by Allison Robert
The 25 most entertaining achievements, #25-21
20. Charger/Dreadsteed of Xoroth/Swift Flight Form
I wasn’t sure whether it was right to include these, but finally decided I had to because they’re just so much fun. Class-specific quests and achievements aren’t very common; Blizzard isn’t enthusiastic about pouring developmental time into something that a limited number of players will see. But if you play characters fortunate enough to have big, class-specific moments, they’re always a hoot. Not only do they get you involved in the lore behind your class’ inclusion in the game, but they also get you invested in the result. It’s not for nothing that many paladin, druid and warlock players continue to use their special mounts even as they amass dozens of additional options. OK, I’ll admit that Swift Flight Form will always be convenient as an instant cast, but it’s not my fault that druids are better than everyone else.
Read the rest of this entry »
by Allison Robert
In a nutshell, I think these are the achievements that every WoW players should do, if only because they showcase some of Blizzard’s best, most engaging or funniest work.
25. Guru of Drakuru
It’s not like I really need to tell people this, but the Grizzly Hills — Zul’drak story line, Guru of Drakuru, concerning the decline and fall of the Drakkari empire is the stuff of greatness. I’ll be returning to the Zul’drak leg of this in a future column, but the Grizzly Hills portion affords you a glimpse into the mind of a troll named Drakuru who … well, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to spoil the quest line for any of the newer players out there still leveling. Suffice it to say that Drakuru offers you some insight into the Drakkari empire’s many troubles, and that’s not the only thing he knows that you don’t. It’s among the best-executed story lines in Wrath where you belatedly realize that that nice NPC with whom you’ve been chatting has been several steps ahead of you the entire time and that your good intentions helped pave a fine road to hell.
The Wowhead commenter Oroleen nailed it, I think:
Read the rest of this entry »
by Gregg Reece
Strength, strength and more strength
As a DPS spec, retribution paladins don’t have much they care about in the way of stats. Yeah, getting to the hit cap (8% or 263 hit rating) is fairly important and critical strike rating helps out as well. However, the stat we love more than anything else is strength. We love buckets of the stuff. If you’ve got a gem slot, your best choice of gem is almost always a Bold Cardinal Ruby. For every one point of strength you’ve got, it will give you two points of attack power. If you take the talent Divine Strength from the protection tree, that will increase it to 2.3 attack power from each point of strength.
It’s generally difficult to find an item with attack power that matches up with one that features strength. So, in general (yes, I know there are exceptions), you’ll want to avoid attack power gear in favor of strength-based armor. With things like cloaks, necklaces, rings and trinkets, you’ll sometimes be able to find upgrades easier that are attack-power-based, as these are all generic items that any DPS class can use. However, for the most part, stick with strength plate and big, slow two-handed weapons.
Read the rest of this entry »
by Gregg Reece
This week we’ll take a look at just about everything a level 80 can nab from a dungeon for tanking, and next week we’ll take a look at what you can do with all of those emblems you earned up running dungeons.
A couple of quick notes before we get started. Everything is a drop off of heroic mode, unless otherwise marked. The only normal modes that were included were the level 80 dungeons and not the leveling ones. Anything with an asterisk (*) beside it is epic quality, and everything else is rare quality.
Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom Jedoga is that lady everyone wants to skip, but she’s got a decent starter neck piece. It has a little more defense rating than the pendant you’ll get out of Culling of Stratholme. The ring from Nadox is also a pretty good grab as well. The stats might look a bit low on it, but you’ve got to remember that it is spending some extra itemization on the armor bonus it grants.
Read the rest of this entry »
by Chase Christian
Do any of you remember raiding Naxxramas, back at the start of Wrath? What now seems so trivial today was actually pretty easy back then too, considering that guilds in level 70 gear cleared it on their first night in. Even considering how simple raiding was at that point, loot drama could still occur. A guild on my server, one of the larger and more successful guilds too, disbanded over a loot dispute. It wasn’t about whether or not hunters should be allowed to roll on one-handed items (they shouldn’t), but rather about whether an item with spellpower, mana per 5, and haste should be given to a healer. The item in question is the Torch of Holy Fire, which today, we would clearly state is a healer weapon: MP5 means that a healer should be using it.
However, one of the guild’s elemental shamans contested that it was also best-in-slot for him, and that DPS classes deserved gear before healers did. His argument was that letting the DPS gear up was more important than giving items to healers, because more DPS meant quicker boss fights. Once an encounter was beaten, additional healing did nothing to push progression. While the idea of a guild focusing on gearing their tanks first and everyone else second is not that uncommon, the idea of DPS superiority over healing was divisive enough to rip this group apart. Healers were arguing for their fellow brethren, while DPS derided them for being selfish. Paladins were particularly focused on, since critical strike rating was far more desirable back then and we were rolling on sp/haste/crit gear along with every other caster DPS class. Luckily for us, things have changed a lot since those early Wrath months.
