by Christian Belt
In the past, we’ve done our leveling guides as sprawling, multi-post epics, spanning 10 or 20 levels a week over the course of a month, covering every aspect of every facet of everything you could ever want to know about leveling each class in the game. The problem with that approach is that you could probably just go in blind and level your mage from 1 to 85 faster than I could tell you how to do it. The simple fact of the matter is that the leveling game just isn’t terribly difficult. The process has been streamlined over the years to the point that I don’t believe such detailed leveling guides are really necessary anymore. Most of this game is intuitive and user friendly now, and the part of the game that really requires in-depth strategy doesn’t really start until after the experience-gaining part of it has stopped.
Knowing this, I won’t be filling this guide with talent analysis, ways to optimize your level 45 boss fight rotation, or a detailed travelogue of every quest hub you’ll be traipsing through along the way. This will be a more stripped-down endeavor, focusing on the parts of leveling that I think are important — not the spell coefficients and spreadsheets, but the basic concepts your mage needs to learn while leveling, not only to make the process easier and more enjoyable, but also to help them step from mage adolescence into mage adulthood so they can shoot Deathwing in the face with a Fireball of wisdom and maturity.
Read the rest of this entry »
by Josh Myers
So, you want to queue for the Raid Finder on your enhancement shaman, but you don’t quite have the required 372 item level for it yet. We’ve all learned tips and tricks over the year sinceCataclysm launched to cheat the ilevel restrictions, like wearing restoration gear to inflate our ilevel. However, if you want to actually benefit the raid and increase your chances of downing bosses, those tricks are not the best way to go. There are multiple accessible 378 items for near every slot.
The first rule of getting geared for Raid Finder is to avoid Hour of Twilight like the plague. There’s seriously only one drop in the instance that’s worth getting, and that’s the Clattering Claw. Dawnslayer Helm? Both our Erupting Volcanic Helmet and Scalp of the Bandit Prince put that ugly hit/haste helm to shame. Betrayer’s Pauldrons are a possible good choice, if only because extensive testing by yours truly has proven that Mantle of the Fiery Protector does not actually exist. It’s a myth. Flickering Shoulders of the Zephyr/Windstorm are both good choices to use over the Hour of Twilight shoulders, but getting a useful random enchant on an already random drop is not a sure bet.
Read the rest of this entry »
by Tyler Caraway
This guide will detail how to take down Yor’sahj, the Unsleeping in the Dragon Soul raid. Previously, we have gone over how to kill Morchok and Warlord Zon’ozz as well; marking this the third encounter within the raid.
Yor’sahj is an amazingly fun fight, in fact it’s my favorite encounter in the whole zone. That’s because it’s never quite the same fight twice, there’s always something a little different about it that makes you think on your feet and adjust to the situation. I only wish my bosses gained random ability combinations instead of always going through the same ability list on a set pattern. Oh well, dreamers can dream I guess.
Setting up
Yor’sahj is just like many other encounters within the zone, requiring two tanks, five to six healers, and a good mix of both melee and ranged DPS. The boss will be tanked right where he stands and there isn’t all that much movement to the encounter. There is potentially some AOE, so do bare that in mind. For most of the encounter, the raid will want to remain stacked on top of Yor’sahj, only spreading out when an ability calls for it.
Read the rest of this entry »
by Matt Walsh
In the previous weeks, we’ve talked about getting prepped for patch 4.3, how to hit the ground running, and what pieces of gear should be on your hit list. Now we’ve come to the main event: the Dragon Soul raid. Deathwing’s forces are assaulting Wyrmrest Temple, and it’s up to you and your allies to knock them over and finally put a stop to his perfidy. The fights ahead will test your skills and the limits of your survivability. You’ll also be taunt swapping like you’ve never taunt swapped before (which is its own kind of exciting).
