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Mists of Pandaria Talent Calculator Updated
A new version of the Mists of Pandaria Talent Calculator went live today. While some talents and specializations simply moved places or changed names, there are some fun new abilities--priests can turn invisible now and mages finally got some new level 90 talents! Also, keep in mind that not all classes are complete or have been updated, like hunters and rogues.
We'll have our calculator here at Wowhead updated shortly, but in the meantime, take a look at some of the highlights!
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We trust you’ve all had ample time to plug away on the Mists of Pandaria Talent Calculator. You may have even found a few mind-bottling class changes in the works (you know, when things are so crazy it gets your thoughts all trapped, like in a bottle?).<br /><br />To that end, we’re pleased to announce we’ve just released an update to the calculator! In addition to bug fixes, we've made s
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News Roundup and Hotfixes: December 6th
Today's hotfixes cover Dragon Soul nerfs, some item changes (Heart of the Unliving trinkets receiving a passive intellect bonus, 4-piece Holy Paladin Tier 13 nerfed, etc), and transmogrification fixes for mailed items--level 1 alts can no longer run around in heirlooms transmogged to look like fun raiding gear, for example. Also in the roundup: PvP Season 11 began today and Bashiok made an awesome post explaining how many Darkmoon Faire tickets can be farmed up each month via each method of acquisition.
In addition to the documented Dragon Soul changes, many raiding guids began Dragon Soul hardmodes today and are reporting undocumented hotfixes as well between pulls.
Hotfixes: December 6
<ul>
<li>General
<ul>
<li>Transmogrified items should always lose their transmogrification when mailed.</li>
<li>The Darkmoon Firework no longer has a duration, is now holiday-bound, and requires Darkmoon Faire to be active.</li>
<li>Darkmoon Faire revelers who enter an off-limits area in ghost form should now be properly ported out.</li>
<li>Entangling Roots, Freeze, and Frost Nova should now properly break when the affected player takes damag
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Transmogrification at Wowhead: Guides and Features
Most everyone is running around Stormwind and Orgrimmar in their shiny transmogrified gear, but if you're still stumped on finding an outfit or want an even better one, we've got resources for you--from new features to extensive guides! (If you need a refresher on the specifics and restrictions of Transmogrification, check out the summary and blue post in our
4.3 Patch Day Guide
.)
A few weeks ago, we launched our first new Transmogrification feature:
Transmogrification sets
. You can read all about the feature
here
, but here's the highlights:
We compiled over 1,100 matching itemsets--sets of gear that match, even if Blizzard didn't explicitly group them together. From classic Tier sets to matching gear from Troll heroics, we've got it covered!
We labeled some sets as "Recolor" or "Look-alike." A look-alike set has the same pattern and silhouette as class-specific tier, but with either a different color scheme or no class restrictions.
We added image browsing in addition to list browsing. You can visually previe
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Dragon Soul: A Guide to Gearing up in 4.3
4.3 launched this week; it's time for another guide to gearing up in a new patch. As usual, this guide does not aim to provide a BiS set of heroic Dragon Soul gear for each class and spec; rather it analyzes the new loot in the context of current options for several different playstyles.
There's two notable new ways to acquire gear: Looking for Raid and expanded Valor Point loot tables.
Looking for Raid:
Players can now queue up as a group or by themselves to join a 25-man raid. These raids will not have a lockout and they will drop tier 13, although the stats will be lower than a normal or heroic 25-man. The LFR system operates much like the current dungeon finder and even minimizes the raid itself, splitting it in half, so players can only queue for half of an instance at a time. Players need a minimum ilvl of 372 to be eligible to queue.
Valor Points:
While players cannot purchase Tier 13 pieces with Valor Points, the vendors sell ilvl 397 items for practically every slot. Those that aren't covered by points are covered with new BoE craftables. The idea is to have Valor Point gearing become an alternative path to normal-mode gearing.
This guide covers the following types of loot:
[
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Questing in Cataclysm: The Best Quests and Rewards
With a bit of a break this holiday weekend, it's time for an old-fashioned quirky guide--this time on quests and fun quest rewards.
Around a year ago, the revamped 1-60 content was unveiled, providing players with a fresh way to complete Loremaster! While most everyone is focused on the end-game now, sadly only viewing quests as Molten Front dailies, there's many interesting quests and rewards along the way. With 4.3 on the horizon, take some time before the chaos starts up again to check out some of the following quests. From silly to serious, you'll learn a bit about Azeroth's lore and collect some unique rewards along the way.
