Gimpy Knee's World of Warcraft Blog

World Of Warcraft Archaeology Profession Guide

noreply@blogger.com (Gimpy) — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 17:17:00 +0000

In case you haven't heard, a new profession was added with the release of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Like Cooking and First Aid, every character can learn it no mater how many professions the character already knows. Archaeology trainers can be found in all of the big cities.

You dig up artifact fragments at various sites throughout Azeroth and Outland and combine them to reconstruct artifacts ranging in quality. At this time, there are only grey, blue and purple artifacts.

Finding an archaeology dig site is easy. Once you have learned the skill, open up your map and expand it out so you are looking at a complete continent. You can only see 4 dig sites on a continent at a time and new ones are added after you fully explore a site.

Also, move your two archaeology buttons to one of your action bars for easy access.

Click on the image above to see a larger version. Notice the 3 little grey house icons with a red line next to them in the southern end of the continent? That means there are dig sites there. Since I took this screen shot after I had been doing archaeology for a while, your map's sites will be in different zones. So don't freak out if your map is different. :)

Once you find a dig site on the continental map, click on the zone.

Notice the two reddish-orange splotches on the map? Those are the boundaries of the dig sites. You'll want to make your way to those locations. Once you are there, click on your digging/survey icon (the shovel button). A survey site will appear for about 10 seconds pointing you in the direction of an archaeology fragment.

	A survey tool with a green light means you are very close. Usually less than 25 yards and the survey tool is pointing almost directly at the fragment.
	A yellow light means you are getting close. Typically, the fragment is somewhere between 25 and 50 yards away. The survey tool is pointing at the fragment and is fairly accurate.
	A red light means you are not close to the fragment (over 50 yards way). The survey tool is pointing in the general direction of the fragment. It could be straight ahead or it could be off to the left or right with a 45 degree variation to either side. Move in the direction it's pointing for about 50 yards and survey again.

When you are close enough, the survey tool will not appear when you survey and you just need to find the archaeology fragment (typically within 10 yards of you) and click on it. Your skill level will determine how many actual fragments you will find. You will also be awarded experience for finding it. There are 3 fragment finds per dig site. So, once you find the first fragment, survey again to be pointed in the direction of the next fragment. Sometimes you get lucky and the next fragment or two are right next to you. :)

Now that you've found your fragments, you'll want to take a look at your archaeology journal.

Here is where you will see the different types of archaeology fragments you can find by race. Once you've found some fragments, the appropriate race will no longer be faded out. Click on the race to see a little history, the artifact you are working on and how many fragments you have.

Once you have found all of the needed fragments to complete the artifact (the bar will be full), you can click on the Solve button to create the artifact. I'll explain later on, but hold off on doing this for now. Don't worry, there doesn't appear to be a limit to the number of fragments you can have at one time.

Those are the basics on how archaeology works in World of Warcfraft. Now, on to the more advanced stuff like how to optimize your skill ups since you will only be finding fragments for junk artifacts until your skill level hits 450.

Now, at this time, I only have one character I'm using for archaeology because I noticed the experience for each dig site is pretty decent. At level 78 my shaman was getting 11k exp per fragment found or a little over 33k exp per archaeology site. I actually went all the way through level 79 in about 2 hours just doing archaeology. The experience per fragment was about 12.5k and was over 36k for a site.

I don't recommend using archaeology to level up until you have a flying mount and are high enough level to not aggro every mob you get close to. :)

Ok, on to how to do skill ups...

Archaeology Skill Level 1 to 100
At these levels you will only receive dig sites in Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms. Skill ups from finding fragments will slow down at 75 and will stop completely at 100. Save those fragments and do not Solve any artifacts.

Archaeology Skill Level 100 to 300
Dig sites are still only in Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms and at skill level 100 you will no longer receive skill points for finding fragments. The only way you will be getting points in archaeology will be by Solving artifacts. You get 5 skill ups for each artifact you Solve and this is why you should have been saving your fragments. :)

Chances are you did not have enough fragments to jump straight from skill level 100 to 300, so get out there and keep digging and solving to get those skill ups!

Archaeology Skill Level 300 to 375
At skill level 300, you will start seeing dig sites in Outland. You will still see them in Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms, but you will get skill ups for fragments found in Outland and you might as well start there if you are of the appropriate level. Make sure you save your fragments for when your skill ups from surveying stop.

If you are looking to use the dig sites for the experience gains, I recommend being level 70+ to reduce aggro issues.

Archaeology Skill Level 375 to 450
At skill level 375 you will start seeing dig sites in Northrend. Dig sites in Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor and Outland will still be available too. You will want to move to Northrend as soon as possible though because you’ll have 4 dig sites in a much smaller area. Again, save those fragments for when the surveying skill ups dry up.

if you plan on using archaeology to level up, you will need Cold Weather Flying in order to use a flying mount in Northrend, so get that as soon as you can. Level 80+ is recommended, but you can probably get away with 75-79 in the earlier zones.

Archaeology Skill Level 450 to 525
At skill level 450 you can survey dig sites wherever you want and you will start seeing dig sites in the new Cataclysm zones. Also, you can start to receive fragments for the epic level artifacts.

That's it for how to skill up Archaeology in World of Warcraft. It isn't too exciting (it probably isn't for most people in real life either ;)), but it is a great way to kill some time and accomplish something without engaging in a lot of combat. It's also not a bad way to get some additional experience while you're out doing quests.

That's about it. Good luck! Now, get out there and start digging!

