Since the beginning of The Burning Crusade, I've wanted playable Ethereals. I don't care which faction or what classes, I just want to play an Ethereal. Heck, if all you could do with an ethereal character is walk around and emote, I would stlil roll one. I don't know why I'm so infatuated with them, but I pretty much like most things about them. Their design, their towns, the Consortium's debonaire way of operations.
The other Burning Crusade race I want to play is an Arakkoa. Specifically an Arakkoa Priest or Paladin. I don't like the birdmen as much as the blinkymen, but I found myself incredibly intrigued by the few Light-following arakkoa scattered around. I wanted to learn more about them, but there wasn't anymore to learn, unfortunately.
Now that I'm in the Wrath of the Lich King Beta, my new fascination is the Vrykul. Aesthetically, they are by far the most awesome race in WoW, and they're steeped in Norse lore which is just awesome. Their women look like they could destroy me with their bare hands, and the men seem like they have enough hair customization options to put a player race to shame. If these became a player race, I would reroll so fast.
Do you guys have any races you would just love to see playable? I have a lot of friends that would adore the chance to play a Goblin but I couldn't do that personally. Not a fan of Goblins. Are you after something a little more 'out there' like Nerubians? Are you a fan of a race from another setting that you'd love to be added to WoW?
Welcome to Lichborne, your weekly weekend look at the first hero class, the Death Knight. Daniel Whitcomb is back after dealing with some light administrative work back at the Ebon Hold.
Inscription seems to be coming on to the beta server in bits and pieces, especially when it comes to the much looked for glyphs. One or two classes seem to trickle in each build, and in the latest build, it is the Death Knight's turn. Today, we'll take a quick look at the new Death Knight glyphs, and figure out how useful they'll be to the various playstyles and specs of the Death Knight. As always, it's worth noting that these are beta numbers, so things could change by the time Inscription and Death Knights see the light of day on live servers.
It looks like Blizzard isn't done tinkering with everything for Wrath of the Lich King. This time, they've turned their attention to racial abilities, which many have pointed out to be imbalanced. Kalgan dropped by the forums to answer a good question regarding the Orc racial Hardiness, which grants a passive 15% resistance to stuns. It's been nerfed a long way from its original 25% resistance, but the poster made a good point about the game's direction towards reduced durations instead of resistances.
Kalgan responds by saying that Hardiness was being changed into exactly that -- an effect duration reduction of 15%. He also goes over all the other racials, some of which were changed, others of which were buffed, and yet a few others of which were inevitably nerfed. The changes should make it into the next Beta push. Check after the break to see the complete list. [CLARIFICATION: This isn't the complete list of racial abilities. Abilities not listed here are unchanged or, if they will be changed, will be mentioned in the future.]
Each week, Arcane Brilliance journeys to the heart of Mageland, braves all the perils of Blinking backwards, premature sheep-breakage, and table-ninjas that infest that mystical place, and returns triumphant, bearing with it the spoils of its epic victory: one-to-two-thousand words, a center-aligned image of some type, and several dozen Wowhead links. It then distributes these treasures among the citizenry, spreading word of its conquests throughout the villages and townships, before kneeling before the King of Mageland and presenting him with the head of a Warlock.
And there is much rejoicing.
I don't know about you, but the idea of patch 3.0.2 scares the living crap out of me. I mean, I'm excited about a lot of it--changing my Mage's hairstyle and restoring his lower jaw, for instance (it still perplexes me how a barber can alter my entire facial structure)--but there are things about the impending patch that absolutely terrify me. Chief among these is that free respec.
Choosing a spec on the beta, where respecs cost a whopping 1 copper, has been difficult enough. Almost every talent we have now will be changed (in most cases improved), moved, or flat-out abolished when the patch hits, and many new talents will appear. Believe me when I say that none of the currently accepted level 70 talent specs will remain intact. In many ways, Mages, like every other class, are getting what amounts to a complete class reset. Everything we know about talent builds will essentially have to be forgotten and relearned. Even raids your guild knows frontward and back will become a crazy new adventure, and PvP will become a giant crap-shoot. The good news is that for at least that first week, the Arena playing field will be leveled completely.
