Warrior Wednesday: Enchants and Gems, Giant Weapon(s) Edition

Another week, another Warrior guide. I've been trying every week to make my blog posts more towards being guides than a personal blog post, but I can have some fun can't I? I try and keep the personal bloggy stuff near the top for those of you who don't give a damn. :P

It seems that luck hasn't really been on my side lately. Random disconnecting in the game and high latency, both of which others don't seem to be having. I'm blaming my internet provider by sending as many complaints as possible to F***You@(internetprovidernamehere).com. Yeah, I am that much frustrated, although now I've used that joke so many times on Ventrilo it's probably as outdated as this picture to the right. A warrior using one-handed swords and fist weapons? A thing of the past for sure... Other than that, I got a Nobles Deck. Finally! :D

Anyway, this guide will be about enchants and gems for your Warrior that likes wielding the giant weapons and likes hitting things with them, whether there are one or two of them. The enchants for Arms and Fury are pretty similar, but there are some interesting theorycrafting ideas going on in the gemming department, but more on that later. I can also say that, unlike the guide for Protection Warrior enchants and gems, the enchants and gems for DPS warriors are a lot more straightforward.

Enchants:
Head: Arcanum of Torment - Requires Knights of the Ebon Blade - Revered.
Shoulders: Greater Inscription of the Axe - Requires Sons of Hodir - Exalted. If you're a Scribe, you get an upgraded version.
Back: Major Agility - No other real options
Chest: Powerful Stats - No other real options, again.
Wrists: Greater Assault - If you need expertise, there is an option, but you usually won't need it.
Hands: Crusher - There are also options for hit and expertise on gloves, but again, you usually won't need them.
Waist: The usual. Stick what you need as far as stats go in the socket. If you need nothing in particular, see the gems section below.
Legs: Icescale Leg Armor. Nothing else.
Feet: Greater Assault. If you need more hit, get Icewalker.
Rings (Enchanters Only): Assault on both of them.

Weapon(s): Less choices here than Warrior tanks, but there is a little money-related philosophy that I use for those that are just hitting 80 and gearing up for raids. If your weapons aren't top-notch or really close to it, meaning not a blue weapon out of a heroic dungeon, then I wouldn't bother with the really expensive enchants unless you don't care about spending your money or you can spare it. With that said, if you're at the top of your game in gear, put Berserking on your weapon(s). You might lose armor when it procs, but the attack power gained is the best benefit compared to the others. If you're still gearing up without the best of weapons, you can go for the 2H weapon enchant of Greater Savagery, or Massacre if you can afford it.
Shield: OH WAIT. Haha...you didn't think I was serious did you? :P

As a DPS warrior, it is relatively easy to reach your expertise and hit caps through talents and gear without the aid of enchants. Still, if the enchants get you to that cap, feel free to use them until you can stay above the caps without the enchants. At that time, you would switch over to the preferred enchant.

Gemming your gear
(Note: Same gem name rules apply as in the Prot Warrior Gem section of the previous guide.)

There's mostly only one rule for gems for a DPS Warrior. If you're not capped somewhere, gem for it. Still, keep in mind that it's still pretty easy to reach all your caps without gems and enchants helping you. Also, like Prot Warriors, if the socket bonus isn't outstanding, you're going to stack the sockets with the appropriate Red gem depending on whether you are Arms or Fury.

Meta: Chaotic Skyflare always. You'll need 2 blue gems to activate it, which actually means 2 of any blue, green or purple gem.
Red: Fury - Bold. The life-giver of Fury DPS. Stacking this is what you should be doing.
Arms - Fractured. Stack only after you reach about 3200 attack power with enchants and gear.
Yellow: Fury - Inscribed is your best choice, but Jagged and Smooth are also options. Accurate and Etched are there too for expertise and hit needs.
Arms - Same as Fury. No Orange gems have Armor Pen, and Green ones aren't supposed to have it.
Blue: Fury - Greens can also go here, but purples are mostly used. Namely, the only one for Fury is Sovereign, for obvious reasons.
Arms - Puissant until 100% armor pen, then Sovereign.

Fairly easy to understand overall. You should only gem and enchant for expertise and hit only after you see what you're getting from your gear and talents. Then, you can stick some hit and expertise gems or enchant your gear accordingly. Again, it's far from being as complicated as Prot Warrior enchants and gems when it comes to doing the same for a DPS warrior.

