When asked the question of whether BTPNTC applies to PvP, as well, Ghostcrawler had a succinct answer: “we’re not sure.” He explains that the immediate concern is to make all specs equally viable in PvP (read: Arenas), with particular focus on the class specs that have historically been underrepresented. I can tell you right off that that they probably overcompensated with Survival Hunters. With such limited numbers — twos, threes, and fives — it’s quite unreasonable to think that just any combination of classes and specs will work the same way they do in PvE.

That said, some effects are somewhat ‘mandatory’ in PvP the way Replenishment is for PvE. For most of the first four seasons, this was the Mortal Strike effect. It was so critical to PvP that the effect was tagged on to Aimed Shot as one of the ways to improve Hunter desirability in Arenas. A current variant of this is the HoT-removal of Death Knights or the HoT-reducing effect of a Warlock’s Shadow Embrace. With healers being key to the success of many Arena teams, particularly on the pro level where quick burst simply no longer happens, there needs to be a way to balance things out. In Arenas, particularly, some compositions are simply more viable and synergistic than others. Take the incredible cohesion of Rogue-Mage-Priest, which continues to be a powerful comp even in Level 80 Arena play (as seen in the current ESL tournament).

Blizzard seems to be on the right track about prioritizing spec viability, with the ‘make tanking more fun’ philosophy that resulted in higher tank DPS also having the happy side effect of tanks becoming more viable than ever in PvP. It will be a slow and understandably unending process, but the developers obviously know what abilities or effects will make specs viable in PvP and Arena teams.

Ghostcrawler says that one of the coolest parts of Arena play is “building comps with certain synergies”. Ironically, that’s probably also one of the most uncool things about it. Certain compositions are naturally synergistic and strong that playing outside of the box or cookie-cutter Arena specs (as far as cookie cutter in PvP goes, anyway) actually gimps some classes and players. Some classes are just so strong that some pro players reroll and never look back (i.e., Serennia rerolling a Death Knight) while other pro players just give up (e.g. Korean team withdrawing because of Death Knights).

Class and spec parity is most assuredly a top priority, but the Arena format will never, ever be as class or spec-friendly as traditional PvE content. Arena play demands greater synergy within teams than a dungeon ever will. Ghostcrawler says, “I’m not sure it would be a good design goal to say almost any 2, 3 or 5 classes can form a good team together.” Although he mentions in passing that some teams have no healers, it should be noted that in 3v3 — the money bracket which pro tournaments focus on — there are no successful pure DPS teams. This means that some classes will continue to be more in demand than others simply as a consequence of the format.

There are currently four factions that you can champion in the game, and all of the tabards for each are available at Friendly. So you’ll need at least friendly with all of the factions — Wyrmrest Accord, Knights of the Ebon Blade, Kirin Tor, and the Argent Crusade — before you go around to pick them all up. Getting there isn’t hard at all — if you’ve leveled by questing, you should have built up the necessary reputation (the one exception in my case is the Knights of the Ebon Blade — I’m neutral right now, but I haven’t really done any questing in Icecrown yet at all).how to go about getting each of the champion dungeon tabards available at level 80, and since I’m about to hit level 80 (hopefully will be doing it tonight), I figured I’d do the work so the rest of you don’t have to.

Wearing these tabards will give you faction reputation for whatever tabard you’re wearing in the endgame 5mans, so instead of running Steam Vaults over and over and over for Cenarion Expedition rep (oh man am I tired of that grind), you can just put on one of these, and then run whatever instances you want.

Read the rest of this entry »

I admit that what first drew me there was greed. I heard that it was the richest source of mining nodes for the faction that controls it (as well as Eternal drops.) I was only level 73 when I first zoned in and knew I was going to get pwned by all the level 80 running amok, but to my surprise there turns out to be a feature that levels the playing field: siege vehicles. I’ve never been a fan of PvP. I have neither the twitch skills nor the patience to put up with being repeatedly ganked. I tried Battlegrounds and Arena, even some Burning Crusade world PvP, but the result is always the same: after getting a free ticket back to the graveyard courtesy of some Rogue that comes out of nowhere or a Warlock with their mez/fear/dot triple whammy I was done. Then came Lake Wintergrasp.

Now, when I log on, the first thing I do is check how long until the next Wintergrasp battle starts (two and a half hours after the last one ends). For those who haven’t tried any kind of WoW PvP I recommend trying your hand at piloting a Demolisher in Wintergrasp at least once. You may find yourself enjoying the game in a whole new way. Read the rest of this entry »

When you get to level 80 on your own way, good talents to pick up include the other two ranks of Arcane Mind, because intellect raises DPS for this spec,Don’t despair! There’s still time for you to cultivate a nice, wet, contagious-sounding cough, something that can only be cured by a bit of time off, spent nursing yourself back to health in front of your computer, killing zombified murlocs and getting sea-lions to mate with each other. Not that we don’t want you here, of course. But holy crap, Wrath of the Lich King is awesome. and then we’d go for Ice Floes to lower the cooldown on Frost Nova and Ice Block, Incineration to make Arcane Blast and Fire Blast slightly more useful, and then two points are left over for Improved Counterspell, which should probably have been taken earlier if you intend to do any PvP on the way to 80, apparently an expansion came out, or something? Seriously, what are you doing here, reading this? We’re going to assume that you’re trapped at work or something. 
   As we all know, leveling builds are wholly different animal. While leveling, your main goal is functionality. You still need DPS talents and you still need survivability talents, but while leveling you need a healthy mix of both, including some talents that don’t quite fit into either category. Read the rest of this entry »

What can I buy with Honor points?
Cool stuff! No, really. Honor points can be used to buy rare or epic item rewards from vendors in Stormwind and Orgrimmar. Naturally, most of these item rewards are PvP-oriented, which means a lot of the item points are spent towards Resilience. You won’t need Resilience for your heroic runs or raids, but sometimes the items are good enough for you to get until you get a better item from PvE.

