Did someone say Thunderfury?

I’ve been farming Molten Core for a couple of months now, mostly for the guild reputation achievement. I’m currently 6169/21000 with the Hydraxian Waterlords; unfortunately, I now only get reputation from bosses, and each complete Molten Core run gets me a little over 1000 reputation.

Yeah.

But a while ago, I got the first half of the Bindings of the Windseeker, which is the first half of the initial questline for Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker. Well, on Tuesday (yay for raid reset day) Baron Geddon dropped the second half! A few of our guildies were on (hi guys!) and they were excited about it, too, so we then went on a flurry of farming for thorium and arcane crystals (I already had some of the other quest pieces, including the ingots).

Through the efforts of one intrepid mage and the guild that supports his damn fool, idealistic crusades…

Legendary Nuts

Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker

We Are Legendary

Oh hey look, a neglected blog!

This blog has been fairly well neglected this summer, but fear not!  It will be coming back to life soon!

And not Blizzard’s definition of soon, I mean soon-soon. Soonish. Soonesque.

Screenshot Sunday

Shifting goals

Well hiya! I do still write here, it turns out. It’s insufferably meta to complain about why I haven’t posted, so we’ll leave it at “busy.” Luckily the other guy’s pretty verbose.

If you’ve had told me that in Cataclysm, I’d pretty much leave my mains (Akromah and Leota, remember them?) alone and focus on other alts, I’d have said you were crazy. I used to hate leveling. But Cataclysm with its new quests and retooled zones and crazy xp gains changed me completely.

But now…

My wee shaman Snerk is level 70 and hurling bolts of lightning (/shatner) through Northrend. I have been pugging dungeons with her as resto. Shaman healing – it seems pretty easy. Easy enough that I have time to DPS in between heals.

Malerenne the holy & shadow priest is 85 and pugging (as heals, yes, I’m insane) random regulars. I’m not confident enough in her mana pool yet to run heroics with strangers. I’m enjoying holy priesting, but it’s not natural to me yet. I panic, spam heals and run out of mana super fast. I keep my groups alive, but it’s sloppy. You can find her in Tol Barad doing dailies with Thaco.

Malerenne, level 85, looking creepy

Leota’s on hiatus, showing up occasionally to make cloth and do enchants. I became disgruntled with her because no matter what I did, I couldn’t get her DPS to a level that was acceptable to me. And I’ll be frank .. seeing Fizzlethorpe pull 16K-18K dps makes me jealous. I know he’s worked hard to get that awesome spec and gear. But I’m in a “I’ll never be that good on Leota even though I’ve had her for years” mood so I mothballed her. Ah, the dark side of being part of a gaming couple…

Akromah’s doing Firelands dailies with Fizzlethorpe and pugging the occasional random Cata heroic (NOT Zuls) when the healing Call to Arms pops. I haven’t had her in a raid in months and while I miss it, I’m okay with how I play her now. When raiding stopped being fun for me, I stopped raiding. I’m sure eventually I’ll get a bug to see these bosses everyone else blogs about.

And that’s the state of my WoW.

*How we do dailies deserves its own blog post.

Undeath and You: I fight you, I beat you, I eat you!

In a time long ago (better part of a decade), in a kingdom far, far away (rural west Michigan), I was part of a group of friends that gathered in a basement or a living room (depending on whose parents were housing us that night) playing Dungeons and Dragons (2nd Edition). Our main campaign lasted years, crossing through Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, and Planescape, but always returning to the Dungeon Master’s homemade world that became our fantasy home. This campaign lasted through high school and well into college; though we would dabble with other campaigns as alts, we always returned to the main campaign.

As with most D&D groups, there were certain archetypes present in the group – we had a big dumb warrior type, a backstabbing rogue (literally and figuratively), a paladin, a cleric, and the evil mage/thief (hi!). My main character was an evil wizard-type who also took a couple levels in thief to make him that much sneakier. The paladin in our group was firmly convinced that my character was only trying to increase his own power, and would sacrifice his friends to achieve those ends. The paladin ended up dying from natural causes; being incinerated by a “poorly aimed” fireball quite naturally causes death. Ah, memories.

Where was I? Oh. Right. For the purposes of our battle board, we used M&Ms to represent the various beasties: plain M&Ms represented humanoid monsters, while peanut M&Ms represented larger beasties. Our house rule was that the person that got the killing blow on a beastie got to eat the M&M that represented said beastie. That policy turned into the post-killing blow-chant of “I fight you, I beat you, I eat you!”

Several years later, I’m playing WoW, and whenever I use cannibalize on The Warlock, I chant that to myself. “I fight you, I beat you, I eat you!”

*nomnomnom*

Forgotten Mains

Our guild leader and I have, for the most part, ignored the characters that we are probably most known for: my rogue, Embalmo the Undead Clown, and Fallacy, the sappable tauren shaman.

My guild note for some time has been “engineered himself a rocking chair”, and that’s fairly accurate; Embalmo is living the life retired, enjoying his well-earned rest. But this weekend, we were joking on Vent that Embalmo and Fallacy have become the Statler and Waldorf of Orgrimmar, two cranky old farts complaining about, well, everything.

Embalmo: Thrall-damned kids, always dropping crap into the guild bank.

Fallacy: What?

Embalmo: The guild bank. They put crap in it.

Fallacy: You crapped yourself? There’s some silk cloth in my bag.

Embalmo: No, no, crap, in the guild money-storing thing. With tabs. And stuff that you put into tabs.

Fallacy: What? Crap in the guild bank? Back in my day, we didn’t crap in anybody’s bank, it just wasn’t done.

Embalmo: *tinkers with his hearing aid trinket*

Fallacy: Back in my day, we tied onions on our belts, which was the style at the time.

Embalmo: What?

Fallacy: What?

Embalmo: PANTSWEAVE! I need pantsweave pantschants!

Fallacy: *startled, casts Bloodlust*

 

 

Are You Not Entertained?