Read the rest of this entry »
by Matt Low
In every expansion, there’s always been at least one raid boss that’s really defined healers. In this expansion, we had Chimaeron back in Blackwing Descent. We’ve got another one in Ultraxion over in the new Dragon Soul raid in patch 4.3. This guy is a (literal) beast. After that, we get another crack on the next gunship encounter.
Read the rest of this entry »
by Allison Robert
The Lunar Festival is one of WoW’s more fun and forgiving holidays, and this year it runs from Sunday, Jan. 22 until Sunday, Feb. 12. That’s right, folks; you’ve got three weeks to get everything done, which is definitely a good thing if you’re new to the holiday and unfamiliar with the amount of travel time it requires. The basics of the holiday involve talking to a number of elders to honor them, receiving Coins of Ancestry in return, and then using the coins to purchase holiday items. The To Honor One’s Elders meta-achievement is also a requirement for What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been, so if you’re still after a Violet Proto-Drake, make sure you get this done.
The Lunar Festival is definitely not one of Azeroth’s more difficult holidays, but it’s time-consuming if you’re starting from scratch due to the number of NPCs you’ll need to hunt down. However, it’s also a good time to do World Explorer and Surveying the Damage for just that reason.
Read the rest of this entry »
by Basil Berntsen
Every single content patch, Blizzard turns the tables on gold makers and, for a brief period of time, allows any player to make tens of thousands of gold by selling valor point-bought BoE gear. We’ve all seen the ads in trade of people looking to buy them or sell them, but most people focus on their own gear first and only think about selling them once they’ve gotten a few upgrades. Is this unwise?
What if I told you that you could get several thousand gold and still have as much valor gear at the end of the month as your guildie who didn’t sell a single BoE? It’s all about timing. The valor point weekly cap is 1,000, and in the beginning of the week that valor BoEs are available for purchase, the prices are extremely high. They stay high for a few weeks but quickly plummet as people start to use more points to buy gear for selling. They bottom out eventually when people stop having upgrades available for valor.
Read the rest of this entry »
by Brian Wood
Trinkets are a lot like the nine support classes in WoW: You know they’re useful, but it can be hard to figure out exactly which one is worth using without doing some math. Only unlike the support class players, you always want to have two of them with you. And they don’t smell funny, or refuse to heal your pet, or screw up your lovely execution of executions.
Maybe trinkets aren’t much like the support classes after all. They’re better.
Join me after the cut as we run down the new 4.3 trinkets, compare them to the best of the previous tier’s trinkets, and give some thought to the new Raid Finder versions of the trinkets as well.
Read the rest of this entry »
by Fox Van Allen
The first of the three new 5-man instances is called End Time. It’s got a great concept: You travel forward in time to a post-apocalyptic Dragonblight nightmarescape. In this (soon-to-be) false future, Deathwing was not stopped and the maddened Echos of faction leaders roam a destroyed world. With treasure. As a level 85 shadow priest, it’s your duty to travel to End Time, beat up the baddies, steal their loot, and ignore all the terrible time paradoxes your action undoubtably causes.
There are five different bosses in End Time. Your party will randomly face two of four different Echoes (Baine, Jaina, Sylvanas, Tyrande). After beating the first two bosses, your party will teleport to the Bronze Dragonshrine to face off against the dragon Murozond in what is arguably the most fun 5-man fight of the entire expansion.
Read the rest of this entry »
by Chase Christian
The first half of the Dragon Soul raid consists of knocking out a few of Deathwing’s commanders that are attacking Wyrmrest Temple. After toppling the first four bosses of Dragon Soul, we finally see Deathwing face-to-face at the peak of the temple. He’s still too busy to attack us himself, instead sending a couple of his additional underlings our way.
Our first challenge will be overcoming Ultraxion, Deathwing’s favorite twilight dragon. He’s an easy target for rogues and is just about as simple for us as Warlord Zon’ozz. After that, we board an airship to face Warmaster Blackhorn and his Twilight infantry. Finally, we confrontDeathwing in two separate encounters, each with its own challenges.
Read the rest of this entry »
Susbribe via RSS
