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September 5, 2010

Totem Talk: Enhancement beta update

Filed under: cat-beta, cata-beta, cataclysm-beta, class-help, enhance, enhance-shaman, enhancement, enhancement-shaman, featured, glyph, glyphs, guide, guide-to-shamans, shaman-guide, shaman-info, shaman-talents, talent, talents, world-of-warcraft-beta, world-of-warcraft-cataclysm, world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-beta, world-of-warcraft-class-guide, world-of-warcraft-guide, wow-beta, wow-cataclysm-beta, wow-class-guide, wow-class-help, wow-expansion-beta, wow-guide, wow-shaman, wow-shaman-info, wow-talent-guide — WoW.com @ 1:00 am
Axes, maces, lightning, Windfury and wolves. It can mean only one thing: enhancement. Rich Maloy lives it and loves it. His main spec is enhance. His off-spec is enhance. He blogs about the life and times of enhance, and leads the guild Big Crits (Week 13 now live!)as the enhancement shaman Stoneybaby.

It's been a few weeks since my last beta post. I feel like I'm back in grammar school at good ol' St. Louise de Marillac, "forgive me readers, it's been four weeks since my last beta post. Since then I've been mean to my guild, and I tried to kill my own priest." In game priest, in game! I can't wait to read the letters to the editor about that slip up. Oh well, at least I didn't use the word "casual."

Moving right along to important topics that everyone cares about: beta changes for enhancement shamans! Well, I suppose "everyone" excludes people that are not interested in beta spoilers. Great, two paragraphs in and I've already offended Catholics, priests, and people not interested in beta spoilers. Look on the bright side: at least I didn't use an offensive font this week!

If you are interested in the latest beta changes as they relate to enhancement shamans then please read on. Please note that beyond this point, this post will not further offend your good, wholesome middle Azerothian sensibilities.

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Totem Talk: Enhancement beta update originally appeared on WoW.com on Sat, 04 Sep 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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September 4, 2010

The Queue: Caturday

Filed under: facebookfeed, featured, guide, qa, question-and-answer, wow-answers, wow-daily-answers, wow-daily-questions, wow-guide, wow-player-questions, wow-q-and-a, wow-questions — WoW.com @ 11:00 pm
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column in which the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky, senior editor at WoW.com and webmaster of a new quick and dirty MMO news site, will be your host today.

Forget Saturdays. According to my cat today is the day that I spend playing with him and ignoring everything else. He has therefore commanded me to post the internet lolcat meme of caturday.

Jeff asked:

"Has there been any talk about updating the old racials to put them more in line with the Goblin / Worgen ones?"

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The Queue: Caturday originally appeared on WoW.com on Sat, 04 Sep 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Arcane Brilliance: Mage AoE in Cataclysm, part 1

Filed under: AoE, aoe-change, aoe-dps, arcane-explosion, blizzard, cat-beta, cata-beta, cataclysm-aoe, cataclysm-aoe-change, cataclysm-beta, cataclysm-game, cataclysm-guide, cataclysm-news, class-help, cone-of-cold, curtain-of-frost, expansion, expansion-three, featured, guide, guide-to-mages, i-hate-warlocks, ice-shards, improved-cone-of-cold, mage-aoe, mage-guide, mage-info, mage-talents, next-xpac, piercing chill, talent, talents, third-expansion, wall-of-fog, world-of-warcraft-beta, world-of-warcraft-cataclysm, world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-beta, world-of-warcraft-class-guide, world-of-warcraft-guide, wow-4.0, wow-4.0.2, wow-beta, wow-cataclysm, wow-cataclysm-beta, wow-class-guide, wow-class-help, wow-expansion, wow-expansion-beta, wow-guide, wow-mage, wow-mage-info, wow-mages, wow-talent-guide, wow-third-expansion — WoW.com @ 7:00 pm
It's time again for Arcane Brilliance, the weekly mage column known for its special five-alarm chili recipe. It's a delicate blend of three different conjured beans, spiced up with Fireballs, Scorches, and slow-cooked over a smoldering Flamestrike, loaded with lamb, bacon, and the occasional roasted monkey, glazed with a dusting of Frostfire, then lit aflame with a Pyroblast. And the secret ingredient? Warlock tears.

