The Daily Blues

WoW.com — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 04:40:00 +0000

Each day WoW.com will take you through all the blue posts and other Blizzard news from around the internet. From Ghostcrawler's latest posts to the lowdown on StarCraft II and Diablo III, we'll keep you informed.

There's a very intelligently written letter to Ghostcrawler that he responds to today over AoE tanking and homogenization. The letter and Ghostcrawler's response is well worth the 10 minute read.

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The Daily Blues originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 23:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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WRUP: Everything but WoW edition

WoW.com — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 02:00:00 +0000

Happy weekend, everyone! As always, the WoW.com staff is looking forward to an exciting weekend in ~~Mass Effect 2~~ ~~Dragon Age~~ World of Warcraft. Well, most of us are, anyway. A few lucky folks are in the Lego Universe beta, yet others are in the StarCraft 2 beta, some have been drawn back in to Dragon Age with the lure or the game's Awakenings expansion, and a few are even playing this game I've never heard of called Final Fantasy. If WoW.com's staff is any indication, Azeroth must be pretty empty these days... But what are you waiting for? Friday's the time of week for you to kick back, relax, play your favorite games -- and tell us all about it! Read on to find out what the team is playing this weekend and let us know what you're playing this weeked.

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Filed under: WoW Insider Business

WRUP: Everything but WoW edition originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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WoW Insider Show on hiatus this weekend

WoW.com — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 01:00:00 +0000

Sadly, my friend, the Conan to my Andy, the Don Quixote to my Sancho Panza (I never did get my governorship) Michael Sacco is feeling under the weather and so, this weekend, there will be no WoW Insider show. We considered doing the show with just me hosting, but the prospect of an entire show dedicated to my poor choice in accents (is it Scottish, Russian, or pirate? I can't tell either) and talking about tanking on a warrior in excruciating detail didn't seem like the best move.

Never fear, next week our usual mix of commentary, top stories from the week's WoW.com archives, and guest hosts will return, stronger than ever. Well, except for me. I'll pretty much be the same annoying guy I am now. I'll probably be hairier, though, as I've stopped shaving entirely. By next week I expect to be a full fledged sasquatch.

Our weekly podcast roundup is available for your podcast listening needs, and if you miss Mister Sacco's dulcet tones, you can catch up with our older episodes here.

Filed under: Podcasting, WoW Insider Show

WoW Insider Show on hiatus this weekend originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Phat Loot Phriday: Stakethrower

WoW.com — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

It's time to face the facts. The vampires are out there.

They lurk in the shadows of Silvermoon with their bare, glittering chests entrancing casual bystanders. Theirs is the skin of monsters. Their cunning angst and perfectly tousled hair threatens a new generation of Azerothian teenagers. They are vile and unrepentant. It doesn't matter if you claim that you can't be a vampire; the Blood Prince Council beckons like a tempting cupcake. "Eat me," they say with voices like chocolate frosting. "Forbidden fruit!"

But how can we possibly fight these vile fiends? What can we do to stave off our pale, cold future?

Ladies and gentlemen of the readership jury, I present to you: Stakethrower.

Stakethrower is crafted from the very finest engineering know-how. Its barrel packs enough Light-blessed silver to burn scars on thousands of vampires. The bayonette is crafted from metal retrieved from the Cathedral in Stormwind. The trigger is more sensitive than a teenager worried about their pants.

Capable of hurling stakes and bullets, the Stakethrower is the very finest sidearm available to modern-day vampire hunters. Pick yours up today in your local Icecrown Citadel!

The vital statistics for your last line of defense are just below.

Name: Stakethrower
Type: Ranged Gun (that throws stakes)
Damage: 500 - 836 Damage, 222.7 damage per second (with stakes that are thrown)
Speed: 3.00 (takes a little while to get a new stake in the barrel)
Attritbutes:

45 Agility
32 Stamina
Improves haste rating by 28 (0.85% @ L80)
Increases attack power by 70.
Increases your armor penetration rating by 31 (2.21% @ L80)
Decreases the number of vampires in your area

How to get it: You only need 9 friends to kill Blood Queen Lana'thel. Nine, for what it's worth, is the number of vampires in the Cullen family, if you count Bella. Coincidence? Unlikely. I suspect there's secretly a Twi-heart on the Blizzard staff.