Several weeks ago, I sent our guild leader, Cosmo the Fallacy, a whisper.

“You know what we should do?”

“What?”

“We should make an arena team. Your druid, my mage. It’ll be hilarious. We can wear sombreros!”

This can't miss!

And thus started our arena team, the Training Dummies. A feral druid and a frost mage. But we’re not exactly your typical pairing; most of the time, our druid is in bear, and our mage is invis, stealthing like a rogue to the best spot for an ambush.

We’re not doing it for gear.

We’re not doing it for ratings.

We’re doing it because we’re having an absolute blast. Seriously, we’re laughing through each evening we go into the arena.

And, as we’ve continued to do it, we’ve become fairly good at it. We ended our season at 51-49. That’s right, a winning season. Our end rating was 1305, which isn’t bad, either.

We honestly didn’t expect to win all that often, and certainly not cap our points each week, but for the last several weeks, we’ve had an overall winning rating.

A few of our memorable encounters -

- We ran into two of our guildies (who both had more arena experience than we do, but were on other characters), and we stomped them. I named my pvp dagger after one of them.

- We’re a druid and a mage. Thing is, people really, really, really want to kill our druid. Our opponents will both focus on him to the exclusion of all else; I can blow every cooldown and unload, killing both of our opponents, but they’ll not turn away from the druid. It’s almost as though they get this bloodlust, “if we just stick on it….he’s almost dead…die…die…must…kill..the…druid!”

- I’m pesky. If I see a hunter, I will blink right up to him and stick on him like hunt on ard. And rogues? Want to know how to completely fluster a rogue? Blink away from them, but then hop back right next to them. They’ll spin around, confused as to why you entered melee, but at the same time spinning around because you’re not in front of them.

- The last fight of our week each week, we put on the sombreros. And, to be honest, I think we’ve only lost one or two sombrero matches.

The new arena season is upon us, but we’re going to wait a bit until the extremely devoted and geared people get in, get their rankings up, and leave our general bracket. We’re arena-ing because we’re having a good time, not to provide easy kills for people who are better at it than we are.

Training Dummies: Sometimes we’re used for practice, but sometimes dummies get trained.

Happy Summer!

Hello there! Happy Independence Day weekend from WoWwanderings!

For those of us in-game, that means the Midsummer Fire Festival is burning strong, bonfires about granting experience to alts, achievements to be had for mains and alts alike, and, well, the absolutely craptastically fail Ahune pugs, where every buttknuckle with three pieces of off-spec tanking gear ninja-looted from a main-spec tank thinks they can handle tanking.

Fizzlethorpe is going to be the character that I do What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been, so I had him out early to do the bonfires, and finished that off quite quickly. I then did it on The Warlock and The Rogue, because it’s damnably good cash, and also my lowbie druid for the experience. I also resurrected my shaman from the Nether (seriously, my characters have a heck of a time avoiding the Nether) and went through on him as well for the experience (went from just below 82 to just over 83).

Nuts for holidays!

Fizzlethorpe, finished with Midsummer, in the completed Midsummer regalia, the Brazier of Dancing Flames, and his new companion pet, Nuts the squirrel. This pet instantly became a new favorite; Nuts’ idle animation is to throw an acorn at Fizzle, giving him a dazed animation over his head. The damned squirrel attacks me! How cool is that?! Probably revenge for my gleeful participation in Critter Kill Squad….then again, if that guild achievement had been retroactive, I’d have picked it up on the first day all by myself. Squirrels are evil, and must be destroyed. Evil little bastards, what with their hoarding and their thumbs!

Um…yeah. Well, then. Erm, where was I?

Oh yes! Happy Midsummer from WoWwanderings!

4.2 Patch Notes – Rage of the Firelands

General

• Recruit-A-Friend now awards bonus experience and free level grants to level 80, up from level 60.

New Daily Quests: The Regrowth and Molten Front

• A large assortment of all-new daily quests and rewards are now available in Hyjal, where players can help the Guardians of Hyjal push back the allies of Ragnaros and establish a forward operating base in the Firelands! In order to partake in the Regrowth and Molten Front daily quests, players must have at least completed Mount Hyjal up to and including the quest Aessina’s Miracle. Once this quest has been completed, players should speak with Matoclaw in the Sanctuary of Malorne to take part in the Regrowth efforts.

New Quest Chain: Elemental Bonds

• A New quest line is now available to level-85 Horde and Alliance characters, bringing brave adventurers to Thrall’s aid. The Call of the World-Shaman, the quest which will point players toward Thrall and The Nordrassil Summit, can be obtained at the Earthshrines in Stormwind or Orgrimmar.

New Raid: The Firelands

• Located within the Elemental Plane, the Firelands is an all-new 10- and 25-player raid featuring normal and Heroic difficulties! Battle-hardened veterans of the Horde and Alliance now have an opportunity to strike at Ragnaros the Firelord and his loyal servants by venturing into their domain via Sulfuron Spire in Mount Hyjal.

New Legendary Item: Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa’s Rest

• Steadfast raiders have an opportunity to embark on a series of quests to create an all-new legendary caster staff. In order to begin the process of assembling the staff, players must first kill a Molten Lord in the Firelands, or have completed any of the achievements Bastion of Twilight, Blackwing Descent, or Throne of the Four Winds. Once any of these achievements have been unlocked, players can accept the quest A Legendary Engagement from Ziradormi in Grommash Hold in Orgrimmar, or Coridormi atop the Wizard’s Sanctum in Stormwind (players who have already completed any of these achievements are immediately eligible for this quest). Players who become eligible for the quest series by killing a Molten Lord in the Firelands will automatically receive the quest Your Time Has Come, leading them to the start of the questline. The legendary item questline is only available to druids, mages, priests, shaman, and warlocks.

New User Interface Feature: Dungeon Journal

• A host of dungeon information is now built into the user interface via the all-new Dungeon Journal. This feature can be accessed via a new button in the Navigation tray from anywhere in the world. Boss background story, encounter details, abilities, and loot can be viewed with the Dungeon Journal for all bosses which have been integrated into the new system (this includes bosses for all Cataclysm dungeons and raids). Additional dungeons are planned to be incorporated in future updates.