You can see a list of all of the available Artifacts and Archaeology Achievements Here.

The Best World of Warcraft Cataclysm Level Guide

noreply@blogger.com (Gimpy) — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 18:33:00 +0000

Struggling to level up your World of Warcraft characters because the quests are too complicated or vague? Or, you just don't know where to go or how to optimize your playing time?

Watch the short video below for the answer:

Check out the FREE Level 1-20 leveling guide trial for all races and classes for the Horde and Alliance at

Dugi Ultimate World of Warcraft Cataclysm Guides

How to Make Gold Before Cataclysm Is Out

noreply@blogger.com (Gimpy) — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 18:58:00 +0000

The biggest question anyone has right now about Cataclysm is how to make enough gold to be ready for the expansion. What do you do when the expansion comes out to make sure you have enough gold on hand to buy all your new mounts, new gear, new items, and everything else?

It’s a tough one. No one knows for sure how messed up the economy will get when the xpac goes live, but we do know it will be messed up (it always is). Some items will be completely worthless, others will be on hold for a while. Others still will disappear from use entirely.

And it doesn’t help that in Cataclysm all of our stats and talents are going to change... Again. Plus, this time around we have tons of new alts starting up with new class combos, two new races and the rebuilt Azeroth to check out.

So, how do you make cash in that new environment so that you can afford all the cool new stuff Blizzard has been cooking up for two years?

It starts with a bit of preparation. Something that Cataclysm Insider has been developed to help you do.

Why a Guide?

You’re probably wondering why you need a guide to help you prepare for Cataclysm right now. What does it have that common sense can’t get you. I can’t speak for everyone (and some of you are pretty good at this stuff), but my head starts spinning when an expansion comes along and it doesn’t stop until a couple of months have passed.

I get overwhelmed. With Cataclysm Insider, it looks like that content induced vertigo won’t be an issue. The idea being that if you know what to buy and what to sell and when to do it, that you can make a tremendous amount of gold in Cataclysm without having to give up the things you’d rather be doing when the xpac hits – like leveling, raiding, or, my personal favorite, PvP.

It remains to be seen just how good the tips in this guide will turn out being, but as of right now, I can already see a lot of players getting a huge jump start on everyone else in the preparation game. If you’re not already doing so, remember – you only have until December 7th – then you’re on your own.

DISCLAIMER: I am an affiliate for Cataclysm Insider. I receive a commission for any sales of T Dub’s guide through this site.

World of Warcraft Brewfest Guide

noreply@blogger.com (Gimpy) — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 14:59:00 +0000

It's that time of year again... The World of Warcraft Brewfest Event is now live! It runs from September 20 to October 6.

Checkout this FREE video guide series on this special World of Warcraft Brewfest Event page below:

CLICK HERE NOW!

* This is your chance to get the 'Romance Goggles' voted one of the best item in WoW ever! make everyone you see more attractive (even NPCs!)

* Bring a keg to your raid party to have a drink while waiting to begin.

* Collect mounts from the opposite faction! Ram or Kodo.

Complete list of rewards and free video guide can be found by following the link below.

CLICK HERE NOW!

It's time to get your virtual buzz on! :)

Recruit-A-Friend, Flying Mount

noreply@blogger.com (Gimpy) — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

In case you didn't know, if you refer a friend or family member to World of Warcraft and they pay for two full months of subscription time, you'll receive an exclusive in-game X-53 Touring Rocket flying mount.

I actually got this a few months ago thanks to The Wife starting to play World of Warcraft about 4 months ago. Graphically, it's nothing special, but the fact that a second person can hop on makes it cool. Especially if the person doesn't have a flying mount of their own yet. The downside is you only get 1 X-53 Touring Rocket for your account. So, choose which character you give it to wisely.

I was pretty excited when I saw this was a Recruit-A-Friend reward and I actually put it on my shaman when she was only level 45. I then made a big push for 60 and once I got my shaman to 60 I ran to Outland and made a beeline to the stables and purchased the riding skill necessary to use the Touring Rocket. And, of course, The Wife made the decision she didn't want to play her human paladin as her main character any more the second I bought the riding skill.

What did she want to play? Well, my main is a death knight and she's seen me play it enough that she wanted to try that. Luckily her paladin was 56 and she was able to create a death knight right away. If you didn't already know, you need to have a level 55+ character on the server you want to create the death knight. I got a little lucky there because I'm not sure I'm ready to level up another character from level 1. Even with triple experience. :)

After a couple of hours and reaching 58, she brought her death knight to Outland and we started leveling up together. Again.

The Best Starcraft 2 Strategy Guides Are On Their Way!

noreply@blogger.com (Gimpy) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 19:46:00 +0000

I've seen a lot of games come and go, but nothing and I mean nothing stands up like a Blizzard game. Years past the expiration date, players will be going at each others throats in world wide competitions.

So, when a sequel comes along, the gaming universe grinds to a halt. And guess what just happened...yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

Starcraft 2 just hit the market - blazing into store fronts with a massive, overwhelming new set of features. And if you just heard about it, you're already behind. Players have been gutting each other since February in the beta and for 12 years before that in the original game - still a cult favorite around the world.

So, where are you right now? Sitting at your PC, fishing for Glacial Salmon in Northrend? Seriously, still? Get out of there and start training because if you're not ready when the world's biggest, most successful RTS gets its first official sequel, kiss your rankings good bye.

I've been watching the development of the game for years, and already I've seen more people with so called strategies come along, trying to help players get better at the world's greatest real time strategy game.

