Things To Do Before Cataclysm Hits

Good News Everyone! As Professor Putricide would say…

This week it was announced that Patch 4.01 has been put on the PTR and with that means the last patch pre Cataclysm. What does that mean? Probably a pre 2011 Cataclysm release date (yay). Boubouille over at MMO-Champion has given his guesstimate of Nov 2nd (which is a month earlier than my 1st week of Dec) but either way, still in 2010 and most likely welcome news to everyone. With that being said, many changes are happening on both the PTR and Beta so its time to sit down and figure out what your bucket list should be for the remainder of WOTLK. Many of the items below are things geared towards those who care about achievements but there are also a few things that non achievement whores would be interested in.

Farm 310% mounts for alts

Come Cataclysm 310% flying can be purchased for the paltry fee of 5000 gold. Not too expensive but if you have spare time, you can go out and farm yourself some drakes from Ulduar or ICC which will save you 5000 gold down the line. ICC may be a stretch for some alts but Uld 10 is extremely simple even for the turdiest of alts. This probably comes down to a classic time vs money argument. If you only have a few alts then maybe its worth it to just buy the flying skill come Cata. Or if you’re one that has one of each class than 9 * 5000g = 45,000g may be a bit much and spending a few hrs in Ulduar may be a good investment.

Exalted with Zandalar Tribe

It’s already been announced that Zul’Gurub will be removed by Cataclysm so with that being said, if you want to get exalted with Zandalar Tribe, better get cracking now. WoWWiki identifies a full ZG run as giving 2500-3000 rep with all bosses giving a total of 800 rep. Throughout the instance coins (3 for 25 rep) and bijous (75 rep) will drop which also give rep so its not such a bad rep grind. ZG is on a 3 day timer.

Exalted with Cenarion Circle

Similar to Zul’Gurub, Temple of Ahn’Qiraj (or more well known as AQ20) will be removed as well to be replaced as a 10 man Cataclysm instance. How this will affect Cenarion Circle reputation is unknown but seeing as both AQ20 and AQ40 grant CC rep it is probably safe to say that some new sort of reputation will be introduced instead come Cata. So while you can get CC exalted outside of AQ20, it still is the easiest way to solo grind that rep without having to require help from others. If you have time, its worth doing now. Again, similar to ZG, this is on a 3 day timer.

Farm Rare Mounts

As mentioned above, Zul’Gurub is being removed and with it, means the Swift Zulian Tiger and Swift Razzashi Raptor will be gone. These are definitely fantastic mounts you want to have and hopefully everyone out there that has been or is working on these will get one before its too late. If you haven’t started yet and you want some thoughts on how to do it, check out my Pimp Your Druid series for articles on how to solo both.

The next step up from farming ZG mounts is farming WOTLK raid mounts in Mimiron Head/Invincible. If you’re fortunate enough to be in a guild that can down HLK25 then best of luck to you in obtaining the mount. If you’re not in one of those premier guilds then maybe YS0 is the more reasonable goal. For those of you who are farming Mimiron Heads (like us!) keep pushing and farming. Blizzard has already stated that they did not know if they would remove the 100% drop rate come 4.01 but it would be likely that it would happen come Cataclysm. So if you’re counting, using Boubouille’s date of Nov 2nd that leave us with 8 weeks (or 12 if you use my early Dec date). We’re up to a total of 7 so far, all we can do is hope that everyone that has worked hard in farming will get one.

Loremaster

The Old World is getting a complete revamp and with that means completely new quests. No one is completely sure exactly what will happen to the Loremaster achievement but most think (and me as well) that it will turn into a Feat of Strength with a new Cataclysm Loremaster being put in its place. If you’re an achievement nerd, then you’ll want to get working on this one as soon as possible as this is a huge timesink and does take a lot of effort. Everyquest is a great addon to help identify what quests are left in each zone so you know what areas to hit up.

Obtain Quest Related Items

Same reasoning as above where old quest and questlines rae disappearing, its best to get some of those fun flavour items that exist now before its too late. Specifically of interest, there is Dartol’s Rod of Transformation from a questline in Ashenvale and also the Sprite Darter Pet from a questline in Feralas. Also, there is the Green Hills of Stranglethorn questline which gives an achievement, no idea how that will be affected but hell might as well do that one too.