How to get rid of it: It sells for 17 gold, or can become an Abyss Crystal. However, if you lose this protection, you could also lose your life, and become one of the gruesome vampires. Is that really worth 17 gold?

Gallery: Phat Loot Phriday

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Phat Loot Phriday: Stakethrower originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ready Check: Raid buffs for great justice

WoW.com — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 23:00:00 +0000

Last week, we talked about the core buffs just about every raid needs to get by. I included the 3% damage buff provided by some folks like retribution paladins. While ample raids get by without that buff, it's so straightforward that I felt it merited inclusion. It affects physical DPS characters, tanks, and magical DPS characters all alike, so is fairly universal.

Of course, I didn't mention a lot of other obvious buffs like Arcane Intellect. While I'll certainly admit I can't recall having been on a raid in while without that buff, I'm pretty sure at least a few 10-man groups have gone without a mage. But that's why, this week, we're picking up the remainder of the raid buffs that provide so much synergy for raids.

As Brian Wood pointed out, raid buffs are some of the most drastic increases available in raid performance. Every class's power soars while under the effects of raid buffs (and while their targets are getting debuffed), and it's this synergy that makes raids successful. That's by design: Blizzard wants us to be exponentially more powerful while grouping with other players. The power of two players in a group is greater than the sum of their parts.

With all that in mind, let's jump behind the cut and start going down the other important raid buffs.

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Ready Check: Raid buffs for great justice originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Queue: Fargo (the flood, not the movie)

WoW.com — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 22:00:00 +0000

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.

Around this time last year I was off helping my area deal with a 500 year flood. This year it's struck again (although only 2 feet less, /cheer?). Pictured above is a shot from the live flood web-cams the local paper has set up, and it's kind of interesting to watch (for those wondering the water should be about 20 feet lower than it is now). Every once in a while you get to see a cop or some workers do something, and boy, is that exciting...

About as exciting as AoE pally tanking. /rimshot

Fornozo asked...

"How come the GearScore addon became so popular?"

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The Queue: Fargo (the flood, not the movie) originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Shifting Perspectives: Moonkin mailbag

WoW.com — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:00:00 +0000

Every week, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. After a week of being under the weather, we're back with to explore the depths of Murmurs' mailbox and to find out just how much junk he really has in his trunk.

It's another week. Another week and I still don't have my 'OP' version of Starfall to play around with. Do you have any idea how upset this makes me? I mean, honestly, all I really want to do right now is slap on my PvE gear and run screaming through the Horde turtle in AV and watch as Starfall obliterates everything in my path. Is that asking too much? Since I don't have legions of dead Horde bodies to entertain me at the moment, I thought it would be a fantastic time to go in and check my e-mail for a change. That was a mistake.

Apparently, it is not a good idea to rely solely on filters for people that you know in order to view your mail. I mean, sure, I get all the important stuff, but after my week of doing nothing but laying in bed all day long, I came back to see that I had officially broken g-mails load limit. Okay, not really, but I did have well over 2,000 unread messages. That's a lot, like, a lot a lot. Unfortunately, that's far too many for me to ever catch up on if I plan on ever eating, sleeping, working, or bathing again - and, let me tell you, I love to do those things. In an effort to not quit my day job - or get fired from it due to not being awake and smelling like I crawled out of a sewer - instead of attempting to reply to each e-mail individually, I'll address many of the most comment topics in one stroke of the key. Alright, so, there will probably be many key strokes involved in this plan, but there will be a lot less than if I did it the other way around.

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Shifting Perspectives: Moonkin mailbag originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lich King strategy and tutorial video

WoW.com — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 20:00:00 +0000

The video embedded above, WoW.com's Lich King Tutorial, marks the arrival of Jerome Phillips (also known as Vodka's Kinaesthesia) to our team. He has a lot of talent and a lot of ideas, so we're happy to have him. You've probably seen some of his work before, most notably his trailer for Patch 3.3's Frozen Halls. This Lich King tutorial is just the first of many projects we'll be doing together, so we hope you enjoy it and find it useful. Due to the length of the encounter (and thus the tutorial), it has been split into two parts. The first part is above, and the second part is behind the cut below. As is true with all things in life, these videos are best when viewed in HD.

