by Zuggy

I’m not sure how I let this one slip by me, but a new feature for jewelcrafters is going to be added to the profession in WotLK. It’s called gem perfection. Essentially, here is how it works:

Gem Perfection Step 1: If you are a jewelcrafter you can complete one of the respective gem perfection quests for your faction. You only need to complete one of these quests.

• Alliance: Ounhulo in Valgarde (Howling Fjord) or Alestros in Valiance Keep (Borean Tundra).
• Horde: Carter Tiffens in Vengeance Landing (Howling Fjord) or Geba’li in Warsong Hold (Borean Tundra).

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By Rhidach @ Righteous Defense

Lovely Charms are somewhat of a rare commodity–going for huge chunks of gold on the auction house (as bracelets), and being divvied up sparingly by various miserly mobs. For the achievement alone I needed 120 of these random drops, and was looking for the quickest, least painful way to get them.

I first tried Ulduar on Tuesday, but apparently Blizz moved exceptionally fast and hotfixed that tactic (along with any other mobs you kill with a vehicle). I put out some feelers for a spot with lots of meleeing, aoe-able creatures. A guildie offered up a spot suggestion: by the Avatar of Freya in Sholazar Basin.

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by Messiah @ tentonhammer

Since the implementation of escalating badges in Heroic instances many players have found that running a huge number of heroics is a great way to get near end game raid quality gear.  This running of chain heroics grants huge quantities of badges that can be used to buy gear only one level removed from the current end game raid drops. For some players this is the best gear they will ever get since they don’t raid, for others it is a great way to gear up an alt so that they can get in on raids, and for others it is just for profit by selling off the gems they can purchase.

No matter your reason for running the instances there are several ways to make the most out of them. The most important thing when running chain heroics for badges is to make use of the random heroic tool.  Even if you have a preformed group you can still queue for a random heroic and therefore get two frost badges for the first heroic you run that day or two bonus triumph badges if it is the second or later heroic that you run that day.  This really adds up since most heroics grant you 3 or 4 triumph badges, so this gives you a little better than 50% extra badges over time.

Before you actually run any heroics though you should make sure you are geared for it.  Rather than provide gearscore recommendations since what is effective varies so much between classes here is a list of the basic stats you need based on class type.
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?by Fox Van Allen

Taking down Arthas is the big time, and I want to be rewarded commensurate with the effort I put in. I’ll admit it — I have an incredibly unrealistic expectation of getting an Inflatable Pink Arthas Balloon vanity pet trailing me wherever I go, or some trinket that summons miniature Arthases down to destroy a hopelessly outmatched Keristrasza in a way that elicits “ooohs” and “aaahs” from those newly minted level 80s thrown into the same random dungeon as I.

And after glancing at the Lich King’s loot table, I have to say that I’m a little bit disappointed. I’m not saying the loot isn’t good, but if we shadow priests are going to be getting little more than a staff for beating the legendary Lich King, it better be one hell of a damn special staff.

But it’s not. Even the art is a bit underwhelming. And you almost have to scratch your head a little bit and wonder why — why did Blizzard drop the ball on this one? It’s far from perfect, but when you consider what went into the design and the (relative) originality of it, the coolest damn piece of loot in all of Icecrown Citadel is probably going to wind up being the Nibelung.

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by Mem @ tentonhammer

Getting Started

Loremaster, is a meta-achievement that requires the player to complete a large amount of quests in every continent in the game. This achievement is probably one of, if not the most challenging achievements in the World of Warcraft. Those who attempt this achievement will find varying degrees of difficulty from player to player and will more likely than not want to quit due to frustration from time to time.

Once completed the player will receive the [Loremaster’s Colors] (a tabard) which will arrive in the mail attached to a letter from one of the leaders of your faction. Alliance will receive a letter from Tyrande Whisperwind entitled “Greetings From Darnassus“, while Horde players will receive a letter from Cairne Bloodhoof entitled “Greetings From Thunder Bluff”. Players will also gain the title Loremaster which will be displayed in this format:

Loremaster <name>

In Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms players will be asked to complete a total number of quests across both continents with no regards to the zone. Outland and Northrend are slightly easier as the player will be required to complete a set number of quests in each zone on the continent. The number of quests needed for Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms, Outland, and Northrend vary from Horde to Alliance. Currently the numbers look like this:

