An unidentified reader wrote to WoW Insider explaning that while he is in a raiding guild, his life schedule does not allow him to raid. He feels he’s being left behind as groups ask for higher DPS.
What practical advice is there for progressing in the game while being a player with RL obligations?
First off, [...]
MIMIRON
Mimiron is…kind of complicated to describe. Suffice it to say that it’s a four-phase fight with different abilities to worry about on each phase. Short of writing a 3,000-word tract on Mimiron alone, I’m simply going to refer you here and here, and we’ll proceed under the assumption that you have a basic familiarity with [...]
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting Druids and those who group with them. This week, as other people continue their march through Ulduar, I continue to ask myself if it wouldn’t be more cost-effective in the long run just to take my ailing graphics card out behind the woodshed and end its pathetic misery [...]
With Ulduar due to hit in the near future, Tales of a Priest addressed a pretty timely subject for 25-man raiders yesterday with a blog post on Val’anyr and how you’re going to assign it. As it’s a constructed Legendary like Atiesh rather than being a dropped item like the Warglaives and Thori’dal (sudden thought: [...]
Earlier today Blizzard posted a preview of Ulduar, the tier 8 raid coming up in patch 3.1 (which they promise will be on the PTRs “very soon”). Most of it looks really cool – 14 bosses, massive rooms, hard modes. However, there is one topic that Blizzard enthused about that really worries me: vehicle combat.
We’ve [...]
I mentioned it the last time, but more than ever, it’s a good time to be a Paladin. We’re not perfect yet, and indeed the class needs a little more tweaking, but it’s incredibly playable right now and is a lot of fun. We’ve always had traditional roles of tanking and healing for Paladins, but [...]
Each week Arcane Brilliance drops at a 100% rate from your computer screen. It can be equipped in any slot, and doesn’t bind to your character in any way, shape or form. It can be disenchanted into whatever you want, and sells to merchants for a million gold. It is of legendary quality. When equipped, [...]
Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, ZA or Sunwell Plateau, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. This week, we’re heading to Sapphiron and Kel’Thuzad to visit a few old friends, complete Naxxramas, and wonder to ourselves why everyone on [...]
Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, ZA or Sunwell Plateau, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. This week, we unwisely decide to give the column to Allison “Oops, I forgot my frost resist” Robert. Not that you actually need [...]
Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of PlusHeal, a new healing community for all restorative classes. Today Matticus looks at the upcoming 3.08 patch.
I thought we’d be getting the 3.0.8 patch [...]
Each year, Arcane Brilliance cooks up 52 columns about Mages, each one roasted at precisely the right temperature for precisely the right amount of time (usually a couple hours on Saturday morning over a soggy bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, to be honest). As we arrive at the 52nd week of 2008, Arcane Brilliance would [...]
For our Wrath Dailies series thus far, we’ve been trying to do them in groups. For example, we did the Kalu’ak dailies first, and now Adam is going through the Cooking dailies. I’ve decided to jump out of order for this one, because it’s actually somewhat important beyond just another daily quest. This quest is [...]
Well, I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but I’m certainly having fun playing my death knight. I can solo a lot of the more difficult quests in the game; my Blood self-healing along with my glyphed Death Strike keeps me topped off and out of danger almost all the time; and I [...]
Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, ZA or Sunwell Plateau, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. This week, we continue exploring Naxxramas by venturing into the territory of plague beasties.
Continuing our journey through the halls of Naxxramas, which began [...]
That’s right, Atlasloot Enhanced has been updated to include the Northrend instances and raid. Personally, I’ve been waiting to be able to browse and try-on the gear from the new dungeons and raids since the expansion launched.
Atlasloot Enhanced is absolutely one of my must-have addons, and I’ve watched it grow with loving admiration since the [...]
Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of PlusHeal, a new healing community for all restorative classes. This week Matticus is finishing off the 60 – 70 aspect of Priest leveling!
Welcome to [...]
It’s a little silly, we admit, to say “every time an expansion patch comes around,” because this is really only the second time it’s happened, but every time an expansion patch comes around, guild action slows down a bit, and as a result, this week (and probably the next few weeks) will find Guildwatch poking [...]
“Ask a Beta Tester” took a short break during patch 3.02 madness, but we’re back!
DM7000 asks…
What happened with the glyphs that turned (Druids) into a polar bear or a lynx?
This is a question I asked constantly in the beta for about a week. As much as I was excited about the talent changes and new [...]
Karazhan isn’t exactly cutting edge content. It’s had a few nerfs in its time. That being said, walking into Medivh’s home-away-from-evil with a collection of random alts, sightseers, and new-to-raiders can sometimes prove interesting. And by interesting, I mean “repair bill” and “love of all that’s Holy, just kill the dang flares!”
Last night was one [...]
Haven’t done a Mace in a while, and there are surprisingly few melee maces floating around nowadays. Since Shamans can’t wield swords, most of the really high end maces have spellpower on them. But here’s one that’s meant for cracking heads.
Name: Swiftsteel Bludgeon (Wowhead, Thottbot, WoWDigger)
Type: Epic One-hand Mace
Damage/Speed: 105-196 / 1.50 (100.3 DPS)
Abilities:
Improves hit [...]
Ah, the glyph section. This is where things start to get a little hairy, because the bulk of arguing about the right balance DPS rotation hinges a lot on the glyphs you’ve got equipped and the type of fight you’re doing. But first, some of what I think are going to be less important glyphs [...]
New talents available in the Balance tree:
Genesis: This will affect three Balance spells (Insect Swarm, Moonfire, and Starfall), but it’s another prime candidate for a restokin, as most of a Restoration Druid’s healing power still lies in HoT’s. The vast majority of your firepower as a moonkin is still going to come from a rotation [...]
Every Tuesday, or possibly Thursday when the writer realizes that nobody writing about moonkin DPS on the internet agrees with each other, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week Allison Robert, having Hibernated John Patricelli and run away as fast as her laser-chicken legs will carry her, examines [...]