Posted on August 31st, 2009 by admin
Welcome to Lichborne, the Death Knight column that dares ask the hard-hitting questions of Blizzard. Questions such as: Can I make a Worgen Death Knight now? Pretty please with sugar on top?
We’ve now had about a week and a half to digest all the new information from BlizzCon about the Cataclysm, and while it’s not a complete picture of what we can expect from the expansion, there’s enough information now that we can make some pretty good educated guesses about the direction of the game and the new theorycraft of being a Death Knight. Let’s take a look at we can learn from the latest information.
New Races
The new races definitely have some pretty awesome racials. The Worgen’s plus damage racial will make them a very solid choice for a DPS Death Knight, and the sprint will be excellent for closing distance in PvP, especially when paired with Lichborne or Icebound Fortitude to avoid CC. Even the skinning racial will be nice for a leveling Death Knight who decides to take some time out to level the money making gathering tradeskills.
Goblins are definitely going to be a nice little convenient race, with low buy and sell prices and a free bit of banking. Combat-wise, the Rocket Boots should be nice for closing distances or running away.
As far as
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Posted on August 24th, 2009 by admin
We’ve got a special treat for you on this week’s podcast: it’s actually two episodes in one. Since we were all at BlizzCon this past weekend, we went ahead and recorded a podcast both nights of the con — after the show, tired as we were, we trudged back to the hotel and recorded some audio reflecting on what we’d seen earlier in the day. Obviously, this is our very first of the first impressions — some of the things we talked about Friday night were clarified on Saturday, and since we didn’t have much time here, we obviously hit on only the biggest highlights. But we did get in some good discussion about Cataclysm and what we’ve been told so far, Icecrown and what the devs mentioned, and of course the convention itself and what we all saw on the floor.
It was actually a lot of fun to sit down and do the show with us all in the same room — of course it’s not usually possible, given that we’re all in different places around the country (and world), but it was definitely an interesting thing to try while we were all at the con. And while we’re talking about the con, a huge thank you to everyone who came up to us and said how much they loved the podcast — we really, really appreciate hearing stuff like
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Posted on August 17th, 2009 by admin
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a new WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related. Ever wondered what were the hardest fights to heal in the game? Based solely on my opinion and experience, here’s a list counting down from number 10 to number 6.
Different raid bosses had different ways to challenge healers. Tanks and DPS players had to worry about their own position, damage output, threat, and other abilities. Healers were focused more on keeping the rest of the raid alive through varying levels of damage and attacks.
This is a multi-part article where I take a look at some of the most tear inducing raid bosses that the game has to offer. This week features number 10 to number 6!
Number 10: Buru
The first fight we’ll take a look at comes out of the Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj. It’s better known as AQ20. You can find Buru in the Hatchery portion of AQ20 near a mini-lake of sorts. Buru was responsible for overseeing the hatching of the Silithid armies. He was one of the bosses you could you could get to after taking down General Rajaxx.
Fight synopsis
Buru was practically immune to damage. The only way he could be hit was
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Posted on August 13th, 2009 by admin
Two Bosses Enter … but only One Boss Leaves, in WoW.com’s series of fantasy death matches. Welcome to Round Two of the five-man Wrath of the Lich King season. Grab a seat, and let’s get ready to rumble!
Prince Taldaram claimed he would drink no blood before his time – and thus, he ran dry in last week’s Thunderdome matchup with Chrono-Lord Epoch. The Chrono-Lord held off the Prince by a margin of nearly 10% of the popular vote, and pulling out a victory that could truly be characterized as “just in time.”
Clydtsdk-Rivendare called the fight: Five words to stop you: Can’t do that while stunned.
In all seriousness, it depends. If this were in game, Taldaram would have a massive edge, what with the life drain. However, in theory, CLE is able to travel in time; thus, if he makes a mistake in combat, he could correct it.
Lemme give a short roundup.
CLE and PT engage in combat. CLE smacks around PT pretty good for awhile, when PT Vanishes and starts sucking blood. CLE is stunned for 20 seconds while PT does major damage and healing. CLE continues smacking PT around, and PT Vanish/heals again. CLE tries a Time Stop, but since PT is invisible it’s pointless. CLE realizes he can’t stop PT’s onslaught, so he reverses time
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Posted on August 10th, 2009 by admin
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com’s daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today.
So welcome back to a full week of The Queue folk, and indeed this week will be a full one for The Queue. As Alex and I have mentioned before, when patches roll around and other big things come up our availability to spend a couple hours writing The Queue and The Daily Quest diminishes significantly. But this week nothing is on the radar, so here we are.
Next week though, The Queue and The Daily Quest will only appear Monday and Tuesday; unless something unexpected happens. We have to prepare for BlizzCon and actually spend a few hours away from our computers packing and all that. But this week? We’re all Queue’d off and roaring to go.
Milesdfreeman asked…
“Do we know anything about Patch 3.3 yet? What raids if any will it have? New features?”
We know patch 3.3 is going to contain the Ice Crown Citadel instance. We know that it’ll be the last planned major content patch of Wrath of the Lich King. We know that it’ll probably contain a light amount of class changes.
We don’t know when it’ll be. Most people who follow Blizzard closely agree that
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Posted on August 7th, 2009 by admin
Our resident Holy Priest guru tackled the healy bits of the Priest Q&A recently, and I’ve been mulling over the various Shadow commentary in the meantime. Going into the Q&A being fully aware that it wasn’t intended to be a list of changes coming to the class, and more a look into the current design around the classes, I honestly wasn’t too disappointed with the Shadow items. It’s a case where, with a few exceptions, I think Ghostcrawler (and the other developers) actually know what’s going on with the spec quite well. You can try and call me out on that, but hey. It’s the truth. As far as Shadow was concerned, it wasn’t too far off.
The general spec overview at the beginning of the Q&A was pretty spot on. It’s easy for us to get momentum in PvE and lay down the damage, but the nature of PvP/arena doesn’t really let us do that. Our long buildup time is harsh. We don’t lend ourselves well to stop-and-go. We’re pretty much all about the ‘go’ and a little bit of ’stop’ sets us back to where we started. There’s really no picking up where you left off. If the opposing team locks you down for a little too long, you pretty much need to start over. Your offensive momentum is
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Posted on August 4th, 2009 by admin
The class Q&A series continues with Rogue, the stabbiest class. Look for a more complete analysis later; for now, here’s a quick summary, with the full Q&A after the cut. Priest is now the only class left, but don’t despair, my clerical friends – I’m sure they saved the best for last. I hope.
Rogues are for DPS. Historically, they have been “selfish” – little group utility. Right now they have better utility and synergy.
They’ve always been strong in PvP, because of stealth, stun, and burst.
The devs are happy with the way the combo point/finisher system is working right now.
A proposed solution for Vanish! “…Vanish puts you in stealth for 1 second minimum no matter what else happens.”
Hunger for Blood is meant to boost PvE damage without doing much for PvP, and as such it works, but is boring. Changes are in store for the long run. They want it to be more reactive, and also put it back into PvP.
They would like to make Subtlety competitive in PvE, but if they make it too good players will all switch to it because of the utility. Long-term, some Sub utility might become core, or some damage from other trees might become core so the choice is utility vs utility (not utility vs damage).
Rogues underperform in
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