Read the rest of this entry »
by Chase Christian
Spreadsheets make gear choices easier
The first step in gearing your rogue for a raid is to get familiar with a spreadsheet. I highly recommend Aldriana’s sheets, which you can find at Elitist Jerks. Make sure you get the right sheet for your build, whether it be mutilate or combat. Now, while you’re gearing up, it can be difficult using the spreadsheets since they don’t have a lot of weaker gear in them. Now, you could go through and make manual entries for every single item you’re wearing and ever could wear at some point in the future. However, I have an alternative that will actually save you quite a bit of time.
First, get familiar with Tinkerbob’s guide to modifying the hidden gear tab of the spreadsheet. Once you’ve familiarized yourself with adding new gear to the sheet, you can use my trick to save yourself some tedious work setting up every single item you have equipped. In reality, the spreadsheet doesn’t look at any individual piece of gear to determine your DPS, but rather takes the total of all of your stats and plugs those into various formulas.
Read the rest of this entry »
by Gregg Reece
Whether you’re catching up an old character or rolling a new ‘toon to try your hand at tanking, we’ll show you where to get started.
Reaching uncrittableness
The first goal of gearing for tanking at 80 is to reach uncrittableness for heroic dungeons. This is a constant balancing act at lower gear levels, as almost every time you change a piece of gear, you need to re-adjust enchants or trinkets to put yourself back over the magic number. What is this magic number? For heroic dungeons, it is 535 defense skill (which is about 664 defense rating). Just from being level 80 gives you 400 defense skill, so we’re really just talking about adding 135 defense skill on top of things.
You likely won’t be able to do this on gear alone initially, so you’ll be wanting to grab both gems and enchants to beef yourself up. You can still run normal level 80 dungeons with a defense rating less than that, which will also provide the opportunity to get some better gear.
Read the rest of this entry »
by Christian Belt
So you’ve hit level 80 with your mage. Your gear slots are likely filled with a random assortment of quest rewards, heirloom gear that suddenly doesn’t look so good anymore, and stuff that dropped in normal Nexus ten levels ago. You’d like to start running some of the level 80 content, but your DPS still hasn’t cracked a thousand. You’re not geared enough for a trip to heroic Ramparts, let alone heroic Trial of the Champion. So what do you do? Where do you begin?
The lure of the random dungeon finder is strong. It is truly a wonderful thing, but before you jump into it, you need to be able to pull your weight. Nobody likes to hop into a random heroic and discover that he’s in there with a mage who’s wheezing out 800 DPS. Don’t be that guy.
Luckily, you can begin improving your DPS right away. The first step is to begin replacing your current gear with as many item level 200ish blues and purples as possible. There are a few quick sources:
Read the rest of this entry »
by Allison Robert
This week, I’d like to present the first set of evil achievements for your reading, wincing and antacid-chugging pleasure.
A note on judging the “evil value” of achievements: I’ve been adding to this list for a while, and it’s drawn from both the achievements we’ve covered in this column and some I’ve seen players complain about frequently in game. Obviously, there’s no real way to quantify exactly how difficult or excruciating achievements are, so I’m going with the definition I gave above. Any incredibly difficult or RNG-saturated achievement made the short list, but I also tried to keep some unusual picks in mind. In this vein, there’s an achievement in today’s column that, while extremely easy by today’s standards, was a screaming horror when it first debuted. I may wind up doing a list of honorable mentions as well.
So, in no particular order, I am pleased to present World of Warcraft‘s 25 most evil achievements, starting with #25-16 this week.
25. We Had It All Along *cough*
Read the rest of this entry »
by Zuggy
How do I gain reputation with Knights of the Ebon Blade?
There are several ways you will be able to gain reputation with Knights of the Ebon Blade.
- If you’re a Death Knight you’ll have the option of doing four quests which give you Knights of Ebon Blade reputation. These include: Taking Back Acherus, The Battle For The Ebon Hold, The Ebon Watch, and The Light of Dawn. Note: only Death Knights can complete these quests.
- For everyone else, you can complete the normal mode daily dungeon quests. These quests reward 1 of 4 reputation tokens, one of which is Ebon Blade Commendation Badge. This badge awards +250 Knights of the Ebon Blade reputation when used.
- Finally, you’ll have the option of championing the Knights of the Ebon. To champion this faction you must wear your Tabard of the Ebon Blade while you completing other level 80 5 man dungeons. This will award you reputation with the Knights of the Ebon Blade for any mobs or bosses you kill.
- Non-Elite Mobs Normal – 0
- Non-Elite Mobs Heroic – 1-2
- Elite Trash Normal – 5
- Elite Trash Heroic – 15
- Super Trash Normal – 10
- Super Trash Heroic – 30
- Boss Normal – 50
- Boss Heroic – 250
Read the rest of this entry »
Susbribe via RSS