The list above is only things that I know for sure will change in somewhat shape or form that will prevent you from being able to obtain said item/achievement come Cataclysm. There are also a tonne of other items that exist in vanilla content that will still exist in Cataclysm but in a different format. No word as to whether these items will still exist. Just to name a few things, Deathcharger’s Rein, Sawbone’s Shirt, Master Builder’s Shirt or the pets from LBRS.

Operation: Gnomeregan

The world event for the gnomes and trolls is out so make sure you take advantage and get your Gnomeregan Pride and as well as your Feat of Strength. The transformation item is pretty cool in that it lasts for 30 mins (4 hr cooldown) which is a lot longer than most. Naturally still does not persist in forms. Remember this is a limited time engagement so make sure you get it as soon as possible. The alliance version has an extreme tendency to bug out so don’t expect to get it on your first try. It took me 6 tries before I decided to do it at an odd hour of the day without others around to bug the event.

I’m sure there are many more things to consider but these are the things I can think of, whats on your bucket list?

Is WOTLK dragging on too long?

WOTLK was released in November 2008 and here we are today, September 2010 almost two years later. Many are well into the pre expansion blues with guilds falling apart, people quitting and all sorts of other random discontent about anything and everything. Most will blame stale content as a result of WOTLK being dragged on way too long. But has it really? Lets actually sit down and take a look at the timing of Blizzard’s expansions and see if there is any validity to said complaint.

First, lets compare length of expansion as a starting point:

• World of Warcraft (Nov 04 – Jan 07) 25.8 Months
• World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (Jan 07 – Nov 08) 21.8 Months
• World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (Nov 08 – Present) 21.8 Months

So really, we are right on track in terms of expansion length, so why does this one feel so much longer? Well lets consider the timing of final content patches. Specifically, lets compare the release of Naxxramas, Sunwell Plateau and Icecrown Citadel against the end of the expansion pack. NO, Ruby Sanctum does not count as real content and will not be used in this comparison!

• Naxxramas (Patch 1.11) 7 Months
• Sunwell Plateau (Patch 2.4) 8 Months
• Icecrown Citadel (Patch 3.3) 9 Months

Hrmm, very interesting, so again it seems we are right on track again, sure its slightly longer than Naxx or SWP but really its not extremely completely out of line. So what is it about wotlk that makes it feel so tiring and stale? My personal take is its the normal vs heroic strategy Blizzard has employed for wotlk. The complaint of prior expansions was that a very small percent of the population ended up seeing the end of Naxx and SWP, so as a result they implemented normal/heroic modes so that everyone could see the Lich King die. Problem with that? Most people saw Arthas take a dirt nap many months ago. In my case it was 7 months ago, so really is there incentive to keep pushing forward knowing you’ve already seen the fight and the rewards are things that will be replaced within a week into Cataclysm? Not really. So back to the original question, is Blizzard really dragging wotlk out? guess not.

With that being said, when is Cataclysm coming? The Beta is well underway and the most recent changes have allowed players to hit the level cap (85) and test a significant portion of the expansion. So here is my prediction and the logic behind it. Blizzcon is slated for Oct 22-23 so definitely nothing will be released before that date. So really it comes down to whether it gets released at end of year or beginning of year aka Late Nov/Early Dec or Late Jan/Early Feb. My feel is they want to release late 2010 but if they can’t complete on time it’ll be early 2011. So for an overall prediction, I will say the 1st week of December!

Topics of the Week #7

Damn, things are slow around the blogosphere and wow in general. Its hard to keep people motivated but doing fun things definitely help. In case you’re wondering, we’re up to 4 Mimi Heads total with more to come! Some interesting things to talk about this week, lets get started…

PVP Update

Good News Everyone! As Professor Putricide would say, we broke 2200 in 5v5 this week. Had a good week of 5′s going 12-0 and I now have the rating to get the 2.2k weapon. All that’s left is to wait to get enough points to do purchase. Only on more tier of reward is available in the 2300 Wrathful Gladiator’s Tabard. Nice thing to have, but it definitely won’t replace Tabard of the Lightbringer 2′s on the other hand was good but not as successful. We broke 2000 last week and this week we went 21-9 which on paper looks pretty good but overall we only went up 23 points. But as I’ve been told that is the nature of 2′s. Your comp may be extremely efficient against some but extremely handicapped against others. Its just not as balanced as it used to be which I guess is probably the reason why 2′s has been removed from arena title consideration. Looking forward to stopping 2′s once/if I get to 2200.