Achievements

• Bear-ly Made It (new achievement): Save all four prisoners before they are sacrificed in Zul’Aman on Heroic difficulty.

Classes: General

• All healing critical strikes now heal for 2 times a normal heal (+100%), up from 1.5 times a normal heal (+50%).
• Players are once again free to dance in combat (without causing graphic errors). Other animations, such as attacks, will take precedence over dancing. The dance animation will be suppressed until the higher priority animation is complete. Fun has been unnerfed.

Buffs

• All class abilities which place a buff on friendly targets no longer generate any threat. This goes for raid-wide buffs like Mark of the Wild and Power Word: Fortitude, as well as triggered effects such as Blessed Resilience or Fingers of Frost, and single-target buffs like Dark Intent and Hysteria. The exception is buffs which directly cause healing or damage, such as Thorns or Renew. Abilities such as these still generate normal threat.

Crowd Control

• Many crowd control abilities no longer cause creatures to attack players when they are cast. The creature will not attack the player when the crowd control wears off, and nearby creatures will not become hostile to the player either. However, if a visible player gets too close to the target creature, the creature will remember and attack the player when the crowd control effect wears off. The intent is to make it easier for dungeon groups to manage crowd control assignments and pulling packs of hostile NPCs. The abilities affected by this change are: Hibernate, Entangling Roots, Wyvern Sting (will still cause hostility when it begins to deal damage), Freezing Trap, Polymorph, Repentance, Shackle Undead, Blind, Hex, Bind Elemental, Banish, Seduction.

Pets

• The Aggressive pet stance has been removed and replaced with the Assist stance. This stance will cause the player’s pet to attack the player’s target. The pet will not change targets unless the master attacks a new target for a few seconds.
• The Defensive pet stance will now only cause the player’s pet to attack enemies which attack the pet or the master.

Spell Interrupts

• When interrupted while casting a single-school spell such as Mind Flay or Frostbolt, players will now be able to cast dual-school spells such as Mind Spike (Frost and Shadow schools) or Frostfire Bolt (Frost and Fire schools). However, being interrupted while casting a dual-school spell will still interrupt all respective schools as intended.

Stats

• Death knights, paladins, and warriors no longer receive any bonus to their chance to dodge from Agility. Their base chance to dodge is now a fixed 5%.
• Death knights, paladins, and warriors now receive 27% of their Strength bonuses as parry rating, up from 25%. This conversion still only applies to Strength above and beyond their base Strength.

General Class Bug Fixes

• Players should no longer incorrectly receive a message stating they interrupted a spell cast when they did not.
• Action bars will no longer briefly disappear when characters that have a stance bar enter a vehicle.

 Death Knight (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)

• Obliterate base damage has been reduced to 150% weapon damage, down from 160%.

Frost

• Hungering Cold now has a 1.5-second cast time.
• Might of the Frozen Wastes now increases two-handed weapon damage by 3/7/10%, down from 4/8/12%.

Unholy

• Unholy Might now increases Strength by 20%, up from 5%.

Glyphs

• Glyph of Dark Succor has been redesigned. Rather than placing a 15% maximum health floor on Death Strike healing while in Frost or Unholy Presence, it causes the next Death Strike within 15 seconds after killing a foe that yields experience or Honor Points to heal for at least 20% of the death knight’s maximum health (still requires Frost or Unholy Presence).

Death Knight Bug Fixes

• The talent Killing Machine can now properly be triggered from off-hand attacks as well as main-hand attacks.

 Druid (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)

• Druids now gain 1 attack power per point of Strength, down from 2. They continue to gain 2 attack power per point of Agility while in Cat Form or Bear Form. In addition, Cat Form’s scaling rate from gear upgrades was slower than other classes, which was causing them to fall behind in damage with higher item levels. To counter the Strength change and improve scaling, the following changes have been made. All numbers cited are for level-85 druids.
• Ferocious Bite damage has been increased by 15%. In addition, its base cost has been reduced to 25 energy and it can use up to 25 energy, for up to a 100% damage increase.
• Mangle (Cat) damage at level 80 and above has been increased to 540% weapon damage, up from 460%, and bonus damage has been lowered to 302.
• Rake initial damage on hit now deals the same damage as each periodic tick (and is treated the same for all combat calculations). Periodic damage now gains 14.7% of attack power per tick, up from 12.6%, and base damage per tick has been lowered from 557 to 56. There is a known issue with Rake’s tooltip being incorrect from this change will be corrected in a future patch.
• Ravage damage at level 80 and above has been increased to 950% weapon damage, up from 850%, and bonus damage has been lowered to 532.
• Savage Roar now grants 80% increased damage to melee auto attacks, up from 50%. The Glyph of Savage Roar remains an unchanged bonus of 5% to that total.
• Shred damage at level 80 and above has been increased to 540% weapon damage, up from 450%, and bonus damage has been lowered to 302.
• Entangling Roots and the equivalent spell triggered by Nature’s Grasp no longer deal damage.
• Innervate now grants an ally target 5% of his or her maximum mana over 10 seconds, but still grants 20% of the druid’s maximum mana over 10 seconds when self-cast.
• Omen of Clarity clearcasting buff from now lasts 15 seconds, up from 8 seconds.
• Starfire damage has been increased by approximately 23%.
• Swipe (Cat) now deals 600% weapon damage at level 80 or higher, down from 670%.
• Wrath damage has been increased by approximately 23%.