The first table covers interesting quest chains (by no means a complete list!), organized by continent. The second table covers quirky quest rewards--gear, pets, mounts, fun trinkets, consumables, disguises, and more! (Disclaimer: mild spoilers.)
Quests
Some old favorites were removed in Cataclysm--from small chains like saving Trey Lightforge in Felwood, to epic chains like Fallen Hero of the Horde. But there's still something for everyone, whether you're interested in completing
Loremaster
or just want a fun
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Razer Synapse 2.0 Beta Sign Ups
Our friends at Razer have launched their Synapse 2.0 beta--and you can have a chance to join by signing up at
www.razerzone.com/synapse2
. Synapse 2.0 is a pretty nifty application that saves a user's custom settings in a cloud network which can be then be synced to any computer simply by logging in with the user's ID.
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Explanation of 4.3 Balance Changes, Part Two
It's a holiday for some, but Blizzard was at work releasing a new blog this morning--Ghostcrawler shared more of his thoughts on the class and balance changes in 4.3. Many classes received detailed explanations about upcoming changes--such as Holy Radiance, Mortal Strike, Fire Mage buffs, and bear form Stamina. However, rogues weren't mentioned at all--and it would have been interesting to hear more thoughts on Blizzard's concerns from the live Q&A how rogues were underrepresented in raiding and their perceived lack of utility.
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class="detail"><p>Don’t take this as an announcement that the release of patch 4.3 is imminent. While <a href="
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3608419/">we
have completed a lot of work</a>, it’s just hard to know at this stage when the patch will be ready. Nothing is set in stone until the actual patch, and even then we still have the ability to hotfix any major problems that we missed or caused.<br />
<br />
First, here is <a href="
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3615095">the
link to Part One</a> of our balance explanations. W
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Class Design & Balance Live Q&A and Transcript
Fresh from the success of the recent live Q&A about Mists of Pandaria, Blizzard hosted another
live Q&A today
at 10:45 am PST.
Today's chat was with the class design team, covering the past, present, and future of World of Warcraft classes. As with the last Q&A, we updated the transcript live and provided highlights of the chat. There were so many questions this round, with the whole class design team present, so we broke down the highlights by class to make it easier to browse!
Q+A Highlights
General:
The current 5.0 model is that there are 8 raid buffs: health, attack power, spell power, melee haste, spell haste, crit, mastery and stats.
Skeptical that there will ever be a talent build that is the perfect build for every PvE fight in the game, but players can still find an ideal set of talents for an encounter. However, there is still more room for customization than in the past.
Would like to bring level of primary stats closer to level of secondary stats.
The goal of providing resilience as a base stat is to make players who primarily do PvE content able to enter the PvP space with their PvE gear and remain compet
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PvP Season 10 Ending Soon, And Point Sellback Conversion Policy
Arena and Rated Battleground Season 10 is scheduled to end as early as November 15. At that point we will determine who is eligible for the end-of-season rewards, a process that should take approximately one week. It's very important for players who feel that they may be eligible for Arena titles and/or the Vicious Gladiator’s Twilight Drake to refrain from transferring their characters to another realm or faction until after Season 10 ends. During the break between seasons, all Rated Battleground and Arena matches will be unavailable.
At the end of the season, Conquest Points will be converted to Honor Points, possibly exceeding the 4,000 point Honor cap. All Season 10 items will cost Honor Points (equivalent to their previous Conquest Point cost) when the season ends, with the exception of any items with rating requirements attached. These items will no longer be available for purchase.
Please be aware that
higher ilvl PvP items will be introduced and available for Honor points with patch 4.3
.
The next Arena and Rated Battleground season will begin for level-85 players approximately one week after the end of Season 10 and will coincide with t
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4.3: Darkmoon Faire Preview Guide
The new Darkmoon Faire hit the PTR this morning and we couldn't wait to finally experience it after seeing all the teaser datamined items over the past few months! It's filled with quirky details, fun games, and lots of vanity items for all tastes. The Faire has been radically revamped, with new achievements, games, rewards, and currencies. We've covered it all in the guide below with numerous screenshots organized by attraction.
Highlights include:
The
replica Dungeon Tier
items we found several weeks ago made it to the PTR! This means you can transmogrify your armor into Dungeon Set 0 and .5 tier from vanilla (and without class restrictions too!). These sets had been removed in Cataclysm and were currently unobtainable on live.
Numerous new mounts and pets to purchase.