But don't worry. Arcane Brilliance is here to help. Follow me after the break to see what kind of fun we can have with our 61 talent points after the patch hits.
Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, ZA or Sunwell Plateau, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. This week, we look to the future...
Raiding's in an interesting place at the moment. With the upcoming raid changes and dungeons we'll see in WotLK, a lot of people are looking forward and feeling less enthusiasm for the present. Some of those with bosses yet to kill in the game are becoming despondent at ever seeing the end of the tunnel, and people with everything on farm are finding excuses not to raid once they have their desired gear under their belts.
So what can raiders do now to prepare for the expansion, and how can raid guilds deal with the pre-expansion blues?
The beta realms have been even less stable than normal this weekend, which is a bit inconvenient when everybody is trying to test Naxxramas. Apparently the cause of the crashes has been pinpointed, and it's the Death Knight spell Unholy Blight (specifically Rank 2). It seems that whenever that spell was used, it would bring down the world servers. Perhaps it was mistakenly coded to surround the world servers with a vile swarm of unholy insects, instead of the DK's target.
So the devs have hotfix-disabled it; you will still see it in your spellbook, but it will have no effect if you try to cast it. A worthwhile trade-off for the servers staying up for more than five minutes at a time, I'd say. The other ranks, including the level 80 rank 4 version, are still available. The Storm Peaks and Icecrown zones were also causing issues, and will not be able to be hotfixed, so we'll have to continue to do without them until the next patch.
A much earlier data-mined image gave us a glimpse of what we could only assume were penguin noncombat pets, but reader Alassiel has written in to confirm that two of her characters in the beta have now received them in the mail. You can see Alassiel's screenshots of her Death Knight getting hers here and here.
Elizabeth Wachowski and Zach Yonzon braved a constantly-crashing beta server to get more information and pictures for us. It looks like the pet, named "Chilly," is currently being mailed to players in the beta as a gift for switching to a Blizzard account. And yes, it is pretty much the cutest thing ever, which I suspect is an effort to compensate for Northrend being a continent full of animated corpses. As Alassiel's gotten them on at least two characters so far, I assume it's being sent to all active toons on a Blizzard account. We're not sure if that's going to remain the only way to get Chilly, but if you're in the beta and have a Blizzard account (or want to switch to one -- it's free), don't forget to check your mailbox!
We might have had more news today -- if Blizzard's beta servers could stay online for more than five minutes consecutively. We've been staring a lot at the "World Server Down" message since Blizzard rolled out patch 8905 late last night (or early this morning, depending on how you look at these things). Let's start today off with more on Inscription. A new beta patch went up last night with a few changes, including....
"Pomaces" have been renamed "Pigments" and have shiny new icons that look less like dust (they were various colors of enchanting dust icons) and look more like... well, I suppose, pigments.You can judge for yourself what you think they look most like.
More Glyphs with realistic, skill level appropriate material costs. (Though the majority of them still need the exact same ink, herb, and one of each kind of parchment.)
The Glyph cooldown has been changed. Though applying a Glyph still starts an hour cooldown, the cooldown is only for that Glyph, specifically. So if, for example, my Paladin applies Glyph of Blessing of Wisdom, I cannot apply Glyph of Blessing of Wisdom again for an hour. However, I could instantly swap six healing Glyphs for six tanking Glyphs -- I'd just have to wait to switch back to my original healing Glyphs. (And, of course, I'd have to have a new set of healing Glyphs to swap to, as removing them to put in tank-oriented Glyphs would destroy them.)
And, though apparently not new, several people in the comments noted that a Glyph can be removed by shift right-clicking -- however, this still destroys the Glyph in the process. For more of your beta questions -- and our beta answers -- read on! But if you're the sort who wants to avoid spoilers, turn back now. We're aiming to avoid major story spoilers, but this feature is all about beta content and we can't talk about the beta without giving a few things away.