Balance

• Earth and Moon’s duration has been increased to 15 seconds, up from 12.
• Fungal Growth spell visual effect has been updated to be less visually intrusive and more aesthetic.
• Lunar Shower has been redesigned. When casting Moonfire, the druid gains Lunar Shower. Lunar Shower increases the direct damage done by Moonfire by 15/30/45%, and reduces the mana cost by 10/20/30%. This effect stacks up to 3 times and lasts 3 seconds. While under the effects of Lunar Shower, Moonfire generates 8 Solar Energy, and Sunfire generates 8 Lunar Energy. The amount of Lunar/Solar Energy gained does not change based on the number of points spent in the talent, or stacks of Lunar Shower. Those druids who wish to delay transition in or out of an Eclipse state should now cast the one of their two basic attacks which will not move the Eclipse bar (either Starfire or Wrath).
• Solar Beam has a new spell effect.
• Wild Mushroom: Detonate can now also trigger Earth and Moon, in addition to Starfire and Wrath.

Feral

• Bear damage abilities were scaling too fast with higher gear levels compared to other tanks, so the following balance changes have been made. All the numbers cited are for level 85 characters; numbers will be lower for lower-level characters.
• Faerie Fire (Feral) base damage has been raised to 2950, up from 679. Attack power scaling has been decreased to 10.8%, down from 15%.
• Maul base damage has been raised to 35, up from 8. Attack power scaling has been decreased to 19%, down from 26.4%.
• Pulverize weapon damage percent has been decreased to 60%, down from 80%. Damage per Lacerate application has been increased to 1623, up from 361.
• Mangle (Bear) weapon damage percent has been decreased to 190%, down from 260%. Bonus damage has been increased to 3306, down from 754.
• Swipe base damage has been increased to 929, up from 215. Attack power scaling has been decreased to 12.3%, down from 17.1%.
• Thrash initial base damage has been increased to 1042, up from 339. Initial damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 9.82%, down from 19.2%. Periodic base damage has been increased to 581, up from 189. Periodic damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 1.67%, down from 3.26%. In addition, a bug was corrected where armor decreased the periodic damage done by this ability.
• Lacerate initial base damage has been increased to 3608, up from 2089. Initial damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 5.52%, down from 7.66%. Periodic base damage has been increased to 69, up from 16. Periodic damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 0.369%, down from 0.512%.
• Natural Reaction damage reduction has been increased to 9/18%, up from 6/12%.

Restoration

• Symbiosis (Mastery) has been removed and replaced with Harmony. Harmony increases direct healing by an additional 10%, and casting direct healing spells grants an additional 10% bonus to periodic healing for 10 seconds. Each point of mastery increases each bonus by an additional 1.25%. Healing Touch, Nourish, Swiftmend, and the initial heal from Regrowth are considered direct healing spells for the purposes of this Mastery. All other healing from druid spells is considered periodic.

Glyphs

• Glyph of Berserk duration increase is now 10 seconds, up from 5.
• Glyph of Ferocious Bite has been redesigned. It now causes Ferocious Bite to heal the caster for 1% of maximum health for each 10 energy used.
• Glyph of Innervate now causes the druid to gain 10% of his or her maximum mana over 10 seconds when Innervate is used on a friendly target, in addition to Innervate’s base effect.

Set Bonuses

• The 4-piece Balance druid tier 11 PvE set bonus, Astral Alignment, now provides a total of 15% critical strike chance with 3 charges, decreasing by 5% per charge, instead of 99% decreasing by 33% per charge. This change was made because the set bonus proved so valuable it was not possible to upgrade out of the set into tier 12. To compensate, changes have been made to Starfire and Wrath (listed at the top of the druid class section).
• The 2-piece Restoration druid tier 11 PvE set bonus has been redesigned to work with the new Restoration druid mastery. Druids with this bonus now receive the bonus to Spirit while the Harmony mastery bonus to periodic healing is active.

Druid Bug Fixes

• It is no longer possible in some encounters to use Feral Charge when closer than its minimum range.

 Hunter (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)

• Multi-shot damage has been reduced. It now deals 120% weapon damage at level 80 or higher, down from 137%.
• Traps now scale with hunter stats such as hit, expertise, spell penetration and attack power as intended.

Marksmanship

• Careful Aim now grants additional critical strike chance against targets over 90% health, up from 80% health.

Survival

• Black Arrow damage done has been increased by roughly 40%.

Pets

• 10 new rare tamable beasts have been added, each of which provides a unique taming challenge. Will you be the first hunter to tame Deth’tilac, the rarest and most powerful of them all? Players will need to progress through the Hyjal Regrowth and Molten Front daily questing areas in order to unlock access to the full gamut of taming challenges.
• Intervene (Pet Tenacity) has been redesigned. The pet runs at high speed toward a group member, reducing the damage done by the next melee or ranged attack made against them equal to 50% of the pet’s total health.

 Mage (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)

• Arcane Blast damage done has been reduced by 5%.
• Pyroblast cast when Hot Streak is not active was doing slightly less damage than the Hot Streak version. Its damage has been increased so that both versions of Pyroblast now do the same amount of damage.
• Spellsteal mana cost has been increased by 100%.

Fire

• When Impact spreads Living Bomb, it will only be spread to two additional targets. The net effect is that if the mage’s most recent Living Bomb target is the same as their Impact target, that target will no longer lose the Living Bomb effect. If Living Bomb is active on multiple targets when the Impact effect is cast, Living Bomb will remain active on the most recent Living Bomb target, and will be added to two other nearby targets.

Frost

• Deep Freeze and Ring of Frost will cause diminishing returns on each other, in addition to the spells they normally share diminishing returns with.

 Paladin (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)

• Divine Light mana cost has been increased to 35% of base mana, up from 30%.
• Flash of Light mana cost has been increased to 31% of base mana, up from 27%.
• Guardian of Ancient Kings uses the new Assist pet stance functionality.
• Holy Light mana cost has been increased to 12% of base mana, up from 10%.
• Rebuke, Divine Shield and Divine Protection have new icons.
• Seal of Righteousness now can be activated by any melee ability, not just single target melee abilities. This adds Hammer of the Righteous (the physical component) and Divine Storm to the list of abilities that can activate this seal. In addition, Seal of Righteousness procs can now be critical effects.