Furor, Master Shapeshifter and Savage Roar Changes (Source)

The latest feral kitty changes, note there are a bunch of bear changes too but this ain’t no bear blog! For a full list of bear changes as well, check the source link.

• Savage Roar now increases auto attack damage done by 50% instead of physical damage done by 30%.
• Master Shapeshifter bonus increased from 2% to 4% for all forms.
• Furor now gives you a 33/66/100% (up from 20/40/60%) chance to gain 10 rage when you shapeshift into Bear form and you keep up to 33/66/100 (up from 20/40/60) of your Energy when you shapeshift into Cat Form. Now increases your total Intellect by 2/4/6%. (Old – Only increased in Moonkin form)

While Master Shapeshifter is not a big change (just a stat bump), Savage Roar and Furor are both pretty interesting. Furor first of all, is a change that has been forthcoming for a while. Having only 80% (3/5 points in talent) of your energy persist through a shift is kinda dumb (based on the current talent specs) and really it should have been 100% to begin with. Good on Blizz for recognizing the stupidity of the current situation and making the adjustment.

The real interesting change is Savage Roar. Once again we see a further push towards increased auto attack (white) damage. Couple this along with Fury Swipes, we’ve got some serious white damage boosts. The thing to note here is, Savage Roar now no longer produces any benefits to our yellow damage abilities such as Rip, Rake, Mangle, Ferocious Bite & more. So this is actually a change in the mechanics of feral druid dps. No longer is there that requirement to time your dots to be reapplied before a SR falls off. Seems to me as somewhat of a dumbing down of the feral tree.  Another interesting thought to think about is how will this change the priority of abilities in a dps rotation. With SR no longer affecting yellows, should its priority be well after applying dots and ensuring dots are kept up? This looks like to me as further support that haste will become the primary stat for feral druids in Cataclysm.

Good Bye Idols (Source)

Quote from: Ghostcrawler

You are looking at existing, Wrath of the Lich King, items. Those are currently only used by those classes, so there isn’t a great motivation or need to change them.

Cataclysm-level relics can be used by any paladin, shaman, druid or DK, though there may still be some class-specific ones from time to time.

Cool, if anyone remembers trying to farm Idol of the Emerald Queen from Shadow Labs they know how bad the system was back in TBC. Blizz did make some headway into the problem by changing the idols into badge items so that you wouldn’t be stuck farming a dungeon or raid boss nonstop to get a mandatory item. With greater flexibility amongst all the classes to use Idols this should make for some interesting combination of stats and hopefully better idols in general.

There are some images of new relics with raw stats, secondary stats & gem slots which are kind of neat but they just look off. The thing to take away from the image is that Cata relics will have stats and gem slots just like guns/bows and wands.

310% Mount Speed for Everyone (Source)

I’m pretty sure Blizz already stated this was going to happen but in case you didn’t’ know or haven’t heard here it is. 310% Mount Flying Speed will be available for purchase in Cataclysm for the low low price of 5000 gold. If you already have 310% mount speed then you will not have to pay for it once Cata hits, and no there is no faster mount speed past 310% (as far as I know). There are a few ways to obtain 310 right now, you can either do it via PVP (get Gladiator) or via PVE (via raiding drakes, world event drakes or rare drops like Mimiron’s Head). The easiest/fastest way to obtain it is to probably go after the Ulduar 10 proto drake (Glory of the Ulduar Raider)

Topics of the Week #6

It’s been a busy few weeks with long weekend and lots of people on vacation. Hope everyone had some time to enjoy the time off and the good weather. Beta posting continues to be frequent while most of it is just bug updates and talent updates which I’m going to avoid talking about. No point in ranting when they’re likely to make the changes (like last time). If something big comes out we’ll discuss but until then lets just point out some of the more interesting class changes.

Class Masteries Announced (Source)

• Feral – Increases the damage absorbed by your Savage Defense ability by 32% and increases the damage done by your Cat Form bleed abilities by 20%. Absorb and damage increased further by mastery rating.

