was sitting in Heroic Drak’Thorn Keep waiting for our tank to get back from whatever it was that he was doing. In instances like this I usually take the opportunity to inspect the players I’m with. I notice that on recount I’m second in DPS to the mage, which is odd, but hey I got some sweet upgrades over the weekend. But the hunter we have with us should be out DPSing me or at least be a lot closer than the 700 DPS to 1000 DPS I’m ahead of him. So I open the inspect window and start looking at gear. Mostly purples which is nice. Looking further however I see that it’s all PvP gear with resilience on it. I’m leveling a hunter so don’t know everything that I should, but I do know PvP gear is not good and a turtle for a pet is not good as well. So I whisper him. http://www.brigwyn.com/2009/09/04/guest-post-hunters-most-misunderstood-class/

World First – A Tribute to Dedicated Insanity by Refuge

Congratulations to Refuge of EU-Aegwynn on their world first completion of the 10-player achievement A Tribute to Dedicated Insanity. The achievement requires you to use items of a quality below 25-player Crusaders’ Coliseum, which means you’ll only be able to use items either from 10-player normal and heroic Crusaders’ Coliseum, or lower. http://www.worldofraids.com/news/848.html

Fan Art Contest
The official BlizzCon Fan Art Contest is back for 2009 and we’re looking for talented artists to once more put their imagination to work on creating Warcraft, StarCraft, or Diablo universe-inspired pieces of art. http://www.blizzard.com/blizzcon/contests/

Playing my Troll Mage and leveling characters has reminded me of an interesting thing that comes up in PUGs sometimes.

That is, when the Tank is going at a fast enough pace and the group is taking on enough mobs at one time that someone in the team eventually says one word over the party line:

“mana”

This, of course, means that the person who said the word NEEDS mana, but the unstated part is that they also expect the group to stop and wait for them.

But the question is: Should the party REALLY stop and wait for them? Or does it really matter? http://wowgrrl.com/2009/09/01/dungeon-tip-if-youre-dps-nobody-cares-about-your-mana/

In EMS, we like to call people who ride motorcycles without helmets future organ donors. Unfortunately, most classes in WoW can’t wear plate helms, and cloth makes for poor protection no matter how well enchanted it is. Noamsie of <True Justice> on Aggramar-EU has decided not to postpone the inevitable, and is riding her Mekgineer’s Chopper straight off a cliff and into oblivion. You can’t get to heaven on roller skates, but I guess a winged motorcycle can ride you right into the clouds. http://www.wow.com/2009/09/05/around-azeroth-the-lost-and-the-damned/

As a well-geared level 80 OP Enhancement Shaman (L80OPES?) I must say this encounter was ridiculously easy. I spent most of the encounter running around wondering what I needed to do next. There was one dicey moment when my health was dropping rapidly only to realize I was standing in the deep breath, a problem quickly remedied by the age-old raid strategy known as “move out of the fire dumbass.” Tricky, that Onyxia, tricky. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BigHitBox/~3/NIKX3g4D8Qs/

I’m going to write bout the upcoming changes for Hunters in Cataclysm.  First and at the forefront all Hunter changes will be the removal of our Hunter mana bar and the inclusion of a focus based system for all Hunters.  This change will forever remove our mana bar, need for mana increasing gear and greatly challenge the way we have done all our work on rotations and effiecency. http://www.brigwyn.com/2009/09/02/upcoming-hunter-changes/

PTR Build 10392

This seems to be a somewhat small build; changes noticed so far are listed below. One thing you’ll noticed is that the “Purified” shards are now from 10-player Onyxia while the “Shiny” shards are from 25-player. http://www.worldofraids.com/news/835.html

The new World of Warcraft Faction Change service is now live. As we mentioned previously, we’ve been in the process of developing a new service for World of Warcraft that will allow players to change their faction from Alliance to Horde or Horde to Alliance for a fee. After purchasing a Faction Change for a character, a player can choose any race of the opposite faction that is compatible with the character’s class. For more information on the Faction Change service, please read the FAQ, or visit the Faction Change page to get started. http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/##090102

I know all you horde out there were just dying to join the Alliance. Well now you can! Faction Transfers are now available. This service will come with fee of US $30.00 per character. To change your character’s faction go to the Faction Transfer page under Account Management.

Have questions about it? Read Blizzard’s Faction Transfer FAQ! http://wowvault.ign.com/fullstory.php?id=54230

Slaytanic pointed out to us yesterday that Atraira has released the first installment of the new movie titled Ulduar: Defiance. The video is an interesting, cinematic look at the boss fights in Ulduar. Atraira, of course, is the machinimator who created the WoW video for Lonely Island’s Boombox. We were pretty excited about the trailer, so it was awesome to see the movie make a release. http://www.wow.com/2009/09/03/wow-moviewatch-ulduar-defiance/

New screenshot gallery of Wintergrasp: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/pvp/gallery-wintergrasp.html

The paid character transfer service has been reduced from 30 to 3 days. http://wowvault.ign.com/fullstory.php?id=53547

Don’t forget Daniel’s ever helpful morning posts at WoW.com. http://www.wow.com/2009/07/21/tuesday-morning-post-howling-at-the-maintenance-edition/

Go give WoWGrrl some Digg love! http://digg.com/pc_games/WoW_Hunter_WoTLK_Raiding_Consumables_Guide_WoWGrrl_com