Holy

• Beacon of Light can no longer be dispelled. In addition, it now transfers 100% of the heal from Holy Light, but still 50% of the heal from other spells.
• Denounce has been redesigned. It still reduces the mana cost of Exorcism. However, it no longer has a chance on Holy Shock of making Exorcism free and instant. Instead, it has a 50/100% chance to prevent the Exorcism target from causing critical effects for the next 6 seconds. This effect can be dispelled.
• Holy Shock mana cost has been decreased to 7% of base mana, down from 8%.
• Illuminated Healing (Mastery) has been adjusted slightly so that if a paladin refreshes an existing copy of his or her own Illuminated Healing on a target, the new absorption amount will be added into the old absorption amount and the duration will be reset. The total absorption created can never exceed 1/3 of the casting paladin’s health.
• Infusion of Light can now lower the cast time of Flash of Light by 0.75/1.5 seconds, in addition to Holy Light and Divine Light. In addition, the old Denounce spell overlay effect has been transferred to Infusion of Light since Denounce is no longer a proc.
• Speed of Light now increases movement speed when Holy Radiance or Divine Protection are cast. In addition, this talent now reduces the cooldown of Holy Radiance by 13/26/40 seconds, up from 10/20/30.
• Walk in the Light now improves Word of Glory healing by 30%, in addition to its current effects.

Protection

• Ardent Defender has a new spell effect.
• Guarded By The Light no longer interacts with Holy Shield in any way.
• Hammer of the Righteous mana cost has been lowered to 10%, down from 12% to match Crusader Strike.
• Holy Shield has been redesigned. This talent is now an activated ability off the global cooldown. It grants 20% increased block amount to a paladin’s shield blocks for 10 seconds, with a 30-second cooldown.
• Judgements of the Wise now procs on attempt rather than on strike, which means judgements that miss can still grant mana. This is to help ensure Protection paladins are not starved for mana if they aren’t capped on hit rating.

Retribution

• Inquiry of Faith now increases Inquisition duration by 66/133/200%, up from 50/100/150%.
• The Seals of Command talent now makes Seal of Righteousness hit an unlimited number of melee targets, instead of only 2 additional targets.
• Selfless Healer can no longer be dispelled and cannot be stolen via Spellsteal; and, in addition to its current effects, it lowers the cooldown of Word of Glory by 5/10 seconds.

Glyphs

• Glyph of Seal of Truth expertise bonus now also works when Seal of Righteousness is active.

 Priest (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)

• Devouring Plague damage done has been decreased by 12%.
• Mind Blast damage done has been increased by 12%.
• Shadowfiend uses the new Assist pet stance functionality.
• Shadow Word: Death damage done has been increased by 12%.
• Shadow Word: Pain damage done has been decreased by 12%.

Shadow

• Mind Flay damage done has been increased by 12%.
• Psychic Horror no longer has a forward facing requirement, making it consistent with other non-projectile-based crowd control spells.
• Sin and Punishment’s Vampiric Touch backlash fear effect no longer has diminishing returns.
• Vampiric Touch damage done has been decreased by 12%.

Priest Bug Fixes

• Players will no longer prematurely cancel a channeled spell when clicking on the Lightwell.

 Rogue (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)

• Cloak of Shadows cooldown is now 2 minutes, up from 90 seconds. In addition, Cloak of Shadows is no longer on the global cooldown.
• Combat Readiness and Cloak of Shadows now share a cooldown.
• Blind duration against enemy NPCs is now 1 minute, while the duration against players remains 8 seconds.
• Stealth now once again begins its cooldown once the rogue leaves Stealth.

Assassination

• Assassin’s Resolve damage bonus has been increased to 20%, up from 15%.
• Vile Poisons now increases poison damage by 12/24/36%, up from 7/14/20%.

Combat

• Savage Combat now increases attack power by 3/6%, up from 2/4%.
• Vitality now increases attack power by 30%, up from 25%.

Subtlety

• Elusiveness now reduces the cooldown of Cloak of Shadows by 15/30 seconds, up from 10/20, and now also reduces the cooldown of Combat Readiness by 15/30 seconds.
• Hemorrhage base damage has been increased by 40%.
• Sanguinary Vein damage to bleeding targets has been increased to 8/16%, from 5/10%.

 Shaman (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)

• Fire Nova damage has been increased by 15%.
• Lightning Shield and Water Shield can no longer be dispelled.
• Unleash Elements is now in the Nature school, and thus can no longer be used if a shaman’s Nature school has been locked out.
• Unleash Wind now deals 175% weapon damage, up from 125%.
• Water Shield has had its internal cooldown reduced to 3.5 seconds, once again matching other shields. The amount of mana restored when Water Shield procs has been reduced by 50%.

Elemental

• Call of Flame now also causes Fire Nova to add 3/6 seconds to the duration of Flame Shock auras on targets that Fire Nova damages.
• Lava Flows now grants a 30/60/90% haste buff when a Flame Shock effect is dispelled, up from 10/20/30%.
• Thunderstorm now reduces the movement speed of players it knocks back by 40% for 5 seconds.

Enhancement

• Stormstrike now deals 225% weapon damage, up from 125%.

Restoration

• Improved Water Shield has been redesigned and renamed Resurgence. When Water Shield is active, Resurgence causes critical direct heals to restore mana (Resurgence rank 2 is roughly equal to 150% of the old Improved Water Shield value when a Healing Wave or Greater Healing Wave critically hits, and scaled down accordingly for faster or multi-target spells).
• Mana Tide now grants 200% of the caster’s Spirit, down from 400%.

Glyphs

• Glyph of Unleashed Lightning (new Prime glyph) allows Lightning Bolt to be cast while moving.

Set Bonuses

• The 4-piece Elemental shaman PvP set bonus (Gladiator’s Thunderfist set) has been redesigned. It now causes Lightning Shield to generate an extra charge, rather than consuming one, when it is triggered by receiving damage, up to a maximum of 3 (9 with the Rolling Thunder talent).