A large-scale PvP arena bloodbath.
New quests associated with mini-games as well as professions: this will grant
Darkmoon Prize Ticket
which can be used to purchase vanity items and transmogrification gear.
A petting zoo!
General Information
Faire Layout
[screensh
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Dev Watercooler - The Great Item Squish (or Not) of Pandaria
The item level and stat inflation on gear gets more and more pronounced between expansions--or even new patches. The devs wanted to touch upon this problem at BlizzCon, but ran out of time. In this Dev Watercooler, they address the problems related to stat budgets and propose several solutions. Nothing is set in stone, but the solutions are really interesting to analyze.
We've also got some minor changes to 4.3 PTR patch notes at the end of the post. Of particular note is that Tol Barad Veteran now requires 25 wins, down from 100, and Death Knight pets now properly inherit their master’s crit and spell penetration stats.
Dev Watercooler
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class="detail"><p>The lead designers were originally going to talk about this topic at BlizzCon, but it didn’t really match the content of the rest of our “Intro to Pandaria” presentation, and seeing as how we finished our 90-minute slot with 93 seconds remaining, there wouldn’t have been room for it anyway. But several of us did bring up the issue with players and media we talked to, and it even ended up in at least one FAQ, so we figured we’d go
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BlizzCon 2011 Coverage Roundup
It's been a busy week for Ashelia and myself in the wake of BlizzCon. Like our 4.3 coverage roundup a few weeks back, we wanted to organize everything related to BlizzCon in one post--because we know there's some awesome things that slipped through the cracks in your first read-through. We'll be launching a full Mists of Pandaria guide shortly (that will include even more information released outside of BlizzCon--like Thursday's Dev Q&A), but in the meantime, catch up on all the news coverage and relive the last weekend!
Oh, and while you're at it, be sure to enter our
Hallow's End WoW TCG Giveaway
--we've giving away thirty prizes, including some
Swift Shorestrider
codes. Simply comment with your favorite holiday to enter, although the judges will take a second look at creative and detailed responses!
BlizzCon 2011: Mists of Pandaria Talent Calculator, Today's Panels, and More
On Saturday, we unveiled our Mists of Pandaria
talent calculator
.
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Death Knight Tier 13 and Visual Retrospective
Adventurers will be tested like never before in 4.3 as they take on Deathwing and his minions, emerging with powerful new treasures. Please enjoy this preview of the death knight tier 13 set, as well as a visual guide to tiers 7 through 12 for
Transmogrification
purposes.
Death Knight – Necrotic Boneplate
Death Knight Tier 7-12
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Blizzard Insider #42 -- Meet the Pandaren Monk
With the launch of the next World of Warcraft® expansion, the Mists of Pandaria™ will lift to reveal the pandaren, a long-secluded race that has spent generations mastering the way of the monk -- World of Warcraft’s newest playable class.
To get an inside look at the upcoming World of Warcraft race and class options, the Blizzard Insider recently sat down with Lead Systems Designer Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street to discuss the design decisions that went into creating the pandaren monk. So read on, and be among the first to meet the brawling heroes who are, even now, secretly training within the mists.
Blizzard Insider:
How will the pandaren race differ from the other races of Azeroth? What ideas are being explored for their racial abilities?
Ghostcrawler:
Ultimately, the challenge with races is to make them feel unique without actually providing them with so much power that players feel like they don’t have a choice in which race they want to be. If tauren are the best warriors, then Horde players might feel like they are sacrificing too much in order to try out a different race or stick with a race they really like. With t
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Mists of Pandaria Live Developer Q&A and Transcript
While there's been developer chats in the past, tonight's chat is quite special--it covers Mists of Pandaria mere days after all the BlizzCon 2011 announcements. I'll be transcribing the Q&A below, after some highlights.
Q&A Highlights
Separate player hubs for both Horde and Alliance on Pandaria--will encourage world PvP.
New cap for professions is 600, no plans to add a new professions. Pet battles will be fun alternative to powerleveling professions.
Unhappy with the implementation of Prime glyphs since they are no-brainers to choose--may be removed.
Pet battles will grant XP in the same way to gathering professions--a decent perk.
Cooking will remain a secondary skill, but there will be specializations.
Valor, conquest, profession, and faction vendors will be scattered around world to encourage travel.
Possibility of increasing conquest point caps by 10-15%, for extra rewards for world pvp.
New guild levels and perks in MoP.
Expect quest hubs that change faction/control like Baradin Hold in MoP.