First thought immediately is, wonder what this will max out at, 20% is already pretty neat but if it scales with mastery rating, it could get very nifty.

Raid Buffs for Cataclysm (Source)

More homogenization is on the way, this is what Feral Druids bring to the raid come Cata. Or in other words, who you’l be fighting for for spots (especially in 10 mans which will start becoming much more popular with much fewer raid slots)

1. 5% Crit (Shared with Fury Warrior, Feral Druid, Subtlety Rogue, Elemental Shaman)
2. 5% Stats (Shared with Paladin, Druid)
3. 12% Armor Debuff (Shared with  Warrior, Rogue, Druid, Hunter)
4. 30% Bleed Damage Debuff (Shared with Arms Warrior, Feral Druid, Subtlety Rogue)
5. 10% Melee Attack Speed Debuff (Shared With Warrior, Death Knight, Feral Druid, Protection Paladin)

Armor Specializations (Source)

• Leather Specialization – Increases your Agility by 5% while wearing only Leather armor.
• Wild Leather Specialization – Increases your Agility in Cat Form by 5% while wearing only Leather armor.

Not sure if this stacks but it sounds like it would, so that’s an additional 10% agility from wearing only leather which we (feral druids) already do and would have no reason not to. Hurray for no more rets and warriors trying to be rogues and blaming poor itemization!

I’m on a Shark (Source)

I know its just a gag but that is fantastic…

Sign me up for one of these bad boys

Mimi Head Farming – Update

Week #4 of Mimi Head Farming happened last night which I obtained my mount. That makes 3 so far,  22 more to go before Cata hits!

Here are some sexy screenshots up close of the mount and the great details given to it. Cudos to Blizz on the attention and care put into the best mount in the game.

P3Wx2 Lasers go Pew Pew Pew!

Top view of the interior console

Could have at least added some cushion on the seat amirite?

Topics of the Week #5

Ok this is going to be a lot more than a topics of the week post as I have been slacking a little bit lately on the updates. Instead this will be more of a “topics since the release of 3.3.5″ post as that’s how far back I went to catch up on my reading. For those who are keeping themselves up to date some of this information may seem old. My thoughts/comments in blue.

Q. Will there be account-wide Achievements? If so, can we expect to see things like vanity gifts for having multiple characters? (Source)
A. It’s an idea we definitely want to do, but it’s pretty challenging technically, so it’s not on the immediate horizon. We can’t promise anything obviously, but I wouldn’t feel the need to get difficult Achievements on more than one character on the same account.

Being as I am a huge achievement whore, I’m not sure I know where I stand on this. I personally focus 95% of my energy onto my druid which shows based on the quantity of achievement points I have on my druid and how little I have on my alts. In fact I bet nobody even knew I have alts (lv 80 pally/mage). Yes that’s how little I play/focus on them. Sure this above could increase the flexibility and reduce the penalty of wanting to play multiple toons but I could also see this allowing for cheesing achievement points by doing them on classes that make things easier. For example, you could do all reps on a human alt which will give 10% faster reputation gain. Another example is seeing DK’s with loremaster or having 40 exalted reputations, things like that make you think “wow wtf, thats insane, very impressive” but you’ll lose that with account-wide achievements.

Q: Cat and Bear builds are only off by about 3 talent points. Why not just consolidate fully at that point? (Source)
A. This is definitely one of our concerns. We don’t want a player to be able to have an optimal DPS specialization in Cat Form and be able to tank. We will definitely engineer the Feral tree such that being a viable tank, or even off-tank, will have some cost in terms of lost DPS while in Cat Form. The druid talent trees currently in beta are very rough and need more polish.

Good to know Blizzard, good to know. I’ll wait to reserve judgement.

Q. Why was the Feral druid’s mana reduction cost removed from King of the Jungle? And what happened to two combo points on critical strikes? (Source)
A. These are data errors that will be corrected. Neither is intended to be cut.

One of the bigger concerns addressed, but still more to go, seem my list in my previous post

This is a first pass (Source)
While this is a first pass on all of the talent trees, death knight, druid, paladin, warlock, Arcane mage, and Assassination rogue trees are not as far along as other specializations.