That's it for this week. Next week, I guess I'll have to think of something else to write about! I'm having a small mental block at the moment. >.<

Until next time, Cláymore out!

Warrior Wednesday: Enchants and Gems, Shield Slammer Edition

Holy hell, what a hectic past couple of weeks it's been. Beyond the vast changes that will be happening to Warriors next patch, I've switched guilds. Twice in fact. In my own defense, let's just say that I'm not as gullible to accept a tanking spec as viable as I used to be, and I have a lot of lost respect for some certain people now. No, it isn't any of you readers or any of my fellow bloggers. I still love you guys. :)

Anyway, I digress. Enough about me. Time for a guide! This is a continuation on my previous guide on the basics of stats to concentrate on as a Prot Warrior. Now, you may know these things, but what about enchants? What about those colored rocks that I'm supposed to be putting in my armor? Well, that's what I'm here for. I'll be covering Warrior tanks in this guide, so sit back and...well, just read.

Enchants:
Head: Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector, Must be revered with Argent Crusade
Shoulders: Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle, Must be Exalted with The Sons of Hodir, or if you're a Scribe, invest in the Master's.
Cloak: Titanweave, Mighty Armor, or Major Agility. This depends on, respectively, whether you need defense, effective health, or threat.
Chest: Greater Defense, Super Health, or Powerful Stats. See Cloak.
Wrists: Major Stamina. You probably won't need Expertise or Defense, but they're still there.
Hands: Armsman. Alternatives include more health or more avoidance, or Engineers can add more armor.
Waist: Do I really have to explain? As far as gems go for the buckle, put what you need in it. If you don't need anything, then you need Stamina. See below. :)
Legs: Frosthide Leg Armor, and nothing else really. No tank I know would take anything otherwise.
Feet: Greater Fortitude, but I personally prefer Tuskarr's Vitality. It may sacrifice a little bit of stamina, but the extra bit of run speed is very helpful when you need to get to a position quicker or get out of a position quicker. I hear that most raid bosses like to make players position themselves in certain ways around them and they also like making areas on the floor around them where the players get hurt when standing in those areas. (See what I did there?)
Rings(Enchanters Only): Stamina on both. No other choices really.

Weapon: Several choices here. Blood Draining is recommended for main tanking because you're taking the most damage as the main tank and it helps slightly with the healers. If you're not main tanking, then you can choose between Blade Ward and Accuracy. The first is a little cheaper in terms of mats, so you could go for it if you don't need hit while you save for the second one, but if you need the hit (which you most likely will eventually), you'll want the second. More pricey, but more worth it.
Shield: Major Stamina, Defense, or Titanium Plating. Take your pick of health, defense if you need it, or threat.

As a tank, you should be able to generate enough threat through your abilities, talents, priority rotation, and maybe a couple threat enchants, but overall, my advice is to mostly stick with the health and stamina. Depending on where you're having problems, whether it be survivability or threat issues, you can adjust your enchants accordingly.

Gemming Your Gear:
(Note: Seeing as Dragon's Eye gems are going to be mono-colored next patch, I will assume this for this part of the guide. Also, all gems have the same prefix before the gem name, so I'll just mention these prefixes. You should always be using the best gem available to you, meaning blue gems pre-3.2 and epic gems post-3.2.)

Gemming as a Protection Warrior isn't just "put the correct color into the according socket". As far as gemming goes, stamina is your best friend. If you're a smart player, you'll know that if the socket bonus isn't worth getting for your class, then you can gem however you please. Still, keep in mind what you are putting in for gems so you can keep your meta gem active.

As far as a Prot Warrior goes, you want stamina. LOTS of stamina. If the socket bonus doesn't offer extra hit that you need or something like +9 or +12 stamina or something similar that you absolutely need, your socketing will be pretty basic, or, shall I say, solid, if you know what I mean. With this in mind, here are some alternatives to activating your meta gem or getting the socket bonus:

Red: Need defense? Go Stalwart. Need Expertise? Go Guardian's. Need both? Go Resolute. Hit and Expertise? Accurate. Otherwise, whether you want more avoidance or threat, go for Regal or Shifting respectively.
Yellow: The orange options can work here too, but you can also use Enduring if you just need defense, or if you're really in desperate need for defense, you can use Thick.
Blue: Do I really have to explain? Again? Still, for those Jewelcrafters out there, please, for the love of The Light, use three of these. I don't care where. Just use them. Please.
Meta: Only found in your helmet. Austere Earthsiege Diamond should be your go-to choice for your meta, but Eternal Earthsiege offers some more defense if you need to reach the cap.