Are they kidding me?

These guys don't know what the heck they're doing and they think they can train you to stand with the Korean mega-players and RTS superstars that have been playing for the last two decades, non-stop.

I don't think so.

That's why STARCRAFT 2 SECRETS is the only guide you should be looking at right now. It's bigger, better, and more powerful than any other Starcraft 2 strategy guide I've ever seen and if you get to the site now, you can be one of the first players to ever lay eyes on it.

Ready to stop being the runt of the pack? Start playing Starcraft 2 the way it was meant - balls to the walls, guns blazing, and enemies making up a soupy muck in your wake.

Recruit-A-Friend, Cross Faction Style

noreply@blogger.com (Gimpy) — Tue, 11 May 2010 02:21:00 +0000

Ok, The Wife creating a Blood Elf paladin when all of my characters are Alliance is kind of... amusing. See, getting gold, backpacks and other equipment to her Alliance characters isn't exactly a problem. The Recruit-A-Friend experience bonus while grouped makes things go quicker too. However, when she plays the Blood Elf, every time I walk by her, she sighs or mutters something about needing bigger bags or more gold to buy that piece of equipment in the Auction House that caught her eye.

This isn't a big deal because I just tell her she gets to play Old School WoW and has to make money and upgrade gear through quests. :) But, this comes back to bite me because she "needs help" to complete the group quests. There are not a whole lot of people leveling up new characters on Whisperwind and even less in the Ghostlands. So, when she needs help to get that nice blue item, I get to fly one of my characters to the Ghostlands and beat up some level 20 elite mobs so she can complete a quest.

In case you didn't know how this is done... She tags a mob first with an attack, I wait till the mob's portrait goes gray and *BOOM*. Game over. She gets the experience and loot. Yeah, it's cheap, but we're not stealing mobs from people who need them. No harm, no foul. Plus, if you don't understand why I'm really doing it, you're obviously not married or don't have a significant other. ;)

If you didn't get the idea, Recruit-A-Friend bonuses are pointless for characters not in the same faction. You can't communicate in-game and you can't group with your friend. Without grouping you can't summon each other or get any experience bonuses and the biggest "problem" is no running them through dungeons with your level 80 characters. ;) So, unless you just want to follow your friend around and talk about them behind their back to their face or steal their mobs, there's no real point.

Recruit-A-Friend, A Few Levels Later

noreply@blogger.com (Gimpy) — Mon, 03 May 2010 19:58:00 +0000

In my last post I told you how I recruited The Wife into World of Warcraft through Recruit-A-Friend. To say it's been a success would be an understatement. I have created a WoW Addict. I first noticed her addiction when I was working in my office on a weeknight and got up to go to the kitchen and noticed some very familiar sounds coming from her office. I stop to take a look and there she is playing World of Warcraft.

I say, "I thought we had a deal to only play our characters together?"
She says, "I'm not playing the druid. I made a paladin because they look so cool to play."

This was entirely my fault. I had run her druid through some low level dungeons with my level 80 paladin and she was amazed at how he could kill multiple mobs so quickly. Yeah, I know, level 80 versus level 20-30 mobs isn't exactly amazing, but you have to remember she hadn't experienced masses of mobs dying in seconds before then. Oh and her main character is now the paladin because the druid "wasn't tough enough."

So, my shaman gets put on the shelf while waiting for the paladin to catch up and she does in fairly short order. We start grouping again at level 35 and the fun continues. If you didn't know, a paladin and shaman duo is pretty awesome. Tanking, buffs, heals, crazy DPS... Yeah... This is going to be really fun at 60+.

Now, I realize this doesn't really sound like WoW addiction, but consider this...

We're within a couple levels of each other and only play the paladin and shaman when we can play together. Levels are coming fairly quick. My higher level characters are funding our leveling costs. We're having fun. No problem, right? Wrong. Apparently, a few hours on the weekends isn't enough pally action for The Wife. She goes and creates a second paladin to play during the week. Not just any paladin either. She created a Blood Elf paladin. I'm still not sure if I should laugh or cry.

I'm laughing inside when I say this to her, "Can't stop playing, can you?"
She responds, "I can stop any time I want!"

Yep, I created a WoW addict and I'm kind of proud about it. :)

Our First Recruit-A-Friend Weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Gimpy) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 22:58:00 +0000

So, I finally convinced The Wife to play World of Warcraft. Ok, well, it was more like I wanted to see how the Recruit-A-Friend system worked, so I sent an invitation to her email address and created a Blizzard account with her info. She kind of noticed the huge download that is WoW and asked me what it was. In my most innocent of voices said, "It's a game I think you'll like!" She, of course, didn't buy that excuse, but played along. :)

Our first weekend was spent getting her acquainted with the game. We created a Night Elf druid for her because she played a druid in EverQuest and she likes the general concept of druids being friends to animals and she also liked the idea of shapeshifting. She had to solo up to about level 15 because the lowest character I had was a level 17 Draenei shaman. It was a good learning experience for her though as it gave her time to learn the basics and get used to the interface while I could answer questions and give tips without me being distracted playing my own character.

Once she got her druid to level 15, we started grouping together and got our first real dose of the Recruit-A-Friend system. We also came to the agreement we would only play these characters together (i.e. No solo questing). One of the nicer features is once you are grouped, you can summon your friend to you and they can summon you once an hour. We took advantage of this by having one of my higher level characters fly out to various griffon stations, summon her character and then she would summon my shaman. Saved us some of those longer runs like from Ironforge to Menethil Harbor.

