General discussion will be allowed in specific, Blizzard-sponsored threads to keep the forums clean. The PTR is a critical phase of testing for our product, and Blizzard greatly appreciates our fans’ participation and enthusiasm for quality. This forum is much more heavily moderated than other forums such that the fate of every thread is to be deleted or locked, except with discussion threads. Threads that are locked have been noted and are made available to other players to search for their issues.

Last news from Maaven, we know that the PTR forums are finally being updated to reflect the current 3.0.8 PTR, and Maaven has posted a number of threads. This particular thread is quite long and spans multiple posts, so head to it if you want to read the entire thing. The purpose of this forum is primarily to collect issue reports on the latest version of the game that is running on our Public Test Realms. Additionally, well-constructed feedback is also allowed. And the below is the new build 9386:

Deathknight (Skills / Talents / Glyphs) Read the rest of this entry »

Previously the achievement required getting a total of 100 vanity pets, however that total has now been lowered to 75. That is much more accessible for people to achieve, and really requires just a little bit of farming and AH watching. Definitely within the grasp of more people than when it was 100, which would have required more-or-less getting your hands on some super rare pets and/or ebayed TCG loot cards (a subject which some feel is borderline ethical).

Click on the above image to get a better view of the fawn, and start collecting now!

I plan on taking him for a walk through Elwynn Forest when I get him.

In patch 3.0.8 there is a new achievement call the Lil’ Game Hunter, which you get upon collecting a very large number of pets. The achievement gets you the pet pictured above, a little fawn. He’s cute, and hopefully won’t stop in his tracks when he sees my motorcycle’s headlight.

Just like other Battlegrounds, organization goes a long way. Unlike other Battlegrounds, however, you won’t automatically be grouped into a raid, so a lot of the time players will be looking to join a group when the battles start. As long as you know what you’re supposed to do, you should be fine, though. The good thing about the zone is that the map will show you where battles are and where vehicle movement is taking place, so even if you’re going solo, you’ll have an idea of where to head for some action.Now that you’ve familiarized yourselves with the zone and Wintergrasp gameplay, it’s time to look at the strategies used in order to win.

As you can probably guess, the strategies for offense and defense are somewhat different. Playing defense, you must play for the full 40 minutes in order to win while playing offense, you want to finish the game as quickly as possible. If the timer hits ten minutes and offense hasn’t broken down the doors to the inner sanctum, it’s in trouble.

But with that said, all the realms are working and things appear to be going smoothly. And by smooth I mean I still have the mail in my in-box from when the servers went down this morning.Realms are back up after a bit of extended maintenance this afternoon. There has been no communication from the blues or other Blizzard sources as to why the downtime was extended.

How much harder are WotLK heroic dungeons than their regular counterparts? When I hit level 80 in my levelling greens and blues, will I be successful in heroics with a decent group, or is there a significant gear check on heroic dungeons?

Heroics are far more brutal than their Normal counterparts, but if you’re in mostly Northrend blues you should be alright to start them. I went into Wrath in Tier 6, so I started Heroics pretty much just as soon as I hit 80, which is the point where blues start to catch up to T6. The biggest difference I noticed is that encounters just required a lot more finesse in execution.

We still hardly use CC on trash pulls and AOE it all down, but bosses require a bit more coordination. Loken in Heroic Halls of Lightning will ruin you if you have people who don’t know how to run out of the huge freaking explosions, whereas on normal mode you can sort of blunder through it. If you’re in full level 80 ish blues, the claims of people needing to CC in Heroics is completely false. If you’re a little undergeared (greens, sub-80 blues), yeah, play it safe and use a bit of crowd control. Now with that cleared up, the Q&A! We’ll start with Stormscape’s question…

Does Crusader Aura or On A Pale Horse affect vehicle speed? Read the rest of this entry »

It obviously wasn’t without problems.
Here is what they did wrong:

Timing. If this event really did unfold the way Blizzard planned it to, then they planned it wrong. The zombie attack ratcheted up at a dizzying pace in just a few days, and then disappeared forever. The Scourge Invasion dragged on, so much so that at the end of it, the Scourge really had taken over Azeroth — no one needed any runes any more so the map was full of purple skulls that no one cared about. On one of our podcasts, BigBearButt said the most insightful complaint I heard about the Zombie event: it wasn’t that casual players didn’t like the zombie event, it was just that they didn’t have a clear indication of when it might end, and the thought of being bothered out of questing for weeks or even a month until Wrath was what caused the most complaining. I don’t disagree — if Blizzard really did have a schedule to follow (and didn’t cave to complaints, as they say) then that scheduling was terrible. Lore. Could you tell someone the story of what happened during the world event? “Some crates appeared with strange symbols in Booty Bay, and then Putress was working on a plague cure and then zombies disappeared so I guess he found it, but then more zombies showed up, and then the Herald of the Lich King yelled something and we were in Northrend.” Blizzard whiffed it completely on the lore of this event — who put those crates in Booty Bay? Read the rest of this entry »

Nymh, a Warlock on EU-Drek’thar reached level 80 yesterday, as what anyone can tell is the first in the world.  This was done by using an AoE grinding strategy, but from the sounds of it I will not be shocked at all if this strategy is nerfed very soon.  It involves locations with fast respawning, neutral NPCs,cheap wow gold, as you can see in the quote below.

“The biggest problem was to find a spot with enough monsters to grind without too much downtime … I spent some time on beta servers and eventually found the crypt in Drakil’ji Ruins (Grizzly Hills), I think that’s one of the only place in Wrath of the Lich King where monsters repop in about 30 seconds, mobs here are also neutral and it makes grinding a little safer,” Nymh said.