Once again, if your socket bonus isn't worth it (see above), stick a Solid blue gem in it. Not really complicated honestly.

All the information here is fairly obvious, especially if you want to be an outstanding end-game tank, meaning you keep up on current information on your class and you make decisions based on what you believe you need most as a tank. In the end, this guide is mostly from my own experiences, and for the tank that wants to have a DPS offspec or wants to tank with just one set of gear. There are those of you that want to do nothing but tank and want several sets for different situations. For this kind of information, I can refer you to Kazeyonoma's guide on tankspot.com. It covers all your recommended enchants, gems, and even gear pieces for all the possible kinds of tanking sets you would want.

Next time, DPS enchants and gems! Until next time, this is Cláymore signing off!

Warrior Wednesday: Patch 3.2 Changes, On-Time-For-Once Edition!

Here we are on Wednesday again, and for once, my post is on time! Hooray! Warriors rejoice! Okay, enough celebrating. What's more important to celebrate about are the changes that are planned in Patch 3.2 for us warriors that have been announced in the past few weeks. Those changes that have been added are the following:

• Bloodrage: This ability now generates 20 rage initially, and 10 rage over the next 10 seconds. The health cost is unchanged.
• Execute: This ability now never costs more than a total of 30 rage. The tooltip for Sudden Death has been revised to remove reference to that maximum, since the ability now behaves that way even when untalented.
• Shield Slam: The benefit from additional block value this ability gains is now subject to diminishing returns. Diminishing returns occur once block value exceeds 30 times the player's level and caps the maximum damage benefit from shield block value at 34.5 times the player's level.
• Talents
• Fury
• Bloodsurge: Notification that Slam has become instant now appears in floating combat text.
• Protection
• Devastate: Weapon damage increased to 60% and bonus per Sunder Armor on the target increased by 20%.
• Shield Specialization: Now provides 5 rage on a block, dodge or parry instead of 2 rage on a block.

Well, those are certainly a lot of additions! So, I'll break them down bullet by bullet:

Bloodrage: This ability now generates 20 rage initially, and 10 rage over the next 10 seconds. The health cost is unchanged.

A very welcome change. All types of warriors use their Bloodrage ability. More rage means more chances to use our abilities! The health cost is unchanged as well, which is still good, but most of us use the appropriate glyph anyway (you do use it, right? I thought so...)

Execute: This ability now never costs more than a total of 30 rage. The tooltip for Sudden Death has been revised to remove reference to that maximum, since the ability now behaves that way even when untalented.

Well then, This could be good in the fact that DPS warriors have some more usability with this, erm, ability. Still, the way that Execute works is that the more rage you have, the more of it is consumed, and the more damage it does. With a maximum limit set in place, this will probably lower our DPS, which is rather unfortunate. :(

Shield Slam: The benefit from additional block value this ability gains is now subject to diminishing returns. Diminishing returns occur once block value exceeds 30 times the player's level and caps the maximum damage benefit from shield block value at 34.5 times the player's level.

Putting diminishing returns on Block Value? WHAT?! This isn't entirely good people. I mean sure, we probably won't hit the diminishing returns through just gear as warrior tanks, but when we use Shield Block, according to Ciderhelm of Tankspot.com, we will most likely pass this point with only a few pieces with the stat on them, meaning we get less benefits than usual from block value, meaning we generate less threat. That, my friends, is the warrior tank's shot in the chest with the nerf gun.

Now for talents:

Bloodsurge: Notification that Slam has become instant now appears in floating combat text.

Very minor, seeing as most people use some sort of addon to replace the Blizzard floating combat text, let alone using it at all if they don't replace it. Moving on...

Devastate: Weapon damage increased to 60% and bonus per Sunder Armor on the target increased by 20%.

Previously the weapon damage for devastate was 50%, and the bonus being increased is great as well. Wonderful for our threat and damage output, but it hardly makes up for the shield block nerf in my opinion.

Shield Specialization: Now provides 5 rage on a block, dodge or parry instead of 2 rage on a block.