This video is just the beginning of a larger project here at WoW.com. We're working to bring more video content to the site in all areas, raids and otherwise. We have big plans for Cataclysm in particular. With this in mind, we've made it a point to make our video content easier to find and navigate. Any videos made by the WoW.com staff will be posted to our new YouTube channel rather than scattered across the staff's personal channels willy-nilly as they have been in the past. Check it out, and if you're feeling especially kind, go ahead and subscribe, too.

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Filed under: WoW Insider Business, Raiding, Wrath of the Lich King

Lich King strategy and tutorial video originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cataclysm tanking cooldown feedback wanted

WoW.com — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 19:00:00 +0000

Nethaera hit the forums this morning, asking for feedback from tanks around the globe. Ghostcrawler has been having a lively discussion with tanks (most specifically protection warriors) recently, and now they seem to be formalizing the discussion for the wider audience.

Nethaera

We're currently working on the tanking cooldowns for tanks in Cataclysm. We're interested in feedback from the community on what makes cooldowns fun and useful. For example, what is the sweet spot in cooldown duration between an ability with such a short cooldown that you must mash it constantly versus an ability with such a long cooldown? Which current abilities are fun? Putting aside any rose-colored glasses, were there cooldowns in Burning Crusade or classic WoW that you miss in Lich King? What, in your minds, should the role be for talents and glyphs. For example, if glyphs shouldn't reduce cooldowns, what can they do?

source

Nethaera goes on to remind people that this thread isn't the place for balance discussions necessarily, and certainly not a place to debate who's overpowered. This feedback also won't dictate exactly what the developers will do, it will simply help them make the right decisions. Do you have an opinion? Then head on over to the forums and make it known! Politely, of course.

Filed under: Blizzard, Cataclysm

Cataclysm tanking cooldown feedback wanted originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors: But hitting buttons is fun!

WoW.com — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:00:00 +0000

The Care and Feeding of Warriors is about warriors, those lovable, squeezable, strokeable bundles of pure joy who seethe with a burning inner fire, a rage that can only be quenched in blood. Matthew Rossi tries quenching it in delicious caffeinated beverages. You'd be surprised how often that works.

Honestly, believe it or not, I'd actually like to talk about DPS today. My current raiding guild has between three and four regular tanks who show up for most every 25 man raid. As you might expect, you don't need three to four tanks for ICC. At this point in the raid's life cycle, if you have two tanks you can get through most everything except Putricide and maybe Blood Princes. (We have used two tanks and a DPS for this fight, but we usually use our feral tank for it, so three tanks.) Marrowgar at this point can be done by two geared tanks and a plate DPS standing up there mashing away, although to play it safe we usually just use three.

So last night, after tanking Sindragosa, I got to DPS on Arthas, which is fun for a warrior. (Ah, Glyph of Cleaving, you make up for the mechanical deficiencies of my class.) Then I went and did some stupid fun heroics with a warrior tank, arms warrior, another fury warrior and a resto druid who kept healing in bear form. (I know they can't cast healing spells in bear form. He'd occasionally pop out and throw a HoT on folks. It was pretty much all we needed.) So it wall all sorts of DPS warrior fun last night.

And then I went and read this endlessly exploding threat on tanking and now I have to talk about it. Why? Well, first off, Ghostcrawler mentions Monte Cook. That hits all of my nerd buttons. (If only you'd thrown in a plug for Kingmaker, Greg.) Secondly, we both hated the old Shield Block mechanic and we both hate the current Heroic Strike one.

Ghostcrawler - Re: Just get rid of dodge and parry altogether

I understand your point, but I hated old Shield Block. It was always the right button to push whenever it came off cooldown. It wasn't an interesting decision - there was no point in saving it for the right moment and no penalty for using it at the wrong time. It's okay to have some relatively spammy buttons, but old Shield Block crossed the line (and current Heroic Strike still does).

source

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors: But hitting buttons is fun! originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Daily Blues

Table of Contents

WRUP: Everything but WoW edition

WoW Insider Show on hiatus this weekend

Phat Loot Phriday: Stakethrower

Ready Check: Raid buffs for great justice

The Queue: Fargo (the flood, not the movie)

Shifting Perspectives: Moonkin mailbag

Lich King strategy and tutorial video

Cataclysm tanking cooldown feedback wanted

The Care and Feeding of Warriors: But hitting buttons is fun!