The ten-man version of Naxxramas was enabled in last night's beta patch, including loot. And thanks to insomniac beta testers and to MMO-Champion, we now get to see a whole bunch of that loot, including class sets, which is what I'm most interested in at the moment. The class sets aren't quite finished yet – their names are things like "Naxxramas 10 Rogue Set," and there aren't any set bonuses – but it's still interesting to see what sort of stats Blizz is planning on giving us.
Some observations:
The item level on all this stuff is 200; Kil'jaeden's drops are ilvl 164.
Given that two tiers are typically about 14 ilvls apart, this implies that when we see Naxx-25 loot it will probably be ilvl 214 or so.
I know that we've got spell power now, and no +healing, but it still took me a few minutes to figure out why I couldn't find a healing weapon.
Melee one-handed weapons are doing 143 DPS; by comparison, Hand of the Deceiver, from Kil'jaeden, does 114 (the highest currently available in a one-handed weaopn).
I don't like to see items with shield block on them that aren't shields (Deflection Band, Waistguard of the Tutor), since only half of the tanks can use them.
There's an oddly large amount of crit rating on the Priest healing set. Is this a consequence of some change I haven't quite digested yet?
Anyway, this all looks good; go look at the items yourself at MMO-Champion. I can't wait to see what they're going to do with tokens, and to see some of the Naxx-25 stuff start to drop.
Yes, our weekly podcast is returning to the virtual airwaves this afternoon, and while Turpster is off cavorting around Florida, Duncor, myself, and BRK will be live on WoW Radio talking about the most popular stories in the past week of Warcraft. We're sure to hit on the whole Recruit-a-Friend leveling extravaganza (and if it's hurting the game), Blizzard's removal of the "first to 80" titles (and whether they are hurting the game), and the soon-to-be rarity of the Zul'Aman bears (and whether, you guessed it, that's hurting the game) and our favorite achievements (even though BRK thinks they're hurting the game).
Also, all three of us are in and playing the beta, so we'll do another live version of "Ask a Beta Tester" with the people in the IRC channel during the show -- you can join us on IRC at irc.mmoirc.org in the #wowradio channel, or send your question to theshow@wowinsider.com right now and we might answer it on the show for you.
Last night's beta push, 8905, introduced another change to Misery. The former 5 point talent has gone through a number of changes already, and the latest one seems to be an attempt at healing the wounds of its previous nerf.
As of 8905, Misery now supplies its 3% spell hit as well as a 15% spell power coefficient increase on Mind Flay, Mind Sear, and Mind Blast. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, and just how much a difference that makes. The original version of Misery was 5% spell damage across the entire raid, including your personal damage. Mind Blast and Mind Flay are definitely huge sources of a Shadow Priest's damage, but it's less than half of the spells used in our damage 'rotation.'
Will 15% more damage on those spells make up for the loss of 5% damage on all spells, as far as your personal damage is concerned? It's certainly possible, probably even likely. While the damage from Shadow Word: Pain and Shadow Word: Death (especially Pain) shouldn't be underestimated, Blast and Flay are definitely the major players here. Plus we have news that Mind Flay's coefficient is going up and gaining the ability to crit soon, so an extra 15% on that spell will scale very, very well.
Now that Naxxramas has opened up on the beta realms, we should start seeing some numbers and math soon. However, the new Mind Flay isn't implemented yet, so how this scale may completely change when that happens. At the very least, the bare minimum, this is an improvement over what they did to it originally. How much of an improvement remains to be seen.
I'm having a lot of fun with the new Inscription profession. Not necessarily as an Inscriber, but as the recipient of these cool new customization features. As Daniel noted the last time, the Warlock glyphs look pretty sweet, and more glyphs for Warlocks appeared recently in the WrathBeta. And just like the last time, a few of them really do look pretty spiffy, like this one for example...