Oh crap! We're going to be more angry than ever! And when I say angry, I mean we're going to have more rage to use than ever. Not only do we generate more rage per action than before (increased from 2 to 5), but we get this every time we block, dodge, or parry instead of just blocking, which is AMAZING. More rage = more abilities thrown at mobs = more threat = more happy warrior tanks! Nice!

What a vast array of changes we have so far. Okay, so they're not as vast as some other class changes going on next patch (See Druids and Paladins. Good God!), but there are some very important things going on with warriors, especially with the tanks. It's good to know that Blizzard seems to be paying at least some attention to their players as well as noticing some problems themselves.

Next week, things! Maybe even more things! Eh, I don't know, I'll have something. Maybe a second part to a guide I suppose. Not entirely sure. Anyways, Cláymore out!

(I finally learned the alt code to the wierd A in my name! 0225 :P)

Website Problems

So as you may have noticed we have been having some technical difficulties with our website, now we have switched back to our blogger website until we can get everything fixed with the old site and everything back up and running fine again, i will keep everyone updated on what is going on.

WoW Machinima: The Avenger

The Avenger

Guide to Arathi Basin

The Arathi Basin is one of the main staging points of war between the humans and the Forsaken in Azeroth. The League of Arathor seek to reclaim lost lands for their benefactors in Stormwind, while the Defilers elite troopers under the watchful eye of Varimathras seek to sever the vital connection between the humans and their dwarven allies to the south.

15 Player Battleground
How to Win
The goal of Arathi Basin is to gain 2000 (1600 in patch 3.2) Resources to win the battleground, the only way to gain resources in the battleground is to captuer points inside the game. There are 5 Main Points.

- Stables
- Farm
- Blacksmith
- Lumber Mill
- Mine

The More resources you have caputred the faster your resoure count will go up. Therfore if your team has 3 resources and the opposing team has 2, you will eventually win the game if you hold those resources.

Level Bracket
20-29
30-39
40-49
50-59
60-69
70

Achievements

Name		Location	Side	Points	Category
	Arathi Basin All-Star Assault and Defend 2 bases in a single Arathi Basin match.	Arathi Basin	Both	20	Arathi Basin
	Arathi Basin Assassin Get five honorable kills at each of the bases in a single Arathi Basin battle.	Arathi Basin	Both	20	Arathi Basin
	Arathi Basin Perfection Win Arathi Basin with a score of 2000 to 0.	Arathi Basin	Both	20	Arathi Basin
	Arathi Basin Veteran Complete 100 victories in Arathi Basin.	Arathi Basin	Both	10	Arathi Basin
	Arathi Basin Victory Win Arathi Basin.	Arathi Basin	Both	10	Arathi Basin
	Disgracin' The Basin Assault 3 bases in a single Arathi Basin battle.	Arathi Basin	Both	10	Arathi Basin
	Let's Get This Done Win Arathi Basin in 6 minutes.	Arathi Basin	Both	10	Arathi Basin
	Master of Arathi Basin Complete the Arathi Basin achievements listed below.	Arathi Basin	Alliance	25	Arathi Basin
	Master of Arathi Basin Complete the Arathi Basin achievements listed below.	Arathi Basin	Horde	25	Arathi Basin
	Me and the Cappin' Makin' it Happen Take 50 flags in Arathi Basin.	Arathi Basin	Both	10	Arathi Basin
	Overly Defensive Defend 3 bases in a single Arathi Basin battle.	Arathi Basin	Both	10	Arathi Basin
	Resilient Victory Overcome a 500 resource disadvantage in a match of Arathi Basin and claim victory.	Arathi Basin	Both	10	Arathi Basin
	Territorial Dominance Win 10 Arathi Basin matches while controlling all 5 flags.	Arathi Basin	Both	10	Arathi Basin
	The Conqueror Raise your reputation values in Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin and Alterac Valley to Exalted.		Horde	20	Player vs. Player
	The Justicar Raise your reputation values in Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin and Alterac Valley to Exalted.		Alliance	20	Player vs. Player
	To The Rescue! Come to the defense of a base in Arathi Basin 50 times by recapping the flag.	Arathi Basin	Both	10	Arathi Basin
	We Had It All Along *cough* Win Arathi Basin by 10 points (2000 to 1990).	Arathi Basin	Both	10	Arathi Basin

Warrior Wednesday: The Basics: DPS Edition.(Now with screwed up websites!)