Horde
Kalimdor – 685 Total

Eastern Kingdoms – 550 Total

Outland – 595 Total
Hellfire Peninsula – 90
Zangarmarsh – 54
Terokkar Forest – 68
Nagrand – 87
Blade’s Edge Mountains – 86
Netherstorm – 120

Northrend – 875 Total
Borean Tundra – 150
Howling Fjord – 105
Dragonblight – 130
Zul’Drak – 100
Grizzly Hills – 75
Sholazar Basin – 75
Storm Peaks – 100
Icecrown – 140

Grand Total – 2,705

Alliance
Kalimdor – 700 Total

Eastern Kingdoms – 700 Total

Outland – 568 Total
Hellfire Peninsula – 80
Zangarmarsh – 54
Terokkar Forest – 63
Nagrand – 75
Blade’s Edge Mountains – 86
Netherstorm – 120

Northrend – 875 Total
Borean Tundra – 130
Howling Fjord – 130
Dragonblight – 115
Zul’Drak – 100
Grizzly Hills – 85
Sholazar Basin – 75
Storm Peaks – 100
Icecrown – 140

Grand Total – 2,843

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by Messiah @ tentonhammer

The Dungeon Finder launched in patch 3.3 and has become an instant success.  It allows players from several servers to all queue together for instances making wait times for groups significantly shorter for many players.  It also allows players to earn additional badges that can be spent on items and a cool little Pug Puppy for those that collect pets.  It has some ups and downs though and requires a little bit of knowledge to get the most out of it.

What should you know and how can you get the best experience when using the Dungeon Finder is what this guide looks at.

Expect a wait, unless you’re a Tank

The first thing to know when you sign up for a group with the dungeon finder is to expect a wait.  How long the wait is really depends on a couple of things.  For example if you are looking for a random heroic I have experienced the following on my realm:

• Tank – Instant
• Healer – 1-2 minutes
• DPS – 10+ minutes

If you are looking for a lower level random or a specific instance at any level, expect longer waits.  I have seen waits up to 25 minutes for non-80 instances, but have also seen instant groups even when joining as DPS in a sub-80 group.  So while anything can happen, be prepared for a wait and have something to do in the mean time, be it crafting, farming, etc.  Expect longer waits on DPS and almost no wait when tanking.

Be Prepared and be Respectful

When you go into an instance, be prepared for your role and the instance itself.

If you sign up as a healer, make sure you have your healing gear with you and that you have mana potions and water.  If you are a class that requires reagents for buffs, make sure you have some.  No mater your class make sure you have some food / water with you so that you can replenish your own health and mana in between fights.  Know that not everyone is going to be prepared, so it may be worth while carrying an extra stack of each, even if you do not use water, to hand out as needed.  When you do though, explain to players that they now owe someone in a future group and should pass on the food / water and a reminder to bring their own in the future.

As for the instances themselves, make sure you have a basic understanding of the instance, or if you don’t be sure to ask what you need to know before you start.  Most importunately make sure you have time for an instance.  Do not sign up for a run if you only have 10 minutes, you are not going to get anything done. When you leave you will make it harder on the other players to finish.

Remember when you enter a group in any game you are committing not only your time but other players’ time as well.  Do your best to make sure you are ready and prepared to go and survive.  If you are not sure you can stick around for a whole instance, don’t join.  If you are not sure you are geared for an instance, ask around before joining.  If you get into a hard heroic or instance that you know you are not ready for, leave the group and allow someone else to join in.
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[via OutDPS]

This encounter is the glock-block encounter designed to test your guilds’ hunters’ kiting skills, as well as your healers and tanks and everything else. Doing this fight feels like rolling a boulder up a ski jump- that last 3% takes more work than the first 20%. Haven’t kited in a while? Read on for the complete hunter’s guide to the Deathbringer Saurfang encounter!

The Encounter

This fight has a soft enrage timer. Saurfang gains blood power as the fight goes on, and will eventually become unhealable. You’ll notice that he has an energy bar that stacks at the same rate as his blood power buff- when this bar hits 100, he casts a mark of the fallen champion on someone. This is kind of like the opposite of a holy paladin’s beacon; causing his melee attacks to hit the market target as well as the tank. If the marked person dies, they return 5% health to the boss.