Glyph of Drain Soul Your Drain Soul ability occasionally creates an additional soul shard. We might as well call this the Soul Shard specialization glyph -- an extra shard for Drain Soul? Yes please! Even if you pack your bag full with 28 Soul Shards before heading into an instance or raid, Warlocks still find themselves in situations where they run out of it, specially for those who have Shadowburn thrown in. Timing Drain Soul just right so it doesn't gimp your DPS is a pain in itself, so an extra shard for the effort is pure win. Besides, procs like these are like an Azerothian mini-lottery. This is also perfect for those lazy Warlocks -- and there are a ton of those -- who only bring a handful of shards to an instance.
The inimitable Matthew Rossi, our burly Shaman and Warrior expert, had his hands full with the overwhelming number of Warrior glyphs that popped up in the new WrathBeta build. Since the few Shaman glyphs this build got me a little excited -- more than the yawn-inducing Paladin ones last week, anyway -- I thought I'd cover this one while Matt does the heavy lifting with the Warrior changes.
Glyph of Water Breathing Your Water Breathing spell no longer requires a reagent. An excellent glyph. I'm a huge fan of these no-reagent glyphs for obvious reasons. Although Shiny Fish Scales are abundant and cheap, they do take up bag space. What I like about these types of glyphs is that they'll literally pay for themselves over time because there's a direct cost. The best part of this? It now works exactly like the Warlock spell and can be used as an additional buff in PvP without worrying about running out of Shiny Fish Scales (e.g., it still consumes a reagent in Arenas).
We were just talking about the state of protection warriors in the Beta, and lo and behond, not only do we get a new prot-heavy beta build to try out, but we also get those long sought warrior glyphs to drool over. So what are the big changes? Well, MMO Champion and World of Raids have the lists but some of the standouts are worth mentioning here.
For starters, warriors get a variety of changes aimed at tanking: Warbringerallows a prot warrior to charge in combat, in any stance, Thunder Clap's damage is increased by 50%, and Damage Shield, a new ability, causes warriors to deal damage whenever hit by a damaging attack or when they block an incoming attack equal to 10/20% of block value. With the new way strength adds to block, this is an indirectly scaling with AP ability. Improved Shield Block now is folded into Shield Mastery, Vitality now adds expertise in addition to strength and stamina, and several abilities have had their threat reduced but their direct damage increased to compensate. A change that surprised me greatly was seeing Sword and Board now adding yup to 15% critical strike chance to Devastate in addition to resetting Shield Slam's cooldown and reducing it's rage cost by 100%. This could make devastate a very attractive DPS option in the right gear.
And Shield Wall is back up to 60% damage reduction for 12 seconds. The Improved Shield Wall talent is gone, replaced by Improved Disciplines, which lowers the cooldown on Retaliation, Recklessness and Shield Wall by 60 seconds max.
The Hunter mana regeneration tool, Aspect of the Viper, has been revised again. Currently, in live, it provides passive mana regen. It was recently announced that it was going to be changed to provide 100% of your damage as mana regen, but cut your damage output by 50% (less with talents). This lets the hunter switch it on when they need mana, fill up their mana pool, and switch back to Hawk to DPS some more, as opposed to being in Viper all the time as many hunters do these days.
Apparently, though, it was just a bit too powerful, as many users have commented. Hunters with good gear were filling up their mana bar way too fast. So it's going to be changed again, this time to restore a percentage of your base mana each time you hit. While this does do away with some scaling issues, it seems to introduce others. For instance, this makes a fast weapon vastly more desirable for mana regen. But (say it with me) it's still beta, so I'm confident that they'll work out any game-breaking flaws there may be in this new incarnation.
Since the beginning of The Burning Crusade, I've wanted playable Ethereals. I don't care which faction or what classes, I just want to play an Ethereal. Heck, if all you could do with an ethereal character is walk around and emote, I would stlil roll one. I don't know why I'm so infatuated with them, but I pretty much like most things about them. Their design, their towns, the Consortium's debonaire way of operations.
The beta realms have been even less stable than normal this weekend, which is a bit inconvenient when everybody is trying to test Naxxramas. Apparently the cause of the crashes has been pinpointed, and it's the Death Knight spell 
Last night's beta push, 8905, introduced another change to 
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