Written by Claymore
I promised, and here it is. Slightly delayed because of trouble on our main website, but here it is: The Warrior DPS stat focus guide. Some similarities are here between gearing as a DPS warrior and a Prot Warrior, but there are obvious differences in what you should be concentrating on.

Firstly, there is the choice of which talent tree you want to specialize in; Either Fury or Arms. Arms is generally regarded as the PvP tree with Fury being PvE, but either one can be viable in both situations. Fury is thought of as easier to play currently in patch 3.1 because of Arms needing to manage a debuff timer, watch for procs, and keeping one ability on cooldown. All that needs to be done for Fury is to keep certain abilities on cooldown while spamming one ability and watching for just one proc. Oh, they get a cooldown too, but Arms, instead of having a cooldown, brings a debuff that really helps other melee classes with bleed effects (which includes themselves). Overall, one's DPS isn't higher than the other, so just choose which one you want to play.

Anyway, as I mentioned in my Protection Guide, you want to concentrate on certain stats first, as they are the most important. For a DPS warrior, the stats you should concentrate on are as follows:

1. Hit Rating!: Trying to hit a big bad boss with your gigantic weapon(s) isn't very effective if you can't even hit him in the first place! For your yellow damage, the hit cap is always 263 hit rating, which translates into 8.00%. Semi-deep into the fury tree, there is a talent that, for 3 points, chops off 3% from that percentage, leaving you with 165 rating needed. Unfortunately, most Arms warriors will not take this as it is still relatively easy to reach 263. As for white damage, it is near impossible to reach the cap, so it is recommended that you just stay above this soft hit cap without going far over it.

2. Expertise!: Slightly less important than hit, but still recommended to have is your expertise capped at 6.50%, or approximately 26 expertise skill, which translates to 214 rating. Like the Protection tree, our two DPS talent trees have their own certain talents that allow us to lower this cap. The Arms tree has Strength of Arms while Fury has Weapon Mastery. Strength of Arms lowers the rating cap to 181, while Weapon Mastery lowers it to 148. Also, if you refer back to my Protection guide, certain races gain even more expertise through weapon racials. Any way it's looked at, being expertise capped means that all level 80 raid bosses won't dodge your attacks when you are standing behind them. Very helpful when you're trying to kill them, right?

3. (Arms Warriors Only) Armor Penetration!: All while you are gearing up as an arms warrior and trying to become hit and expertise capped, you want to have your armor penetration as high as possible until you have reached 100%. This is currently very difficult to accomplish, even with fully gemmed and enchanted gear, but being around the 40% range is fine through gear stats and gems (trinket procs work very well too, pushing you up into the 90%'s). Luckily, you get 10% from being in Battle Stance already.

4. Strength/Crit!: Once an Arms Warrior reaches a high enough Armor Penetration percentage, or once a Fury Warrior becomes hit and expertise capped, while maintaining these values as much as possible, they will start to focus their gear more towards strength and crit rating. Not only do you get 2 attack power per point of strength, but more crit means more chances for your procs to happen if you're Arms and even more damage for Fury. Please note that you should ONLY start focusing on strength and crit if your Armor Pen is high enough if you're an Arms warrior and if you are hit and expertise capped either way.

DPS Warriors can be very powerful forces to have in a raid, especially for Arms with their debuff. Fury is just as good as it is easy for them to interrupt spellcasting as well as bring immediate high dps with a cooldown and relatively easy priority rotations. Either way, a raid will always benefit from having a DPS Warrior because of their unique abilities and their impressive plate-armored survivability.

Next week, I guess I'll talk about some recent Patch 3.2 changes that have popped up since my last Patch post, and maybe more. Maybe. :) Until then, Cláymore out!
written by claymore

Trial of the Crusader PTR TESTING!

Daelo

Here's the current schedule for Trial of the Crusader PTR testing:

On the North American test realms:

Lord Jaraxxus - Thursday Night, July 9, starting at 7pm EDT/4pm PDT.

On the European test realms:

Eydis Darkbane and Fjola Lightbane - Thursday Night, July 9, starting at 19:00 CEST.

Note that only the 10 Player and 25 Player difficulties will be available on PTR. The Heroic versions will not be available. If you are usually part of raids that easily crushes Ulduar Hard Modes, you should find the non-Heroic difficulties to be not difficult.