The nicest feature of Recruit-A-Friend is the double experience from NPC kills AND quests. At lower levels, you will level after 4 or 5 quest turn-ins. I should have payed better attention, but I'm pretty sure we were leveling at least 3 times in a 2 gaming hour session and we were not getting a lot quests done. Hopefully, this trend will continue as we reach higher levels. I don't expect multiple level gains every two hours, but the experience bonus should be noticeable.

More to come...

Northrend Orphan Week

noreply@blogger.com (Gimpy) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 14:48:00 +0000

There is now a third Orphan Week in World of Warcraft. This time it takes place in Northrend. If you're not familiar with what Orphan Week is, you basically temporarily adopt an orphan and bring him to places he's never been but would like to see.

These quests are very easy (minimum level 75) and you could get them done with a ground mount, but are really meant for characters with flying mounts in Northrend as they dramatically decrease the time to get them done.

Step1 :
Visit the orphan matron in Dalaran near the Alliance side's bank and get your orphan. There are two orphan's to choose from. A wolvar and an oracle (really ugly murloc).

Step 2:

Get three quests from your orphan. "Playmates!" is the only quest in this step that is different for the two orphans. The wolvar orphan has you go to the wolvar village in Dragonblight and the oracle orphan has you go to the Winterfin Retreat in Borean Tundra.

Step 3:

Both orphans want to meet the Dragon Queen in Wyrmest Temple (with different things to say to her), but they want to go to two different places for the second quest. The oracle orphan wants to see a Great One in Sholazar Basin while the wolvar wants to meet Hemet Nesingwary in Sholazar.

Step 4:

This is the easiest step. Go back to Dalaran to buy a small paper zepplin at The Wonderworks in the tradeskill section and play catch with your orphan.

After you've done that, go back to the matron to finish the quest. A minute or two later and you will get some mail with your new pet.

I wasn't really paying attention to how long it was taking to get these Northrend Orphan Week quests done as I was doing other things, but I would say 30 minutes is an accurate guess. If you like to collect Orphan Week pets like me, both pets are a must. Plus, the wolvar pet is pretty cool. :)

Side Note: I have to give kudos to Blizzard for the change to the Quest Log screen. The vertical split lets you see more quests in your list and more quest text on your screen at once. Very good change.

The payoffs:
Wolvar

Oracle

Class Q & A Series: Paladin

noreply@blogger.com (Gimpy) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:59:00 +0000

The 5th Class Q & A Series thread is up on the official World of Warcraft forum. This time around, it's the Paladin's turn. Read the thread Here.

My Paladin just dinged level 80 last weekend and I was kind of hoping to see something useful or informative in the the thread. However, the Class Q & A Series discussion for the Paladin is not very insightful or contains anything I would consider new.

Not that Paladins really need anything in the level 1 to 79 range for leveling purposes. You pretty much just specialize in Retribution and blow through content. Leveling as a Holy Paladin is just dumb and a waste of time. You can level as a Protection Paladin and kill multiple mobs at once. But, the reality is, Retribution is the fastest, most efficient way to go for leveling.

If the level 80 instance running/raiding game is anything like what it was like for the level 70 game before Wrath of the Lich King, Paladins should do fine as healers and tanks despite any changes coming in 3.2. Based on the few instances I have run through as a DPSer, I think Retribution Paladins will do well in the PvE area as well. Although, pressing 3-4 buttons gets pretty boring pretty fast.

This quote is a little confusing based on how much people whine about Paladins being over-powered in PvP.

"Q. All classes vary in dps from one encounter to another; however, some paladins may feel their dps can be less competitive at times in comparison to other classes, more so in straight stationary single-target dps encounters. How do we feel paladins are doing in terms of dps across the board?

A. Retribution dps is too low in PvE in 3.1. We are buffing it in 3.2 through the new way Seal of Vengeance / Corruption will work. This Seal is designed to really deliver damage once the paladin gets five stacks up, which will make it the Seal of choice for boss fights. Seal of Command will be used in PvP or PvE for short fights. We expect overall for Corruption / Vengeance to be the “go-to” Seal much of the time, perhaps even in PvP, provided you can keep the buff up."

If I'm reading this right, Seal of Vengeance / Corruption is getting a buff so it does MORE damage and this will, of course, transfer over to PvP. How exactly is this going to address the cries of Paladins being over-powered? What's annoying is Death Knight damage is getting nerfed (even more) in 3.2 but Paladins are getting buffed and based on playing both of these "over-powered" classes, I find this incredibly bass ackwards.

I'm not saying Death Knights didn't need to be adjusted, but Retribution Paladins need to be adjusted too. Having fought both classes in PvP at the level 80 bracket now, I dread fighting Retribution Paladins a lot more. Big damage plus healing plus bubble of the Paladin outweighs the big damage a Death Knight can deal. Hopefully, Blizzard can make some good adjustments during testing, but I'm not holding my breath.

World of Warcraft Class Q&A Series: Warlock

noreply@blogger.com (Gimpy) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:46:00 +0000

Everyone's favorite demon-hugging class gets some love in the World of Warcraft Class Q&A Series. The Warlock Q&A thread can be found Here.

I have a level 52 Warlock and can understand some of the issues the higher level Warlock crowd has with the class. The possible changes discussed in Q&A thread sound interesting, but I'm not the best person to judge them. I primarily play my Warlock when all my other characters get boring.