 Warlock (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)

• Soul Fire is now available at level 20, down from level 54.
• Soul Harvest has a new spell effect.

Glyphs

• Glyph of Soul Swap now applies a 30-second cooldown to Soul Swap, up from 15 seconds.

Warlock Bug Fixes

• It is no longer possible to leave combat while channeling Drain Soul.

 Warrior (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)

• Overpower now has a 1.5-second cooldown and global cooldown (Taste for Blood’s Overpower cooldown has not changed).
• Recklessness and Deadly Calm can no longer be used at the same time. One cannot be used while the other is active, but using one does not put the other on its full cooldown.
• Retaliation, Recklessness and Shield Wall no longer have stance requirements.

Arms

• Two-Handed Weapon Specialization weapon damage increase has been lowered to 12%, down from 20%.

Fury

• Dual Wield Specialization weapon damage increase has been lowered to 5%, down from 10%.

Warrior Bug Fixes

• It is no longer possible in some encounters to use Charge when closer than its minimum range.

Currency
Conquest & Honor Points

• All existing Conquest Points in the Currency tab have been converted to Honor Points. Any points above the Honor Point cap must be spent within the next week before Season 10 starts. Once Season 10 begins, all Honor Points exceeding the 4,000 point cap will be converted into gold at a rate of 35 silver per point and mailed to characters.
• The minimum cap on Conquest Points earned per week from Arenas is now 1350 at 1500 or less Arena rating. The maximum cap is now 2700 at 3000 or more Arena rating. The cap continues to scale non-linearly between those two points. For comparison, during season 9 the cap ranged between 1343 and 3000.
• The game now separately tracks different Conquest Point caps for Battlegrounds and Arenas. Battleground ratings receive a bonus of 22.2% to the cap they generate, meaning the cap from Battleground rating now ranges between 1650 and 3300. Players may earn a total number of Conquest Points per week equal to the higher of these two caps, but once players have reached the cap for either Arenas or Battlegrounds, they can no longer earn Conquest Points from that source. Conquest Points from Battleground holidays only count toward the total Conquest Point cap.
  • Example: During the first week of Season 10 everyone starts with a rating below 1500. Therefore, the cap from Rated Battlegrounds will be 1650 and the cap from Arena rating will be 1350. In the first week, the character wins enough Arena matches to reach the 1350 point cap. After that point, Arena wins will no longer grant Conquest points for the week. However, the character can still earn up to 300 additional points, but can only earn those points from either Rated Battlegrounds, or from the Conquest Point bonus for holiday and/or daily random Battlegrounds. The following week the cap will be recalculated based on the character’s ratings, and it is possible Arena rating could now generate the higher cap. The second week, the character’s cap from Arena rating is 1800, and the cap from Rated Battlegrounds is 1650. The character has a total cap of 1800 Conquest points for the week. Up to 1650 points can be earned from Rated Battlegrounds, but the last 150 must come from a different source.

Valor & Justice Points

• All existing Valor Points in the Currency tab have been converted to Justice Points. Any points above the Justice Point cap will be converted into gold at a rate of 47 silver per point and mailed to characters.
• The maximum number of Valor Points which can be earned in a week from any and all applicable dungeons and raids is now 980, down from 1250.
  • The maximum number of Valor Points awarded for completing Rise of the Zandalari dungeons remains at 980.
  • The maximum number of Valor Points awarded for completing Heroic dungeons remains at 490.
  • The number of Valor Points awarded for killing a boss in the Firelands is 120 in 10-player mode, and 140 in 25-player mode.
  • The number of Valor Points awarded for killing Occu’thar in Baradin Hold is 120 in 10-player mode, and 140 in 25-player mode.
  • The number of Valor Points awarded for killing a boss on Heroic difficulty in The Bastion of Twilight, Blackwing Descent, and Throne of the Four winds is 35 in 10-player mode, and 45 in 25-player mode.

Dungeons & Raids

• Raid Profiles have been added which allow players to save the raid window user interface layout based on type of content (i.e. 10-player raids, 25-player raids, Battlegrounds, etc.) for future use.
  • Players can select PvE, PvP, specialization, and group size. Each Raid Profile type will then automatically setup going forward.
  • This feature is available for 5-player content as well when Use Raid-Style Party Frames is selected in the Interface options.
  • Raid Profiles can list groups horizontally as well as vertically.
• A Raid button has been added to the Navigation tray which will bring players straight to the Raid window in the Social pane.

Baradin Hold

• Occu’thar has broken free from his cage and presents an all-new boss challenge to players in 10- and 25-player arrangements who control Tol Barad.

The Bastion of Twilight

• The damage modifier on normal difficulty has been reduced for Arion, Elementium Monstrosity, Feludius, Ignacius, and Terrastra.
• One of each type of bound elemental in the Ascendant Council chamber has been removed.
• Bound Deluge’s Frost Whirl ability now deals 50% less damage.
• Arion
  • Chain Lightning damage and chain distance has been reduced.
• Cho’gall
  • Health, melee damage, Health of Corrupting Adherent, Depravity damage, Corrupting Crash damage, Flaming Destruction damage, and Unleashed Shadows damage have all been reduced by 20%.
  • Corrupting Crash and Depravity
  • The amount of Corruption they give has been reduced to 5, down from 10.
  • Corrupted Bite effect caused by Blood of the Old God has been reduced.
  • Damage taken from Corruption of the Old God per Corrupted Blood has been reduced from 3% per stack to 2% per stack.
  • Debilitating Beam damage has been reduced by 20%.
  • The duration of Twisted Devotion has been reduced by 25%.
• Dragon Siblings
  • Health, melee damage, Twilight Meteorite damage, Devouring Flames, Blackout damage, Unstable Twilight damage, Twilight Zone damage, Twilight Blast damage, and Fabulous Flames damage have all been reduced by 20%.
• Elementium Monstrosity
  • Electrical Instability damage has been reduced.
• Feludius
  • Damage due to being frozen while Waterlogged has been reduced.
• Halfus
  • Health, melee damage, Fireball/Fireball Barrage damage, Furious Roar damage, Scorching Breath damage, and Shadow Nova damage have all been reduced by 20%.
  • Nether Scion, Slate Dragon, Storm Rider, Time Warden, and Orphaned Emerald Whelp health has been reduced by 20%.
  • Shadow Nova base cast time has been increased.
• Ignacious
  • Rising Flames now increases damage by 3% per stack, down from 5%.
• Terrastra
  • Harden Skin now increases physical damage dealt by 20%, down from 100%.