We are proud to declare that all WOTLK PVE raid content has now been cleared. This is both a moment of triumph and a cause for concern. The question in all our minds right now is if we could do this, how soon until the rest of the top guilds in the world clear all the raid content that WOTLK has to offer? Did Blizzard miscalculate in the tuning of these encounters? Or is this Blizzard folding under the weight of a large casual player base that demands to be on equal footing with end-game raiders?

Yes, it’s only been two days since release, and yes all raid content has been defeated on EU-Magtheridon. The scary thing is, if you look at Kungen’s profile on the official Armory, none of the Wrath of the Lich King items are even activated. Is this cause for concern? I’m not entirely sure… I mean yes, clearing all the raid content there is to offer in the expansion two days into it is definitely worrying. You have to consider the facts though. Read the rest of this entry »

The Wrath of the Lich King Arthas has set in motion events that could lead to the extinction of all life on Azeroth. With the armies of the undead and the necromantic power of the plague threatening to sweep across the land, only the mightiest heroes can oppose the Lich King’s will and end his reign of terror for all time.

Blizzard Entertainment’s latest expansion to World of Warcraft – Wrath of the Lich King – adds a host of epic content to the existing game world. Players will achieve soaring levels of power, explore a vast new continent, and battle other high-level heroes to determine the fate of Azeroth. As you pit yourself against the dangers of the north, prepare to:

1、Engage in epic siege warfare, deploying mighty siege engines to lay waste to

destructible buildings in your path.
2、Transform your hero’s look with new character-customization options, including

new hairstyles and dances.
3、Explore perilous new dungeons filled with some of the deadliest creatures –

and greatest treasures — on Azeroth.
4、Master the necromantic powers of the Death Knight - World of Warcraft’s first

Hero class.
5、Quest to level 80, gaining potent new abilities and talents along the way.
6、Learn the craft of spell augmentation with the new Inscription profession.
7、Brave the harsh new continent of Northrend, the icy domain of the Lich King.
8、And much, much more…

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King is the upcoming second expansion for the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft, following The Burning Crusade. It is set in the land of Northrend, home of the Lich King, Arthas Menethil/Ner’zhul. It was confirmed on the first day of BlizzCon 2007, August 3, 2007.

The expansion began beta testing on July 17, 2008, while opt-in beta test keys were sent out starting on August 4, 2008. Wrath of the Lich King is due to be released on November 13, 2008.

With the official date announced and beta slowly coming to a close, we would like to do something for you. We will be giving away 3 Wrath of the Lich King preorders! This contest is only open to legal residents of the fifty (50) United States and are 13 years of age or older. The idea here is that the people who want it more have a better chance to win. The contest will work by a ticket system, tickets being granted for specific tasks. Each ticket is another chance to win. Anything you submit in terms of content must be written in English, with few or no mistakes in spelling or grammar. Everything must be original content, no copy pasting from other sites. Any content you wish to submit must be emailed to contest [at] wotlkwiki [dot] info or added to the wiki if you are a member. You must email us to notify us of the submission if it is on the wiki. We may grant more entries on a case by case basis.

Eclipse: When you critically hit with Starfire, you have a 20/40/60% chance of increasing damage done by Wrath by 10%. When you critically hit with Wrath, you have a 20/40/60% chance of increasing your critical strike chance with Starfire by 10%. Effect lasts 30 secondsonds and has a 2 minutes cooldown.
Gale Winds: Increases damage done by your Hurricane and Typhoon spells by 25/50%, and increases the range of your Cyclone spell by 2/4 yards.Owlkin Frenzy: Attacks done to you while in Moonkin form have a 5/10/15% chance to cause you to go into a Frenzy, increasing your damage by 10% and causes you to be immune to pushback while casting Balance spells. Lasts 10 secondsonds.
Typhoon: You summon a violent Typhoon that does 1190 Nature damage when in contact with hostile targets, knocking them back 5 yards.
Earth and Moon: Your Wrath and Starfire spells have a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to to apply the Earth and Moon effect, which increases Nature and Arcane damage done to the target by 2% for 12 secondsonds. Stacks up to 3 times.
Starfall: You summon a flurry of stars from the sky on all targets within 30 yards of the caster, each doing 111 to 129 Arcane damage, and an additional 20 Arcane damage to all nearby targets within 5 yards. Maximum 20 stars. Lasts 10 secondsonds.
Primal Precision: Increases your expertise by 5/10, and you are refunded -40/-80% of the energy cost of a finishing move if it fails to land.
Berserk: When activated, this ability temporarily grants you 30% of your maximum health while in Bear Form or Dire Bear Form, causes your Mangle (Bear) and Maul attacks hit up to 3 targets, and reduces the energy cost of all your Cat Form abilities by 50%. Lasts 15 secondsondsonds.
Berserk instantly clears all effects which cause loss of control of your character, and makes you immune to them for the duration while in Cat Form, Bear Form, or Dire Bear Form.

Back Dash: Causes you to leap behind an enemy, dazing them for 3 secondsonds.
King of the Jungle: While Enraged in Bear form or Dire Bear form, your damage is increased by 5/10/15%, and your Tiger’s Fury ability also instantly restores 20/40/60 energy.
Infected Wounds: Your Shred, Maul and Mangle attacks have a 33/66/100% chance to cause an Infected Wound in the target. The Infected Wound reduces the movement speed of the target by 10% and its attack speed by 4%. Stacks up to 5 times. Lasts 12 secondsonds.
Improved Mangle: Reduces the cooldown of your Mangle (Bear) ability by 7% and reduces the energy cost of your Mangle (Cat) ability by 2/4/6.
Primal Aggression: Increases damage done by your Maul and Shred attacks on bleeding targets by 2/4/6/8/10%, and increases the critical strike chance of your Ferocious Bite ability on bleeding targets by 10/20/30/40/50%.