Warlocks are very easy to level and tend to get boring pretty quick unless you get inventive or push your limits. PvP is fun when you're at the top of a level group in Battlegrounds and not facing a bunch of twinks. But, it sucks when you're in the lower half of the level range because you're not much more than a speed bump to most classes thanks to having no real escape abilities.

Perhaps the biggest change to Warlocks brought up in the Q&A series will be to Soul Stones with a complete revamp of how they're used. Nothing specific was mentioned, but they said they want to make the system interesting and worthwhile. It should be interesting to see what Blizzard comes up with.

World of Warcraft Class Q & A Series: Death Knight

noreply@blogger.com (Gimpy) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:06:00 +0000

The World of Warcraft Class Q & A Series continues with the Death Knight class in this thread on the official boards. It seems a little longer than the Mage thread, but that may be a perception issue because I have more interest in any changes to the Death Knight since it is my favorite class to play.

My general impression of what was said is Blizzard is going to hit Death Knights with the nerfbat. Repeatedly. The question is are they going to swing the bat one too many times and tick off all of the Death Knights or are they not going to swing it enough and tick off all of the non-Death Knights?

Either way, I don't think I'm going to be happy. Not because of the changes but because Blizzard did not specifically state in the thread what they think a Hero class is and what is expected of them in all aspects of the game. They cracked some jokes about how over-powered Death Knights are, but avoided the question. I think it's pretty safe to say Blizzard does not have a clear vision of what role or abilities a Death Knight, or any Hero class, should have.

If, in the end, Death Knights are "balanced" and turn out to be just another class, Blizzard needs to remove the "Hero" label and stop giving people the false impression Death Knights are supposed to be special.

And for the record, I think anyone who has a character level 55 or over should be able to create any new character at level 55 with a set of blue equipment and mount, if they want. Let's be honest, the road from 1-60 or 1-70 or 1-80 is only fun the first couple of times and that might be pushing it.

In the end, I think Blizzard is in a no win situation with this Q & A series for Death Knights. Too much tweaking and people will stop playing their Deaths Knights and possibly cancel their accounts. Not enough and the whining from masses of non-Death Knights will continue on.

World of Warcraft Class Q & A Series: Mage

noreply@blogger.com (Gimpy) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:28:00 +0000

The World of Warcraft Class Q & A Series continues with the Mage class in this thread on the official boards. Overall, it's a good read and informative.

Some highlights:

"Q: Even so, will mages get robes, or at least the option of choosing robes, over tunics going forward?

A: To be totally honest, this is not a huge priority for us at this time. We embrace some level of player visual customization in World of Warcraft, but it’s just not in the design vision to give players as many controls over how their character looks as some players would probably desire. One of the distinctive visual qualities of cloth is that it often looks like long, flowing robes, which is pretty consistent with the iconic fantasy wizard. No doubt some players would prefer to change the look of their weapon or weapon enchant if they could without having a game play effect, so this is just a slippery slope for us. We will keep the feedback in mind though."

Not specific to mages, but their attitude towards players wanting to customize their "look" annoys me a little but is consistent with their art choices for equipment over the past couple of years.

Basically, Blizzard has been getting lazy with the amount of work put into how different looking armor sets for a class are. See the new 3.1 gear as an example. They just switch some colors around and that's it. This isn't a huge deal, but I find their attitude towards it annoying.

"Q: While mages do recognize this issue, has there been any discussion about reworking Blink so it’s more intuitive and could recognize a mage failing to teleport any distance forward, wasting only a global cooldown rather than the mana and spell cooldown?

A: Blink is a movement spell, and anything related to movement can be a little dicey on a client-server game like World of Warcraft. That’s not an excuse for it bugging out, but an explanation for why you can get into situations where it doesn’t seem to work. In the 3.1 patch we made some technical improvements to the spell working on slopes. It used to fail a lot in the portal area of Dalaran for example, but that has been much improved. One of the places where it still seems to struggle the most is entering or exiting the tunnels in Warsong Gulch, which ironically is one of the places where it’s also the most useful. Anywhere there is a change in terrain, such as entering a building, could be problematic. We are working on this issue. If you run into a problem with Blink, the most helpful thing you can do in the Bug Report forum is specify where exactly you had the spell fail. That will let our engineers zero in on solutions."

I find it hilarious that Blizzard STILL hasn't found a resolution for blink's problems. Before they changed how macros work way back when, you could have a macro make you jump and blink with a key click and terrain preventing the blink wasn't an issue. Usually. For some reason, hitting the spacebar to jump and then blink isn't as effective.

I'm not sure why they haven't put a jump component into blink yet. If they're afraid of people killing themselves by jump blinking over barriers, I say let them. Mages have slow fall for a reason. :)

Midsummer Festival Event Guide

noreply@blogger.com (Gimpy) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:16:00 +0000

The Midsummer Festival in World of Warcraft is scheduled to begin on June 21 and end on July 4. This event is packed with things to do and can be somewhat complicated. You will need a guide if you want to get all of the rewards and achievements.

This Midsummer Festival Guide page has the locations of all of the bonfires as well as the available rewards and achievements. There aren't any walk-throughs on the page itself (it's a sales page for an in-game guide), but it should give you a good idea of where to start and whether or not there is anything you might want from the festival.

Good luck.

Isle Of Conquest Preview

noreply@blogger.com (Gimpy) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:22:00 +0000

In case you hadn't heard, there is a Isle of Conquest Preview on the official World of Warcraft site. It's mostly just concept stuff at this point. No screen shots or movies. Just one image of concept artwork.