Koralon the Flame Watcher is also available to be tested in the Vault of Archavon depending on PTR Wintergrasp status.

Test Patchwerks (Tank and DPS versions) will also be available in the Argent Coliseum during similar times to other bosses. Instead of the previous tank test patchwerk that increased melee damage over time, the 3.2 tank test patchwerk will just hit VERY hard (as hard as Algalon) all the time to allow for more lengthy sustained tank parses. We're always interested in seeing combat logs and parses for all raid testing on the PTR, but especially test patchwerk logs. These are extremely helpful to our class team.

This schedule could change at a moment's notice due to server, bug, or patch status. I'll try to keep everyone informed as much as possible. The Trial of the Crusader and the bosses to be tested will remain also open a variable length of time. How long they stay open depends upon a host of factors including designer availability, bug status, etc. These bosses are very much a work in progress, and this is a test server.


Quick Trial of the Crusader FAQ:

Q) Where's all the trash?
A) There isn't any in this raid zone. Really.

Q) Where's the loot?
A) Loot is present on the bosses, but note that many of the items do not have final art.

Q) What about achievements?
A) Most of them are not fully implemented yet.

Q) What about the Trial of the Champion (ie the 5 player dungeon)?
A) This will see more extended testing later in the PTR cycle.

Cold Weather Flying Available at 68

Well as it look's, when you hit level 80 you will not be able to buy a heirloom item to send to any one of your alt characters on that realm and learn cold weather flying at level 68, meaning once you already have a level 80 you can level your alts throughout northrend with a 360% flying speed mount, this will obviously allow the leveling process throughout northrend to go much faster and well with all the mount changes taking place next patch, this is going to encourage me to level more alt characters, now that you can level them so much faster. The post if below if you wish to review it yourself.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zarhym

Just to confirm, Tome of Cold Weather Flight is actually a new heirloom item planned to go into patch 3.2. At level 80 players can buy this heirloom item from the Cold Weather Flying Trainer in Dalaran for 1,000 gold and send it to an alt of the same realm, faction and account. The tome can be used to learn Cold Weather Flying at level 68, consuming the tome in the process.

Please note this feature is not yet in the newest version of the public test realm patch notes updated today. The item and its functionality are subject to change during the testing process.

Stars Guild gets Yogg+0 World First

Well amazing, after weeks of hard work these guys have done it, yogg+0 world first kill! congrats guys you deserve it. And for people who don't know this they got every patch we got one week later than we did. These guys would probably have most world first if it wasn't for that.

The Resto Druid Guide: Healing the Raid

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another weekly edition of your restoration druid guides. This week we will discuss healing the raid and how to do it. Healing the raid is one of the best ways a druid can be helpful to healing the raid, the hots help heal the raid in multiples and can allow you to top the healing meters when big raid damage is being taken. To start off healing the raid you will always want to keep 5 to 10 hots of Rejuvenation on the raid at all times, watch your mana, the lower your mana gets the less hots you want to be putting on the raid to conserve mana. Another good healing tool to use on the raid is Nourish, Nourish works well on the target that you have Rejuvenation on, since it does more healing the more hots you have on your target. Depending on your mana again, you could also use Regrowth, Regrowth, does the same thing as Rejuvenation and Nourish, except it is all in one spell, so if there is constant damage being taken you could use Regrowth to heal them up some and then the hot will stay up for awhile and continue healing them. Also don't forget your Swiftmend, its a good spell to use when you have your hots up on the raid and you wanna get a quick good heal off every 15 seconds. Also remember always keep Wild Growth up, its very good raid healing and helps out a lot, its on cool down every 5 seconds so use it every time its on cool down. That's it for this week and remember if you have any questions at all just email me at therestodruid@yahoo.com and i will answer your question in a new post as soon as possible, also i love to see feed back from everyone, so let me know what you think!

Podcast

The Resto Druid Podcast Episode 6

LIVE SHOW

Broadcasting Live with Ustream.TV

Video Guides

Tier 9 Preview

Blizzard has posted some Tier 9 previews on the under development page, they are all posted below, enjoy.

If there are any more Tier Sets brough out, we will have them here as soon as we find out. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In patch 3.2, Call of the Crusade, players will be able to work toward the all-new tier-9 class sets by

competingin the Crusaders' Coliseum. To keep with the themes of the Argent Tournament, players

will notice this timearound that the Horde and Alliance have unique looks to distinguish them apart.

