Spugnort's

Archive for June, 2009

Ummm…Oh my God…are you kidding me?  Wow, I am really taken aback by this one.  Blizzard poster Nethaera has revealed that the WoW dev team is working to implement a new service which will allow players to change their faction from Horde to Alliance or vice versa.  There is still a lot of work to be done, but the idea is that players will be able to use the service to transform an existing character into a roughly equivalent character of the opposing faction on the same realm.  Ok…I’m sorry but I have to say it again…are you kidding me??

This seriously messes with the storyline behind the game, I mean I am not a “Lore Nerd” per say but I do enjoy the storyline as part of my WoW experience.

In my opinion this comes down to Blizz wanting to make more money off of us…seems to be the theme since Activision came into the picture.

Well I guess it’s no secret how I feel, so what about you guys?  Are you liking this idea or do you think it’s just plain dumb?  Please comment…I would love to hear from you!

Combat & Careers

General

• Fixed several cases where the tooltip descriptions of character abilities were not updating their values based on stats.
• Fixed an issue that was sometimes preventing rear-positional attacks from activating.

Shadow Warrior

• Bullseye: This Tactic will once again function correctly. Note that the tactic will need to be un-slotted, then re-slotted to begin working again.

White Lion

• Pounce: Fixed an issue that could, in some cases, send the White Lion character back to its bind point when this ability was used.

Warrior Priest

• Divine Strike: This ability will now heal the Warrior Priest if the Warrior Priest does not have a defensive target set.

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General

Construction of the Crusaders’ Coliseum is complete. Testing not yet available. New raid Normal and Heroic modes for the Crusaders’ Coliseum can be toggled using the Dungeon Difficulty setting. This applies to 10 and 25-player versions. 10-player (Normal), 25-player (Normal), 10-player (Heroic) and 25-player (Heroic) all share separate raid lockout timers.

Trial of the Champion

5-player (Normal and Heroic mode) dungeon. Daily quest added to the Heroic daily dungeon quest giver.

Trial of the Crusader

10 and 25-player (Normal mode) raid dungeon.

Trial of the Grand Crusader

10 and 25-player (Heroic mode) raid dungeon. Crusaders’ Tribute: Active on Heroic difficulty only, the tribute system will limit players on the number of attempts the raid is allotted each week. Additional rewards can be earned depending on the number of attempts left in the tribute run each week when the final boss is defeated.

Isle of Conquest, the new 40 vs. 40-player siege-style Battleground is now available for testing.

Two level brackets are available: 71-79 and 80. Defend the walls of your keep and protect your general by killing enemy players and destroying their siege vehicles. Capture the Docks, Airship Hangar, or Siege Workshop for access to destructive siege vehicles or strategic attacks on your enemy’s base. Capture the Oil Derrick or Cobalt Mine for their resources to garner reinforcements and a steady flow of bonus honor. To claim victory, bust through the enemy’s keep walls (or find other ways to get inside) and kill their general, or obliterate your opponents until their reinforcements are depleted.

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Well last week a few bosses in Ulduar were hit with the nerf bat, some a little harder than others. The hotfixes, which were applied just under a week ago, have changed fights from Flame Leviathan to Yoggy himself.  Now when fighting Yogg Saron players will experience a much easier first phase as the Guardians will no longer mind control players and their spawn rate has become, well…more “forgiving”.  Also flash-frozen players that touch a cloud will no longer bring forth an additional Guardian.  Now I have not yet seen this fight personally, but from what I have read and watched this should make this fight considerably easier!

Also getting a whack with the bat was hard mode Flame Leviathan (FL).  The amount of extra health FL gets per tower up has been reduced and the snare effect of Hodir’s tower has been completely removed.  Additionally, vehicles caught in a flash freeze during the fight will be freed with a single shot from a Demolisher or Siege Engine cannon.  Also, when FL ejects players following a stun, they will not go as high, this should make it easier to pick them back up and continue the fight.

Last but not least, XT-002 was tapped with the bat, too.  He will not make people into bombs as often and his heart’s health was reduced slightly in 25-man.

So, that about sums up this round of nerf bat strikes, we’ll keep you posted when the next ones come around because we all know that Blizz loves the nerf bats!!

Since Ensidia scored the World-first Algalon kill nearly two weeks ago, some other guilds have also accomplished the task.  Premonition claimed the US first kill roughly a week after Ensidia.  Their kill revealed 2 new drop items: Pharos Gloves and Boundless Gaze.  Very nice, congrats to Premonition!

Honors also go out to the Chineese super guild, Stars (they moved to Taiwan servers to play Wrath) as they have also downed Algalon, and only a week after Ensidia!  This is pretty impressive considering Taiwan didn’t get patch 3.1 until a full week after US and EU realms.  This means that if they had had the patch at the same time, they may have beat Ensidia to the punch.  Not too shabby.

Anyways, congratulations to both guilds and we look forward to watching the next raiding race once patch 3.2 goes live!

We’re thinking today will be the day for Patch 3.1.3 to hit live servers, so we have the full list of patch notes for you. It’s just a tiny patch but it is bringing with it some hefty downtime for certain servers. We have also listed those!

3.1.3 Patch Notes:

Classes:

Death Knight

• Frost Presence: Armor bonus is now 60% down from 80%.

Druid

• Improved Barkskin: This talent now also grants 80/160% additional armor while in Travel Form or not shapeshifted.
• Improved Tree of Life: The armor bonus to Tree of Life Form from this talent has been reduced to 67/133/200% bonus armor.

Hunter

• Hunter’s Mark: The ranged attack power bonus from this ability has been increased from 300 to 500.
• Master Marksman: This talent now also decreases the cost of Aimed Shot and Chimera Shot by 5/10/15/20/25%.

Paladin

• Eye For An Eye: This talent now deals 5/10% of the critical strike damage taken by the paladin back at the attacker.
• Hand of Freedom: The base duration of this buff has been reduced from 10 seconds to 6 seconds.

Rogue

• Overkill: Talent redesigned. Now increases energy regeneration by 30% while stealthed, and for 20 seconds after breaking stealth.

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Blizzard has released the new bear form models and graphics that will be added in the next major patch. New graphics and models are being added for both Tauren and Night Elf animal forms. The fur color for the animals can be changed in the barber shop just like the character hair styles and colors. The official Blizzard development page is available here: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/underdev/druid-forms.html. In addition to the minor shape and color changes, some new animations will also be added. A noteworth animation addition will be to allow the bear to close its mouth – no more slack-jawed bear. Click on the graphics below to view the full size images.

If nothing else – it will at least be a change of colorings when staring at the bear butt at the front of the raid

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