However, there's enough information to get me excited about this new battleground. Isle of Conquest is a 40 on 40 battle in the tradition of Alterac Valley (my personal favorite). Basically, you fight against the other faction in order to kill the enemy general or reduce their reinforcements to 0 while trying to control strategic points on the map.

The biggest differences between Isle of Conquest and Alterac Valley are siege vehicles and an airship where players can pickup parachutes and assault the enemy from above. Ground based siege vehicles can be used to kill enemy soldiers, break down the enemy fortress walls like in the Battle for Wintergrasp and toss allies over the walls of the enemy fortress (I bet the landing part really sucks).

I really like the idea of having to actually defend and attack at the same time. It has created some really fun times in previous battlegrounds. My only real concern is getting enough people on a side to actually work together to accomplish something. Alterac Valley should be an attack while defending battleground, but is usually just a zerg race to see who can kill the enemy general first. Hopefully, Isle of Conquest will have features to prevent this from happening.

Isle of Conquest looks like it is taking some of the best features of existing battlegrounds (command areas (Arathi Basin), siege vehicles (Strands of the Ancients) and reinforcements (Alterac Valley), putting them into a large, possibly huge map, and throwing 40 people against 40 of their bestest friends to see who comes out the victor. I'm really looking forward to it.

World of Warcraft Class Q&A Series: Shaman

noreply@blogger.com (Gimpy) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:03:00 +0000

This is a must read if you play a shaman in World of Warcraft. Lots of good info.

Click Here to read the thread on the official World of Warcraft forums.

Star Wars: The Old Republic - Deceived Cinematic Trailer HD

noreply@blogger.com (Gimpy) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:05:00 +0000

This isn't World of Warcraft related or a video of actual game play, but I don't care. Star Wars: The Old Republic is shaping up to be the game that breaks my World of Warcraft addiction.

This is the Star Wars: The Old Republic - Deceived Cinematic Trailer HD shown at E3 this year.

New Character Of The Month For June - Markco

noreply@blogger.com (Gimpy) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:09:00 +0000

Name: Markco
Race: Orc
Class: Warrior
Level: 80
Specialization: Protection

Bio: I’m a warrior who does something maybe a handful of people in the world have tried and only one is better at: Play protection pvp.

Alloraan of Daggerspine is the only player in the world to score a higher arena rating than myself last season (2450 vs my 2380).

How prot pvp works is you grab as much block value as possible from pve gear and then gem it with +crit gems and enchant for +hit/+crit. You also have to chain your abilities to get the largest crits possible from shield slam:

5xSunder, Enraged (+10% overall damage), Shield Slam Once (+10% dmg from glyph on next shield slam within 10 seconds), Disarm (+10% all dmg for duration of disarm), Shield Bash (+10% dmg for 3 seconds on next shield slam), Shield Block (+100% shield block value), Trinket (+440 Shield Block Value), Ret Judgement (+3% damage) and finally slam for insane crits.

I see as high as 13.8k in arenas on cloth and 8k on plate against full resilience targets. We basically cc chain every 40 seconds (my pally partner is ret/holy for repentance) and go for a burst kill. When I think we will down the person (knowing they are out of defensive cool downs) then
I pop recklessness to seal the deal during my rotation. As a prot warrior I can peel like crazy and keep my partner up easily while we wait for our cooldowns to come back between bursts.

To see some of the numbers I’m capable of, check out This Video.

My highest slam on record is 20k+ on a priest in wsg; he had zerker but I did not. I did have a full row of +str buffs from teammates.

Hogger Riverpaw And Edwin VanCleef

noreply@blogger.com (Gimpy) — Fri, 29 May 2009 14:38:00 +0000

So, I noticed I a new Twitter follower with a familiar name this morning. Hogger Riverpaw is the name and if you don't recognize it, you obviously haven't leveled up an Alliance character around Stormwind.

I read through his tweets to make sure he just wasn't another World of Warcraft spammer on Twitter. He isn't. He's just keeping a Twitter log of his life around Stormwind. It's entertaining enough and a nice change. I just hope the level one characters don't gang up on him and ruin his day.

There's also at least one other World of Warcraft character on Twitter keeping a log of his life around Westfall. It's none other than Edwin VanCleef.

How he made it out of the Dead Mines long enough to make it to Sentinel Hill without getting ganked is a mystery. He must be running around in a disguise. I hope the lowbies keep their eyes open and running shoes on.

I look forward to reading these two's tweets. Hopefully, if enough people follow them, maybe some other World of Warcraft characters will make their way to Twitter.

WoW: Class Question And Answer Series

noreply@blogger.com (Gimpy) — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:42:00 +0000

World of Warcraft Class Question and Answer Series
From this thread on the official World of Warcraft forums.

"We are looking for community class questions and topics for a class Question & Answer series. Over the next few weeks, we will be posting in each of the class forums and discussing the latest high priority questions and topics the community has. We will then be compiling these questions and topics into a larger Question & Answer post to address as many of questions as possible. While we will be creating one post in each of the class forums to solicit questions and topics of interest, we will also be keeping a close eye on additional posts and discussions.

It is important to keep in mind that we have a schedule of classes we will be addressing and will be getting to each class individually over this period of time. Please note, this list is subject to change."

If you have any questions or concerns about your favorite class, here's your chance to voice your concerns.