Alliance Mage

 

Horde Hunter

Alliance Priest

Horde Shaman

Alliance Warlock

 

Upcoming Patch Info

Patch Notes
Patch 3.2 Badge Rewards and More!
Tier 9 Preview

Battleground Guides

Warsong Gulch
Arathi Basin

Guide to Warsong Gulch

A valley bordering Ashenvale Forest and the Barrens, Warsong Gulch hosts a constant battle between the Horde and the Alliance, Orcs use their Warsong Mill to cut lumber reaped from Ashenvale, provoking the night elves of Silverwing Hold, Eager to aid their allies, members of every race in Azeroth rush to the Gulch to lend sword, or spell, to the conflict.

Level Bracket

• 10–19
• 20–29
• 30–39
• 40–49
• 50–59
• 60–69
• 70–79
• 80

How to Win

Warsong Gulch is a basic Capture the flag game just like any other game. Each team must capture their opponents flag 3 times in order to win. In order to score points you must pick up the opposing teams flag and carry it back to your home base and cap it while your flag remains untouched by the enemy. Warsong Gulch can currently be as long as it wants to be, there is no set timer for Warsong Gulch to end, therefore a game could go on forever. In patch 3.2 there will a time limit set on Warsong Gulch, this time limit will be 20 minutes, whoever has the most points in 20 minutes will win the game. If the score is tied, whoever capped the flag last will win the game. If the score is 0 to 0 it will be a draw.

Extra Power Ups in the Battleground include:

• Berserking - Increases all damage caused by 30%, all damage taken by 10% and increases your size by 10%. Lasts 1 min.
• Restoration - Restores 10% of your health and mana every second for 10 seconds. Attacking or being attacked will cancel the effect.
• Speed - Increases movement speed by 100% for 10 seconds.

Power ups can be found in the small houses in the battleground field and inside the tunnels of each base.

Achievements

Name		Location	Side	Points	Category
	Capture the Flag Personally carry and capture the flag in Warsong Gulch.	Warsong Gulch	Both	10	Warsong Gulch
	Frenzied Defender Return 5 flags in a single Warsong Gulch battle.	Warsong Gulch	Both	10	Warsong Gulch
	Ironman In a single Warsong Gulch battle, carry and capture the flag 3 times without dying.	Warsong Gulch	Both	10	Warsong Gulch
	Master of Warsong Gulch Complete the Warsong Gulch achievements listed below.	Warsong Gulch	Horde	25	Warsong Gulch
	Master of Warsong Gulch Complete the Warsong Gulch achievements listed below.	Warsong Gulch	Alliance	25	Warsong Gulch
	Not In My House In a single Warsong Gulch battle, kill 2 flag carriers before they leave the Warsong Flag Room.	Warsong Gulch	Horde	10	Warsong Gulch
	Not In My House In a single Warsong Gulch battle, kill 2 flag carriers before they leave the Silverwing Flag Room.	Warsong Gulch	Alliance	10	Warsong Gulch
	Not So Fast In Warsong Gulch, kill a player who is under the effects of the speed power-up.	Warsong Gulch	Both	10	Warsong Gulch
	Persistent Defender Return 50 flags as a defender in Warsong Gulch.	Warsong Gulch	Both	10	Warsong Gulch
	Supreme Defender Kill 100 flag carriers in Warsong Gulch.	Warsong Gulch	Alliance	10	Warsong Gulch
	Supreme Defender Kill 100 flag carriers in Warsong Gulch.	Warsong Gulch	Horde	10	Warsong Gulch
	The Conqueror Raise your reputation values in Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin and Alterac Valley to Exalted.		Horde	20	Player vs. Player
	The Justicar Raise your reputation values in Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin and Alterac Valley to Exalted.		Alliance	20	Player vs. Player
	Warsong Expedience Win Warsong Gulch in under 7 minutes.	Warsong Gulch	Both	10	Warsong Gulch
	Warsong Gulch Perfection Win Warsong Gulch with a score of 3 to 0.	Warsong Gulch	Both	10	Warsong Gulch
	Warsong Gulch Veteran Complete 100 victories in Warsong Gulch.	Warsong Gulch	Both	10	Warsong Gulch
	Warsong Gulch Victory Win Warsong Gulch.	Warsong Gulch	Both	10	Warsong Gulch

Warrior Guides

Blogging is Difficult when wearing Plate Armor and a Shield

Warrior Wednesday: The Basics, Protection Edition

Warrior Wednesday: Patch 3.2 and You (Belated Edition)

Warrior Wednesday: The Basics: DPS Edition.(Now with screwed up websites!)