Blackwing Descent

• Atramedes
  • Health, melee damage, modulation damage, Roaring Flame Breath damage, and Searing Flame damage have all been reduced by 20%.
  • Modulation no longer causes Sound in normal difficulty.
  • Sound given by Sonar Pulse has been reduced to 3, down from 5.
• Chimaeron
  • Health has been reduced by 20% and melee damage has been reduced by 10%.
  • Chimaeron will now only cast two caustic slimes per 30-second cycle.
  • Drakeadon Mongrel
  • Time Lapse no longer stuns.
  • Frost Burn silence is now 3 seconds.
• Dwarven Kings
  • Whirlwind no longer drops threat.
  • Execution Sentence now deals damage only.
  • Shield of Light absorption has been reduced.
• Magmaw
  • Damage and hit points have been reduced by 20%.
  • Lava Parasites have been diminished.
  • Lava Spew damage, Magma Spit damage, Massive Crash damage, and Infectious Vomit damage have all been been reduced.
  • Mangled Lifeless no longer instantly kills, and its damage has been reduced.
  • Parasitic Infection has been decreased.
• Maloriak
  • Health, damage, Aberration health/damage, Arcane Storm damage, Prime Subject damage, Flash Freeze/Shatter damage, and Scorching Blast damage have all been decreased by 20%.
  • The Aberration stacking damage buff has been decreased.
  • Prime Subjects no longer fixate, and are no longer immune to taunt effects.
• Nefarian
  • Health and melee damage has been reduced by 20%.
  • Animated Bone Warriors take 33 seconds to fall over, down from 50. In addition, fewer Animated Bone Warriors spawn.
  • Blast Nova cast time has been increased.
  • Chromatic Prototype health has been reduced by 20%.
  • Electrocute damage has been reduced by 30%.
  • Magma Stacking debuff effect has been reduced by 75%.
  • Nefarian’s Shadowblaze cast frequency cannot increase beyond 1 once every 15 seconds.
  • Onyxia health and melee damage has been reduced by 20%.
  • Shadowflame Barrage damage has been reduced by 20%.
  • Tail Lash damage has been reduced by 50%.
• Omnotron Council
  • Health, Melee damage, Electrical Discharge damage, Lightning Conductor damage, Health of Poison Bomb, Incineration Security Measure damage, and Arcane Annihilator damage have all been reduced by 20%.
  • Barrier absorb amount has been increased by 100%.
  • The cooldown on Power Conversion (Converted Power chance) has been increased.
  • Flamethrower damage has been reduced by 40%.
  • Static Shock caused by Unstable Shield damage and Poison Bomb damage has been decreased by 50%.

Deadmines

• Vanessa VanCleef (Heroic difficulty) now has a sweet, sweet voice to accompany her dialog.

Throne of the Four Winds

• Al’Akir
  • Acid Rain now stacks every 20 seconds, up from 15.
  • Electrocute now pulses every 1 second, up from 0.5.
  • Feedback duration has been increased to 30 seconds, up from 20.
  • Health, damage, and Wind Burst damage have all been reduced by 20%.
  • Lightning and Lightning Rod recast time has been increased.
  • Lightning Strike friendly chain damage has been reduced by 50%.
  • Static Shock will no longer be used on normal difficulty in phase 1 or phase 2.
• Conclave of the Four Winds
  • Rohash, Anshal, Nezir melee, Ravenous Creeper health/damage, Ravenous Creeper toxic spores damage, Hurricane damage, Sleet Storm damage, Permafrost damage , Slicing Gale, and Wind Blast damage have all been reduced by 20%.
  • Gathering Strength cast time has been increased.
  • Ice Patch slow effect is now 5% per stack, up to 10 stacks, down from 10% per stack, up to 30 stacks, and damage has been reduced by 20%.
  • Wind Chill damage has been decreased by 20% and now increases damage taken by 5% per stack.

Zul’Gurub

• All cauldron buffs are now usable while mounted.
• High Priestess Kilnara’s death now turns off the flaming tiki mask gauntlet.
• High Priest Venoxis’s death now removes the poison from the plants at the start of the dungeon.

Dungeon & Raid Bug Fixes

• Bosses are now immune to the shrinking effect from Gnomish Shrink Ray.
• The achievement Aberrant Behavior should no longer incorrectly reset its kill tracking during the Maloriak encounter in Blackwing Descent.
• Anshal’s Soothing Breeze should no longer cause combat pets to behave erratically in Throne of the Four Winds.
• Raid Marker icons are now visible in all phases of boss encounters.

Guilds

• Guild Finder
  • Long comments will now work and not be cut off in the display.
• The daily guild experience cap has been increased by 25%.
• The weekly guild reputation cap has been increased by 25%.
• The guild experience cap is now removed at level 20, down from level 23.
• The Reins of the Dark Phoenix, purchased from the Guild Vendor, has had its art improved. It’s now less transparent and indisputably more awesome.