Here are links to the class questions threads (they're not all up yet):

Shaman questions

Mage questions

Warlock questions

Death Knight questions

Paladin questions
Warrior questions
Hunter questions
Druid questions
Rogue questions
Priest questions

World of Warcraft Equipment Manager

noreply@blogger.com (Gimpy) — Wed, 20 May 2009 15:21:00 +0000

With the 3.1.2 patch that went in yesterday, May 19, the World of Warcraft Equipment Manager was finally activated.

It's a good feature, but the implementation is a little weak. To use it, the first thing you need to do is to bring up the game options screen (hit the Esc key) and choose Interface. Then choose Controls and select Use Equipment Manager near the bottom of the window.

To access the Equipment Manager, bring up your Character screen (default key is C). In the upper right of the window you should see a new icon above your hands item slot. Click on the icon to bring up the Equipment Manager 10 slot window.

For demonstration purposes, click the Save button and another window will pop up where you select an icon, a name for the item group and save it. Then, with the Equipment Manager window still open put a different item into the appropriate slot. For example, equip a different hands item. Then click the Save button and choose a different icon and different name for the new item group.

This is the part that could have been improved. Now, find a blank spot for each Equipment Manager icon in one of your action bars and drag the Equipment Manager icons to the blank spots. If you want a hot key for these, you will need to go through the appropriate steps to create a hot key in the Key Bindings screen.

That's it. You're now ready to change outfits with the press of a button. Keep in mind you will need at least two equipment groups for the World of Warcraft Equipment Manager to be useful.

World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.1.2 May 19 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Gimpy) — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:35:00 +0000

You'll get a nice little patch when you start up World of Warcraft today. The biggest news is the addition of the Equipment Manager and the changes to the Lake Wintergrasp daily quests.

Here are the patch notes:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.1.2
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

The latest patch notes can always be found at
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/

General

- Equipment Manager
When enabled from the Interface Options menu, this feature will
allow players to store sets of equipment, easily swap between saved
sets using hotkeys, and pull items directly from backpacks or bank
slots (must be at the bank to equip inventory from the bank).
- New art textures have been added for Argent Tournament mounts. Any
mounts already purchased from the Argent Tournament vendors will be
updated automatically. Argent Tournament mounts with the old
textures will still be available for purchase from the Argent
Tournament vendors for a small Champion’s Seal and gold cost
(standard faction requirements apply).
- Copied Test Realm characters will no longer be copied with their
achievement history in order to better facilitate the character copy
process.

PVP

- Vehicle health and damage output in Strand of the Ancients and Lake
Wintergrasp now scale with the item level of the operator’s gear.
Power scaling is now 1% damage and 1% health per average item level.
- All Lake Wintergrasp daily quests have been changed to a weekly
format. The honor and Stone Keeper’s Shards rewarded for completing
these quests have been increased to compensate.

Death Knights

- Improved Death Strike: This talent now also increases the healing
from Death Strike by 25/50% and the tooltip has been adjusted to
reflect the actual functionality after the hotfix in 3.1.0.
- Ghoul Frenzy: Now has a 10-second cooldown.

Druids

- Innervate: This ability has been redesigned to grant 450% of the
casting Druid’s base mana pool to the target over 20 seconds.
- Improved Moonkin Form: Now grants 10/20/30% of spirit as spell
power.

Mages

- Mirror Images: The images summoned by this spell will now target the
creature that most hates the Mage, and should no longer cast Fire
Blast or Frostbolt on targets that are affected by crowd control
debuffs that break immediately on damage unless they are already
casting these spells when crowd control is applied.

Paladins

- Blessing of Wisdom and Greater Blessing of Wisdom: Now grant 92 mana
per 5 seconds to prevent being overwritten by Mana Spring Totem.
- Exorcism: Can no longer be used on player-controlled creatures.

Priests

- Divine Hymn: Healing and healing scaling reduced by 30%. Buff on
affected players changed from 15% to 10%.
- Renewed Hope: Effect can no longer be dispelled.
- Soul Warding: Mana cost reduction is now 15% down from 30%.

Warlocks

- Conflagrate updated: Consumes an Immolate or Shadowflame effect on
the enemy target to instantly deal damage equal to 12 seconds of
your Immolate, or 8 seconds of your Shadowflame.
- Fire and Brimstone: Now increases the damage done by your Incinerate
and Chaos Bolt by 3/6/9/12/15% on targets afflicted by Immolate, and
increases the critical strike chance of your Conflagrate by
5/10/15/20/25%.
- Nether Protection reduced to 30% damage reduction, down from 60%.
- Sacrifice (Voidwalker) redesigned: Sacrifices a portion of the
Voidwalker's health, giving its master a shield that will absorb X
damage for 30 seconds. While the shield holds, spell casting will
not be interrupted by damage. 1-minute cooldown.
- Shadow and Flame: Now also includes Shadowburn.

Warriors

- Juggernaut: Critical strike chance bonus reduced to 25%, down from
100%.