Players can only queue for scenarios in specific areas--goal is not to have players waiting for queues in major cities only.
You
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BlizzCon 2011: Exclusive Interview with Dave Kosak, WoW Lead Quest Designer
Saturday afternoon, I was fortunate enough to get a one-on-one interview with Dave Kosak, WoW Lead Quest Designer, before his Lore and Story Q&A. Ashelia and I brainstormed some questions together before I sat down with Dave. During the interview, I made sure to ask him about some of our favorite--and least favorite--questing experiences, as well as how they were handling phasing and truly epic questlines in Mists of Pandaria. I hope you enjoy reading the summarizes of his responses--he shared details unreleased at BlizzCon such as a potential new MoP faction, the Lorewalkers!
We were also able to attend a group Q+A with J. Allen Brack and Jay Wilson about World of Warcraft and Diablo III. We've got the all the answers under the break--some of the information was already covered in other panels, so be sure to check our full coverage for details.
Exclusive Interview with Dave Kosak
Q: It's always been a struggle to make players feel like they truly impact the world. How are you showcasing this in MoP? Do the zones progress and change depending on questlines? What about phasing?
A:One thing we always struggle with--is we have this tool, phasing, but a large problem is that it separates players easily. Phasing, as I
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Public Test Realm Patch 4.3 Notes: Dragonwrath Nerfed
There's some new PTR changes today that affect both PvP and PvE. For PvPers, it seems many classes have received buffs to abilities like
Mortal Strike
that reduce healing received on enemy targets. For raiders in Firelands,
Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest
is being nerfed--which makes sense as it's currently a 'must-have' item for every caster. In its current state, it could remain a defining weapon across later tiers and cause balancing issues, much like
Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings
was still incredible in Icecrown Citadel for Paladins.
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Orange: A Guide to all Legendary Weapons
With the buzz about the teaser information for
Fangs of the Father
, it's a good time to go back and look at the other legendaries Blizzard has implemented across expansions. Many of these weapons have similarly striking questlines and unique models--even if you can't transmogrify them, they're worth collecting. Whether you're trying to farm one of these for the looks or lore, or were the first person in your guild to receive one during progression, legendaries have a special place in everyone's heart.
We've also gone through the database to highlight removed, silly, and temporary legendaries for your amusement, as they've got some funny stories behind them too!
Equippable Legendaries
Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest
This staff is a must-have for any caster in Firelands--plus it turns you into a dragon (
Tarecgosa's Visage
)! Wowhead moderator Gnub has provided an in-depth guide to
acquiring this weapon
, but we'll give you a few of the highlights here. Players w
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Transmogrification, Part 6: A Guide to all Cloak Styles
For the most up-to-date version of this guide,
click here
for additional capes and MoP styles.
Capes are the bane of transmogrification. There's so many options, they're never designed to match specific tier, and some of them cut into your cool weapons. Although there's a "show/hide cloak" option, hiding it is the easy way out.
This past week, Ashelia and I went through over a thousand capes in the database, sorting them by similar models for a different project and we decided to make it into a guide. With this guide, you can find the perfect cape to match the removed ones from Trial of the Grand Crusader, a crafted cape that's identical to a raid epic you've never seen, a completely unique model from a quest reward, or even a blue-quality version of your favorite tattered grey cape.
The capes have loosely been categorized by Unique Designs, Patterned, Two-Tone, Solid with Border, and Faction. From there, the capes have been further categorized as medium (hip-length), long (ankle-length), and split (two rectangles ending at waist). We've provided screenshots of all the capes we own, and you can always use
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4.3 PTR Coverage Roundup
It's been a busy week on the PTR for myself and Ashelia. Every day, we find dozens of new things to write about, turning our observations into epicly-long posts. Since there are so many new things, I've provided a roundup of our 4.3 PTR coverage so far--with all the information, perhaps you missed reading something the first time around!
4.3 Preliminary Guide: 3d Models, Items, Holiday Changes, and More
In our
very first overview to 4.3
, we went through the initial 1600 datamined items to make sense of it all. Among other things, we found numerous new mounts and pets, items that hinted at changes to holidays like
Helm of the Fire Festival
, new profession recipes, and many items related to the revamped Darkmoon Faire. We also listed numerous 3d models of NPCs, models, and weapons--as well as making a video of some of the new mount animations. Finally, we listed some of the radical class changes in 4.3, placing them next to Ghostcrawler's quotes on balance for an explanation.
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