Items

• If a player wins a Need roll under the Need Before Greed system on a Bind on Equip item, the item will become Soulbound to that player. The item will remain unbound if won via a Greed roll.
• Applicable tier 11 items now cost Justice Points.
• Darkmoon Card: Hurricane damage done when triggered has been increased by 40%, however, it can no longer deal critical strikes and no longer receives any modifiers to its damage from the equipping player.
• The Keyring bag slot has been removed to make room in the user interface for new features.
  • Keys which no longer serve a purpose in the game will be removed from player inventories. Compensation for the keys will be automatically provided in the form of each key’s vendor sell price in gold.
  • Keys which are obsolete quest items will be removed from player inventories.
  • Keys which may still be of use to players will be transferred to regular inventory space. If a player’s bags are full, these keys will sit in a backlogged inventory until sufficient space is made available. Once space is opened, the keys will appear in regular inventory upon the player logging out or switching zones.

PvP Items & Rewards

• Applicable Season 9 items now cost Honor Points.
• Gladiator Weapons
  • Season 10 Conquest Point weapons will only be purchasable once a required minimum sum of Conquest Points has been reached during the current season. For example, Ruthless Gladiator’s Pike costs 3400 Conquest Points to purchase. However, players must first earn a total of 7800 Conquest Points during Season 10 before they are able to purchase it.
  • Season 9 Honor Point weapons will only be purchasable once a required minimum sum of Honor Points has been reached during the current season. For example, Vicious Gladiator’s Pike costs 3400 Honor Points to purchase. However, players must first earn a total of 7250 Honor Points during Season 10 before they are able to purchase it.
  • Once the minimum sum of points required to purchase weapons is reached, all available weapons can be purchased for their listed costs. The point requirement is not reset once a purchase is made.
  • Weapon tooltips from the vendor will let players know how many more Conquest or Honor Points must be earned in the current season before the item can be purchased.
• Rated Battleground Rewards
  • New PvP ground mounts, the Vicious War Wolf (Horde) and Vicious War Steed (Alliance), will be awarded to players for completing achievements to win 75, 150, and 300 Rated Battlegrounds respectively, rather than for being in the top .5% of the ladder at the end of each season as with Arenas. This award system is to better compliment the spirit of Battlegrounds. One account-bound mount will be awarded for each achievement unlocked, allowing players who obtain 150 and 300 Rated Battleground wins to earn this mount a second and third time. The additional mounts earned can then be sent to alt characters, given they’re account-bound. These mounts are awarded as soon as an associated achievement is unlocked and do not correspond with end-of-season rewards.
• Set Bonuses
  • The 2-piece resilience bonus from Cataclysm PvP sets no longer stacks. If a player wears 2 pieces each from 2 different Cataclysm sets, the player will only receive the 400 resilience rating bonus once. This change does not apply to PvP sets from prior expansions.

Professions
Engineering

• D.E.H.T.A. has recently placed a great number of critters under their protection, especially rabbits and squirrels. Because of this, Flintlocke’s Woodchucker has been re-fitted to use wild chickens until an “agreement” can be reached.

Skinning

• Players can no longer skin corpses already being actively skinned or looted by other players.

PvP
Arenas

• The individual Matchmaking Rating column has been removed from the Arena scoreboard.
• The Ring of Valor has been added to the Arena rotation once again. Players no longer start the match on elevators at the center of the map. They now begin the match in starting rooms on opposite sides of the Arena.

Battlegrounds

• The individual Matchmaking Rating column has been removed from the Rated Battleground scoreboard and replaced with a team Matchmaking Rating.
• Eye of the Storm has been added into the rotation as a 10-man Rated Battleground. The tug-of-war style capture points have been replaced with Arathi Basin style capture points to better support 10v10 competition. This change applies only to Rated Battlegrounds. Eye of the Storm is otherwise still a 15-player Battleground with tug-of-war style capture points.
• Warsong Gulch has been added back into the Rated Battleground rotation.

War Games

• Many improvements have been made to the War Games interface. It now has its own panel for ease of use and raid/group leaders are the only ones who can challenge another group to War Games.

Quests & Creatures

• There are no longer oddities in the critical strike and dodge chance of lower-level creatures.
• Creatures will now display smooth energy regeneration for players.

Races

• All character races now have a /roar sound.

User Interface

• The Interface Options screens have changed size to match the Video and Audio screens. This allows for a larger Compact Unit Frames Profiles panel.
• Addons will no longer be able to intelligently swap items by working with the built-in Equipment Manager.
• The order in which characters are listed at the Character Selection screen can now be rearranged and saved.
• The cast bar can now be moved to display below the Character frame.
• Character talent specializations can now be viewed on mouseover of the Battlegrounds Scoreboard.
• There is now a Dismiss Pet option on unit frames.
• The durability character display will now show items as yellow when they are below 20% durability, instead of when items have 5 durability or less.
• The Macros window and Spellbook can now both be open at the same time to allow for more intuitive macro creation. In addition, the Macros window has a Save/Cancel button.
• It is now easier to change the language of the game client to any language available in the region.
• A target or focus target can be selected within the mini-map tracking (does not include enemy players).
• Vendors now display currency types they use.

Technical

• The Blizzard Launcher now utilizes Universal Plug and Play for port configuration. If your router supports UPnP it will automatically open the ports that it requires and your downloads will be unrestricted.

Happy Father’s Day!

Happy Father’s Day to you gaming dads out there; if you’re not a dad, give yours a call, because he remembers what you need to apologize for, even if you don’t.

As with last year, I thought I’d do a mention of an in-game dad. This year’s focus is once again on someone we don’t think of as a father, but whose family is essential to who and what he is today. A paladin, a knight, a betrayer, an annoying quest giver in the ass-crack of nowhere, and the man who led the crusade against the Lich King: Tirion Fordring, leader of the Argent Crusade, was also a husband and a father.

Like most of the lore characters in WoW, Tirion’s life has been, well, pretty darned crappy. He joined the Knights of the Silver Hand, a paladin fighting against the Horde. He later sacrificed his titles and position to defend both his honor and an orc. He later tried to reclaim his relationship with his son, who admittedly made a few poor choices of his own. And, as with a great many things in our World of Warcraft, that reunion ended in tragedy.

 

So, whether your dad is swinging a holy sword against the undead Scourge, or dual-wielding tongs and a beer while working the grill, wish him a happy Father’s Day.