Hateful Gladiator non-set items, for example, are Level 80 epic gear that are purchaseable purely with Honor points and don’t require any Arena ratings. This means that any Level 80 player with enough Honor can buy them. PvP items are made for PvP, so generally they will be loaded with Stamina and Resilience, which won’t be terribly useful to you in instances. Even tanks will be better served by dungeon drops with the proper mitigation stats. Aside from non-set items, Honor points can be used to purchase complete sets of the rare Savage Gladiator PvP gear and as partial currency for epic Hateful Gladiator gear.

If you’re not going to use the items for PvE, there are Jewelcrafting recipes available for the low cost of 1,250 Honor points. That’s like one Honorable Kill above the Honor you gain from a Wintergrasp daily quest. Most of the designs are PvP-oriented, of course, with many of them containing Resilience. Some have odd combinations that might appeal to a few players, like Shattered Dark Jade, which has Haste and Spell Penetration. You can also buy Star’s Sorrow, the only Level 75 water that’s usable in Arenas. Read the rest of this entry »

Ghostcrawler acknowledges that there may be such a shortage on the forums, and he gives two reasons: first, lots of people are still working their way up to level 80, and the majority of healers may still be leveling through Northrend. And second, they’ve beefed up and changed a lot of DPS builds lately, so many pre-Wrath healers may have respecced DPS to try it or to level a bit, and haven’t gone back yet.The Tank Shortage is a topic that’s come up a few times before, though thankfully, since the release of Wrath, Death Knights have more or less solved the situation. But the issue facing us now is just as dire: a Healer Shortage.

We’re very curious to see what changes Blizzard might have in mind for healing — we discussed quite a few on the healer podcast a while back, including making healing spells a little less attention-intensive, and giving healers some UI ways to keep their eyes on the fight rather than their party members. And of course, if the rumors are true, we’ll hopefully have a new healer Hero class to come and fill in the blanks. GC says this isn’t a matter of tweaking things in one patch, so we are definitely a few patches away, but there is hope for healers on the horizon. Read the rest of this entry »

Does any of this mean anything? Probably not — while it’s certainly an achievement for these guys, the old bosses will only get easier as time goes on (until, of course, Blizzard decides to break out some Heroic versions of these instances), and the once-feared Onyxia will only become more and more of a punching bag. Grats to everyone who’s been able to solo the old lady of raiding, but at this point, if a Disc Priest can do it, anyone can.First we had a Druid do it, then a Pally, and then after Wrath Hunters and Death Knights got into the mix, and now it seems anybody with a pulse and a level 80 can solo the old 40-man boss Onyxia.

Here’s video of an Elemental Shaman taking the dragon down (Skitlash of the guild Unrelenting on Aman’thul), and we’ve even heard of a Disc Priest doing the deed (I believe that way back, when the Druid first downed Ony solo, a Priest, we thought on the podcast, was the least likely class to do it).

Lindelan

But have we gone too far the other way? Does all of the gear look the same now? Personally, I just miss my Hunter’s mail kilt from the Argent Dawn world event rewards, but I think the gear has been much better looking in Northrend. I’m just happy none of it is pink, so if I have to choose between dark blue or straight black, that’s a choice I’m happy to make. What do you think?This is an interesting issue — Blizzard got some flak in Outland for the gear being a bit too colorful.

 ”Clown” was a word that was used pretty often, thanks to all the glowing and neon extras that came on our gear last expansion. And in Northrend, we fortunately haven’t had that problem: the gear looks a little more badass, made up of dark steel and leather with pointy and ragged spikes on it. Read the rest of this entry »

What you won’t see here is Dual Specs. They are scheduled for Patch 3.1. Patch 3.0.8 is on the horizon and there are a lot of interesting changes coming our way. Although this info is currently on the PTR (or Public Test Realm for those of you not into acronyms), this does not mean that it is final.

A lot of things could change before this patch goes live, but as things stand, here is a list of changes to be ready for.Leveling will become even more convenient, some fundamental gameplay changes are being made and classes are being adjusted… again. While these changes affect everyone, I’ll be going over the ones that will particularly matter to those of us with limited playtime.

More graveyards, faster death travel

Hardcore players are already decking out their level 80 in purples, but many more casual players are still leveling up mains and alts in the old world. (I certainly am.) With 60 new graveyards being added to both of the old continents, dying will become much less inconvenient. And as if that weren’t enough, everyone’s runspeed while dead has been increased. So gank away griefers! I’ll just run back and blink away before your emote macro has completed. Read the rest of this entry »

This week, Tailoring is up for discussion. There are faction recipes and dropped recipes, as well as highlights from your trainer that you won’t want to miss. Wrath of the Lich King has changed many things about the professions we all know and sometimes love. Last week, Insider Trader looked at the highlights of the Leatherworking and Blacksmithing professions, showing you what’s new, how to plan out level 80, and what you can look forward to at what points. Here is a quick summary:

Some professions have special vendors that will sell you recipes in exchange for items that you receive while crafting. Enchanters, for example, can learn new enchants by handing over Dream Shards. Fortunately or unfortunately, Tailors currently have no such resource. New and improved exclusive spellthreads for enchanting your pants. A 20-slot bag and a 22-slot bag. A slow flying carpet mount as well as an epic one. Specialty cloth for epic gear. Frost resistance gear. An 8-piece PvP pseudo-set. Exclusive cloak enchants. Special threads that you can sell for a profit. Soul shard and enchanting bags with 32 slots. Tailoring Read the rest of this entry »