The Resto Druid Guides

The Resto Druid Guide, Speccing your Druid

You and patch 3.2: A resto druid guide

The Resto Guide: Healing the Tanks

The Resto Druid Guide: Healing the Raid

Warrior Wednesday: The Basics: DPS Edition.(Now with screwed up websites!)

I promised, and here it is. Slightly delayed because of trouble on our main website, but here it is: The Warrior DPS stat focus guide. Some similarities are here between gearing as a DPS warrior and a Prot Warrior, but there are obvious differences in what you should be concentrating on.

Firstly, there is the choice of which talent tree you want to specialize in; Either Fury or Arms. Arms is generally regarded as the PvP tree with Fury being PvE, but either one can be viable in both situations. Fury is thought of as easier to play currently in patch 3.1 because of Arms needing to manage a debuff timer, watch for procs, and keeping one ability on cooldown. All that needs to be done for Fury is to keep certain abilities on cooldown while spamming one ability and watching for just one proc. Oh, they get a cooldown too, but Arms, instead of having a cooldown, brings a debuff that really helps other melee classes with bleed effects (which includes themselves). Overall, one's DPS isn't higher than the other, so just choose which one you want to play.

Anyway, as I mentioned in my Protection Guide, you want to concentrate on certain stats first, as they are the most important. For a DPS warrior, the stats you should concentrate on are as follows:

1. Hit Rating!: Trying to hit a big bad boss with your gigantic weapon(s) isn't very effective if you can't even hit him in the first place! For your yellow damage, the hit cap is always 263 hit rating, which translates into 8.00%. Semi-deep into the fury tree, there is a talent that, for 3 points, chops off 3% from that percentage, leaving you with 165 rating needed. Unfortunately, most Arms warriors will not take this as it is still relatively easy to reach 263. As for white damage, it is near impossible to reach the cap, so it is recommended that you just stay above this soft hit cap without going far over it.

2. Expertise!: Slightly less important than hit, but still recommended to have is your expertise capped at 6.50%, or approximately 26 expertise skill, which translates to 214 rating. Like the Protection tree, our two DPS talent trees have their own certain talents that allow us to lower this cap. The Arms tree has Strength of Arms while Fury has Weapon Mastery. Strength of Arms lowers the rating cap to 181, while Weapon Mastery lowers it to 148. Also, if you refer back to my Protection guide, certain races gain even more expertise through weapon racials. Any way it's looked at, being expertise capped means that all level 80 raid bosses won't dodge your attacks when you are standing behind them. Very helpful when you're trying to kill them, right?

3. (Arms Warriors Only) Armor Penetration!: All while you are gearing up as an arms warrior and trying to become hit and expertise capped, you want to have your armor penetration as high as possible until you have reached 100%. This is currently very difficult to accomplish, even with fully gemmed and enchanted gear, but being around the 40% range is fine through gear stats and gems (trinket procs work very well too, pushing you up into the 90%'s). Luckily, you get 10% from being in Battle Stance already.

4. Strength/Crit!: Once an Arms Warrior reaches a high enough Armor Penetration percentage, or once a Fury Warrior becomes hit and expertise capped, while maintaining these values as much as possible, they will start to focus their gear more towards strength and crit rating. Not only do you get 2 attack power per point of strength, but more crit means more chances for your procs to happen if you're Arms and even more damage for Fury. Please note that you should ONLY start focusing on strength and crit if your Armor Pen is high enough if you're an Arms warrior and if you are hit and expertise capped either way.

DPS Warriors can be very powerful forces to have in a raid, especially for Arms with their debuff. Fury is just as good as it is easy for them to interrupt spellcasting as well as bring immediate high dps with a cooldown and relatively easy priority rotations. Either way, a raid will always benefit from having a DPS Warrior because of their unique abilities and their impressive plate-armored survivability.

Next week, I guess I'll talk about some recent Patch 3.2 changes that have popped up since my last Patch post, and maybe more. Maybe. :) Until then, Cláymore out!