Blood power is generated a variety of ways- the ones we need to deal with are through his blood nova and his summoning blood beasts. Blood nova has a 12 yard radius, and will generate blood power for every person in that radius. Blood beasts will generate points for Saurfang every time they hit someone. They can not be AOE’d effectively, and can get a buff called scent of blood when they spawn that slows people around them and makes them basically immune to shadow damage.

The Plan

This fight is about one thing: doing as much DPS on the boss as possible while causing as few stacks of blood power as possible. There are a variety of ways he gets these buffs that we can’t control, however we can control the ones generated by blood beasts and the blood nova.

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The following is a guide on holy paladins (holadins, healadins). I’ve noticed a couple guides out there that I felt lacked a little more info and instead of posting a reply why not make a guide and possibly get some rep for this noob account of mine lol. I know people like to flame but please keep the criticism constructive, I am always open to new ideas/specs/rotations etc.

1.0- A Holadins job in any raid or instance.
1.1- Stats and Gear.
1.2- Gems and Enchants.
1.3- Glyphs and Specs.
1.4- Helpful Addons.
1.5- Rotation, Tips, and Tricks.

1.0 A Holadins Job

First we should start off with a quick overview of your strengths and weaknesses as a Paladin. You are an over healing machine, and that is an understatement, as a paladin unless you are very skilled and experienced with fight encounters you can expect yourself to be on the top over heals for every fight. (Over heals are heals that do not benefit anyone, if someone youre healing is topped off at max hp that heal cast on them will be considered an over heal. On the addon Recount there are two tabs to show the difference between Healing Done and Overhealing Done.) The reason for so many over heals is that we have almost no hots or damage mitigation besides a SS(Sacred Shield) or JoL(Judgement of Light). On top of this our heas are off the charts I am the 5th geared holadin on my server running progression and I crit 7ks with my FoL’s(Flashes of Light) and 8-9k with my HK’s (Holy Shock). If you have other competant healers with you it is probable you will only need part of that 16k burst heal to top off your tank, meaning the rest is gonna go to over heals.

Second thing to look at as a Holy Paladin is the amount of mana we have, its outrageous. I have a 34k+ mana pool when in raids with full buffs. This means that we can get away with spam healing even if the target is topped off, if you do not know when the tank is going to start taking damage and you already have SS on him feel free to spam FoL’s for the small “downtime” so to speak.

You are a tank healer not a raid healer. Prioritize as follows- 1)yourself, 2)Tank, 3)other healers, 4)Dps. It is a Resto Shammy or Druids job to keep up the raid and such, also remember that just as dps you CANNOT I repeat CANNOT heal/dps when you are dead thus do not sit in the fire/green stuff/nova/whatever it may be, if one tank is lost in a raid do not freak out your OT(off tank) can pick things up with the right heals, but with no heals you are set for failure.

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Hallow’s End is here and there is money to be made. In the last 5 hours I have made over 1500 gold. It’s not a huge amount for some people but it has required nothing but a basic wow account.

Note having multiple WoW accounts does make this easier and faster but it is not required.

Stage 1.

Find a mage friend. Again this is not required but makes it a lot faster. Position the mage at a starting zone (we chose the human zone).

Stage 2.

Keep creating new characters, get the mage to invite them and portal them to the city (we chose stormwind). Then run them to the inn in the Trade District.

You could also do this the other way around with a warlock at the inn.

We used a level 80 with a 3 person mount who transported 2 characters at a time from the mage area in stormwind to the inn.

It doesn’t matter how you do it, just get them there.

Stage 3.

Do your trick and treat every hour with every character you got to the inn. You will get wands and you will find a large amount of people wanting to buy charges for anything from 10 – 30 gold a time. Some wands seem rarer but this may just be random luck.

Stage 4

Profit

In total we used 5 accounts and created 38 characters, we put them all in one raid and used a level 80 to do the selling, invited the interested person into the raid – logged the characters which had the wands they wanted and repeated.

I kept a list of which wands each character had (and which account they were on).

How long will it last

It is impossible to say whether this is a first day thing or whether this demand will keep up (and grow towards the end of the holiday) but right now we are having people contact us saying “I heard you have all the wands can I buy the set for 200 gold” etc and we have a waiting list for the next few hours.

In general I think this concept is fairly straight forward so there is no need for me to go into more detail but I hope it helps someone make a bit of cash

the rare ones on my server are Pirate (hardest to find) and then bat.

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