Items

- Darkruned Battlegear 2-Piece Set Bonus: The bonus critical strike
chance for Frost Strike and Death Coil has been increased from 5% to
8%.
- Furious Gladiator’s Staff and Furious Gladiator’s Greatstaff: The
agility values on these two items were too high. They have been
reduced by 50%.
- Glyphs
Glyph of Conflagrate redesigned: When you use Conflagrate, the
damage done by your next 3 Destruction spells is increased by 10%
for 15 seconds if the Immolate on the target has 5 or fewer seconds
remaining.
Glyph of Innervate: Has been adjusted to grant the Druid 90% of his
or her base mana pool over 20 seconds.
Glyph of Mass Dispel: Now only decreases Mass Dispel cost by 35%.
Glyph of Rapid Charge: Reduced to 7%, down from 20% cooldown
reduction to Charge.
- Guise of the Midgard Serpent: The base attack power on this item has
been lowered to balance it against items of a similar quality.
- Increased the health and mana restored from Northrend food and
drinks.
- Most scopes now have a level requirement and will bind the item to
which they are applied.
- Nightsong Garb 4-Piece Set Bonus: Chance for Insect Swarm to trigger
an instant Starfire changed to 15%.
- Scourgeborne Battlegear 4-Piece Set Bonus: The runic power gain has
been reduced to 5 runic power from 10 runic power.

Professions

- Fishing
Jewel of the Sewers: You can now fish in all parts of the Dalaran
sewers for this quest.
Phantom Ghostfish: Can now be caught from Nettlefish schools in
Sholazar Basin.

Bug Fixes

- Death Knights
Anti-magic Shell: Tooltip error corrected.
Blood Boil: If no target is available for Blood Boil to hit, the
spell will now cast and consume a blood rune but generate no runic
power.
- Druids
Maim: Rank 2 of this ability is properly considered a stun and can
be escaped by Blink.
- Hunters
Go For The Throat: Explosive Shot critical strikes now trigger this
talent.
Lock and Load: The tooltip has been corrected to display its actual
chance to occur.
Rabid: This Hunter pet talent no longer lists a percentage chance to
be triggered, as that chance varies by the attack speed of the pet.
- Paladins
Divine Sacrifice: Damage done to the Paladin while this is active
will no longer cause the effect to break early, and if it is
dispelled or cancelled early, the damage counter will reset
correctly the next time the spell is cast.
- Rogues
Shadow Dance: Issues with action bars and ability use arising from
using Stealth while Shadow Dance is active have been fixed.
- Tricks of the Trade: To prevent exploits, this ability can no longer
be cast on non-player targets.
- Warlocks
Demonic Sacrifice: This spell will no longer appear in any Warlock’s
spellbook.
- Professions
Tailoring
Swordguard Embroidery: Now correctly increases ranged attack power.
- Dungeons and Raids
Players can no longer become saved to an instance when they aren't
in the instance during a boss kill.
Ulduar
Hodir should now reset in a timely manner if a group fails to kill
him.
10-player bosses that drop Runed Orbs will also sometimes drop the
recipes that use those orbs.
The Spark of Imagination: Characters that release in part of the
boss room will no longer be ported to Westfall or The Barrens.

BlizzCon 2009 Tickets Sold Out

noreply@blogger.com (Gimpy) — Sat, 16 May 2009 18:15:00 +0000

BlizzCon 2009 tickets officially went on sale today, May 16th.

What is BlizzCon 2009?

"BlizzCon is a celebration of the Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo franchises and the communities that surround them. This two-day event will contain Q&A panels featuring Blizzard Entertainment developers, social events for players and developers to meet one another, and hands-on gameplay featuring your favorite Blizzard Entertainment games."

BlizzCon will take place on August 21-22, 2009 at the Anaheim Convention Center

Unfortunately, according to BlizzCon.com, the first batch of BlizzCon 2009 tickets have already sold out.

"First Batch of BlizzCon Tickets Sold Out - 05/16/09

The initial allotment of tickets for BlizzCon 2009 has now been sold out. If you weren’t able to get tickets this time, you’ll have a second chance on Saturday, May 30, as another batch will go on sale then. Coverage of the gaming festival will also be offered by DIRECTV as a Pay Per View event, available both via satellite and Internet stream."

If you were planning or hoping to go to BlizzCon 2009, I suggest you head over to BlizzCon.com and look into how to best get your tickets. They have a queue system in place to buy tickets and I'm sure the May 30th batch will sell out very fast.

10 Funniest World of Warcraft Videos

noreply@blogger.com (Gimpy) — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:53:00 +0000

Big Stupid Idiot has put up a 10 Funniest World of Warcraft Videos. There are a couple of classics and a couple I have never seen before.

While I was reviewing the videos I ran into some content that may be considered Not Safe For Work (NSFW) viewing due to images and language. So, instead of putting the videos here I'll be giving text reviews with a link to videos 4 through 10 and leave it up to you if you want to watch them. Although, I am including the top 3 videos here since they are fairly tame or edited in the right places.

10. Real Person WOW (CHINESE) - This one is pretty good and deserves to be farther up the list.

9. Crank Dat Druid Boy - This is a song parody and if you've ever played a druid in PvP or played against one, this video should have you laughing.

8. The Internet is for.... - This one is a classic and another song parody. It's pretty funny but the content at the end is borderline NSFW.

7. ROFLMAO! - This is a Slim Jim commercial parody. I don't think those commercials are funny, so I don't find this video amusing either.

6. Election Duel! Obama V. McCain - I generally don't like to mix politics with games, but this video is pretty funny. Not so much for the results, but the comments people made.

5. C-Section Scars - Another song parody. It's well done, but it struck me more as odd than funny. Some of the content might be considered NSFW.

4. Toyota Commercial - This is the commercial that came out a few years ago. The only part that has ever been funny to me is the male voice with the exploding arrows for the female night elf.

3. World of Wifecraft - This video is so accurate, it isn't funny.

2. Warcraft Sequel Lets You Play A Character Playing Warcraft - Sadly, I think this game would sell better than World of Warcraft.

1. Leroy Jenkins - A classic that inspired an in-game achievement.