If there's one thing mages have been known for during the course of this fine game we all play, it's mass murder. We have at our disposal a wide array of spells that wreak havoc over a large area, perhaps more so than any other class. When it comes to killing things in large numbers, mages are remarkably adept. It's a role we embrace wholeheartedly.

AoE has evolved quite since the inception of the game. In vanilla WoW, AoE was a great way to get yourself killed in an instance, a method of attack that was mostly limited to solo farming and certain trash pulls. These days, with the ability tanks have to hold multiple mobs with relative ease, AoE has morphed into the go-to way to deal with multiple-mob pulls of all shapes and sizes. Crowd control has gone the way of Wand Specialization; it simply isn't required in most situations in Wrath.

Cataclysm is bringing with it some fairly sweeping changes to the way we utilize our AoE repertoire. The developers have stated their intention to return us to a time when we actually had to worry about things like crowd control and pull-sizes, and though we're not reverting completely, pulls on the beta certainly feel more like vanilla or Burning Crusade pulls than anything we saw in Wrath. Join me after the break and we'll go over how our AoE spells will work in this coming era.

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Arcane Brilliance: Mage AoE in Cataclysm, part 1 originally appeared on WoW.com on Sat, 04 Sep 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Shifting Perspectives: Heroic ICC for balance druids — Lower Spire and Crimson Hall

Filed under: balance-druid, class-help, druid-guide, druid-info, druid-talents, featured, guide, guide-to-druids, hard-mode, hard-modes, heroic, icc, icecrown-citadel, moonkin, talent, talents, world-of-warcraft-class-guide, world-of-warcraft-guide, wow-class-guide, wow-class-help, wow-druid, wow-druid-info, wow-druids, wow-guide, wow-talent-guide — WoW.com @ 12:00 am
Every Friday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting balance druids and those who group with them. This week, we are exploring two of the four wings in Heroic ICC. Be prepared to face some of the most challenging content the game has to offer, folks -- it only gets real from here on out.

I know, I know: No one cares about ICC any more ... Everything is all about Cataclysm ... So why bother talking about it? That's far from the truth, though. ICC still matters to many people. However, if you happen to be of the more pragmatic sort, then hear me out for a little bit. Most of the server-first and world-first kills may have already been claimed, but there is always loot to be had, gear that can be helpful for either soloing things now or leveling in the expansion. Beyond simple gear, heroic ICC is simply fun. People have argued that hard modes aren't quite the same as a truly difficult raid encounter because they are the same as the standard encounters -- perhaps true to a point, but heroic modes are really fun when they are done correctly. Heroic Putricide feels like a completely different encounter when done on heroic mode and is extremely fun.

Perhaps this issue is a little bit late in coming, and for that I apologize -- but it's better late than never, aye? To start with, the first order of business is to ensure that your guild is prepared to go against heroic encounters. The ICC buff can be very intoxicating to some players, and it may make you feel more prepared than you really are for these encounters. Perhaps, in some cases, you are, and perhaps in others, you are not. Not all heroic encounters are created equal; some are far more difficult than others. Since this issue will deal with the opening Lower Spire and the Blood wing, the three encounters you'd want to start with would be Marrowgar, Gunship and Blood Princes; Deathwhisper, Saurfang and Blood Queen Lana'thel would be the three more difficult encounters in these two sectors.