Good to hear, every druid I’ve talked to so far has had essentially the same comments about the weaknesses of the current trees, discussed further in my prior post.

Damage vs. Utility Talents (Source)
Those are actually the decisions we’re looking for. Trying to decide between dps and utility isn’t a decision (for PvE anyway) and choosing damage vs. damage is a decision most players make by going to third party sites. We want you to be able to get all of the damage talents you reasonably can, and be making decisions over the utility talents.

While I appreciate they are making this statement about their philosophy/ideology behind the new trees, it clearly isn’t quite applied yet. Let’s wait and see how the talent tree evolves.

Max out the Mastery Bonus (Source)
Furthermore, there should be no way to max out mastery. It’s only just possible to max out things like crit and haste today because of A) overly generous talents, and B) ratings that were never designed for current item levels. We’ve already built the theoretical Deathwing gear, so we can make sure the numbers are more appropriate.

Sounds like a good idea, I don’t particularly like the current system which essentially require you to 1) Arp Cap 2) Hit Cap 3) Crit Cap 4) everything eles after. I’d rather see some additional flexibility to focus on specific stats to cater towards a specific style of play.

Hit % in Character Panel (Source)
We will at least show “hit needed for a target of your level AND hit needed for a target of your level +3.” If we get fancy, we’ll let you pick the target level through UI and examine all of your stats in that context.

Less math = a good thing

Armor downgrading in Cataclysm (Source)
You will get a stat bonus of some kind if you wear “your” armor. You can still wear cloth, mail or leather of a lower armor type if it’s a big upgrade, especially if it would get sharded anyway. But the days of Holy paladins in cloth or warrior wearing leather are probably behind us.

Finally, no more “Sorry, blame Blizzard for bad itemization, I’m taking your items” bullshit excuses from Ret Pallies/Warriors/Hunters etc from taking our leather gear. We get it you want to be a feral druid, reroll then

Proto-Drake and Rare Mounts in Cataclysm (Source)
This is all tentative and could change, but we don’t really have a problem with protodrake farming. What we will probably do with really unusual mounts like Mimiron’s Head and Invincible is make them a rare drop. The 100% drop rate won’t make sense when you can overpower the content.

If you want to overpower the content for a drake though, go for it. Players who did it “legit” had the benefit of having the achievement and mount earlier than anyone else. The most prestigious mounts will change in Cataclysm.

If only they would start removing proto drakes that are extremely outdated (Ulduar). Considering how long the Ulduar protos have been in the game, it would have been nice if they had left the Naxx/OS/EOE drakes in longer too. I do agree that making Mimiron’s Head/Invincible as rare drops otherwise they will lose the “epicness” that they currently hold. With all content down (No, we’re not even bothering with Heroic Halion or Heroic LK) I’ve decided to start Mimiron Head farming groups, more on this later.

Molten Core/Blackwing Lair/Thunderfury in Cataclysm (Source)
We aren’t removing MC or BWL as of this writing. We aren’t going out of our way to remove old legendaries. The only risk there in a case like Thunderfury is if we change a zone like Silithus so much that the quests become hard to keep intact.

Looks like those of you out there still farming for Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros can breath a sigh of relief (for now).

“If there is a quest item you really love, you might want to grab it now.” (Source)
Almost every quest reward in the 1-60 content will be changing. If there is a quest item you really love, you might want to grab it now.

For those who don’t have it already, go grab your Dartol’s Rod of Transformation now before its too late.  Any other awesome items from Vanilla WOW I’m missing?

Epic items in Cataclysm (Source)
We’re actually working on restoring the epic feeling to epic items in Cataclysm. Epic loot should be epic, and something to be very proud of. Our plan is to try and get the Heroic -> Blue Gear and Raid -> Purple Gear balance back.

I give this the Vallen, stamp of approval. I thoroughly enjoyed walking around in T3 back in Vanilla WOW when majority of the population were in blues. The differentiation of those who PVP, who PVE and who are casual are important. It can be considered egotistical or it could just be considered a way to display your success in game.

Q. Why was the Feral druid’s mana reduction cost removed from King of the Jungle? And what happened to two combo points on critical strikes?
A. These are data errors that will be corrected. Neither is intended to be cut.