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Shifting Perspectives: Heroic ICC for balance druids -- Lower Spire and Crimson Hall originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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September 3, 2010

The Queue: Dog Wizard

Filed under: cat-beta, cata-beta, cataclysm-beta, facebookfeed, featured, guide, qa, question-and-answer, world-of-warcraft-beta, world-of-warcraft-cataclysm, world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-beta, wow-answers, wow-beta, wow-cataclysm-beta, wow-daily-answers, wow-daily-questions, wow-expansion-beta, wow-guide, wow-player-questions, wow-q-and-a, wow-questions — WoW.com @ 11:00 pm

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column in which the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today.

/cast Conjure Bone
/cast Conjure Bone
/cast Conjure Bone
/cast Conjure Bone

Bui asked:

With the level cap having gone up to 85 now and I'm guessing plenty of beta testers have reached it whats the gear looking like from the quests and other sources ? I mean is it apparent that all the ICC stuff you got will be put to shame by the new greens? I know you've said that most of your gear will be getting replaced by around 83 but how vast is the gap between ICC and like an 85 green?

Uldum and Twilight Highlands aren't itemized yet, so we don't know. My ICC gear (non-heroic) was replaced handily by stuff in Deepholm and Hyjal before it; if not due to pure power differences, than because of mastery and much-needed stamina against the hard-hitting Cataclysm mobs.

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The Queue: Dog Wizard originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Stream of Cataclysm consciousness

Filed under: Bloodrage, Critical-Block, Enraged-Regeneration, Raging-Blow, Strikes-of-Opportunity, Unshackled-Fury, cataclysm-fury-masteries, cataclysm-game, cataclysm-guide, cataclysm-news, cataclysm-warrior-masteries, class-help, death-wing, expansion, expansion-three, featured, fury-masteries, glyphs, guide, next-xpac, talent, talents, third-expansion, warrior-guide, warrior-info, world-of-warcraft-cataclysm, world-of-warcraft-class-guide, world-of-warcraft-guide, wow-4.0, wow-4.0.2, wow-cataclysm, wow-class-guide, wow-class-help, wow-expansion, wow-guide, wow-talent-guide, wow-third-expansion, wow-warrior, wow-warrior-info — WoW.com @ 9:00 pm

The Care and Feeding of Warriors is about warriors, who hurl themselves into the fray, the very teeth of danger, armed with nothing more than the biggest weapons and armored with the absolutely heaviest armor we can find. Hey, we're not stupid -- we're just crazy.

Having spent the last few weeks more or less avoiding talking about Cataclysm, I'm now going to dive back into the discussion of our "soon" to come expansion. While the most recent beta push didn't do much at all to our talents from previous beta builds, we did see some significant changes as the new glyph system was implemented. We also got actual plate models for a lot of green and blue quest drops so that my warrior now looks like he's wearing a classic Roman-style gladiator helmet and chest in the screenshot above. At this point, there's a lot to talk about in terms of how things are shaking out.

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Stream of Cataclysm consciousness originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Daily Quest: Gimmie gimmie gimmie

Filed under: guide, guide-index, world-of-warcraft-info, world-of-warcraft-links, world-of-warcraft-sites, wow-guide, wow-guide-index, wow-index, wow-info, wow-information, wow-links, wow-site-index, wow-sites — WoW.com @ 2:00 am
Here at WoW.com, we're on a Daily Quest (which we try to do every day, honest) to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.

Who likes contests? Everyone likes contests -- heck, it's a chance at free goodies. Even if you don't win, you aren't really out anything. Here are some pointers to various WoW-related contests that are currently running here and there:
  • Would you like to be in the Cataclysm beta? NowGamer is giving away a staggering 1,000 Cataclysm beta keys. Check out the site for details -- and I hope you like Twitter.
  • Attending BlizzCon in the flesh? You can get free passes to the pre-screening of The Raid, a Blue Loon film about the world of raiding and what it means to be a raider. There are a whole slew of people in the WoW community giving away passes to this event; you can check the full list of giveaway sites on The Raid's official site.
Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we should be following? Just leave us a comment, and you may see it here tomorrow! Be sure to check out our WoW Resources Guide for more WoW-related sites.

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The Daily Quest: Gimmie gimmie gimmie originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Addon Spotlight: Management addons

Filed under: add-on, add-on-configuration, add-on-guide, addon-configuration, addon-guide, addon-mailbag, addons, auditor, featured, gold, gold-tracking, guide, item-tracking, management-addons, tradeskill-addons, tradeskills, wow-add-on, wow-add-on-guide, wow-add-ons, wow-addon-guide, wow-addons, wow-guide — WoW.com @ 1:00 am

Addon Spotlight focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. This week, holy crap! There's a bear.

Have I got awesome news for you, dear Addon Spotlight readers. Today, I've enlisted the help of a good friend of mine to come and discuss some miscellaneous management addons that are designed to take all that information and parse it into something useful. I would like to introduce everyone to Mongor the bear accountant. Mongor is a bear that is also an accountant, and he's my good friend. It's time to get your life managed.

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Addon Spotlight: Management addons originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Art of War(craft): A handy guide to winning at everything

Filed under: battleground-guide, bg, bg-guide, bgs, featured, guide, how-to-play-battlegrounds, how-to-pvp, pvp-guide, wow-battleground-guide, wow-bg-guide, wow-guide, wow-pvp — WoW.com @ 12:00 am
Zach enjoys PvP in all its forms, thus celebrating when some form of PvP was introduced to the Facebook game Pirates Ahoy!

Let's continue from last week's handy guide which was titled intentionally to play on the various meanings of "good." This week, we'll go through a few pointers at how to win at everything. Or, at the very least, to put up a decent fight and not go down in a terribly embarrassing fashion. That's all one can really ask for -- that one puts up a fight. Note that in most cases, the victor won't care because a win is a win, especially in PvP. There are no moral victories in PvP, but there are educational defeats. If you're going to lose, at the very least learn from it, right?

The first rule to winning is to think you can win. If you don't give yourself a chance to win by thinking you're outmatched, then unless your opponent is a total buffoon, she's already won. Don't worry too much about class or your level differential. You must go into the battle thinking you can win or, if you're a healer, at least survive indefinitely. It doesn't matter if you can actually win or not, especially when you're clearly outmatched, such as when you're many levels below your opponent. In such cases, your opponents already expect to win, so if you surprise them with some resistance or maybe even bring them dangerously low, then you will have put some doubt into their heads. As I mentioned last week, most griefers don't actually look for a challenge. So there, the most important rule: Believe you can win.

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The Art of War(craft): A handy guide to winning at everything originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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September 2, 2010

Raid Rx: A rock and a hard place

Filed under: cooldowns, decisions, featured, guide, guild, healer, healing, healing-guide, how-to-heal, officer, raid, raid-guide, raid-healing, raiding-guide, recruit, wow-guide, wow-healing, wow-raid-guide, wow-raid-healing — WoW.com @ 11:00 pm

Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. If you're looking for more healing advice, check out the Plus Heal community.

Stop me if you've heard this one. You're taking on some dragon. Some really powerful spell is about to hit you and the rest of the raid. You don't have any cooldowns to use because you had to pop them earlier. The tank who is busy yelling obscenities at said dragon just took a massive fireball to the face and is down in the red. You know for a fact that the next blow is going to be lethal and you have maybe 2 seconds to react.

If you move, you may well have condemned your tank to death. If you stay and heal, you'll end up taking some damage which could be lethal.

Normally, this isn't that big of a deal, but we're in an age where we have so many informative addons that tell us which attacks successfully hit a player and when it happened. What's worse is that this data means the difference between staying and getting cut from a raid (or a guild).

This is a topic of one of the emails that I received from a healing shaman.

So what is a healer to do? Is he wrong for making the decision to take avoidable damage to keep the raid or the tank alive? Is he better off just taking the damage so that he doesn't look bad? Either way, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. Lots of players don't understand that these are some of the decisions that have to be made.

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Raid Rx: A rock and a hard place originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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