WoW Marks

Mists of Pandaria Beta: New hunter pets

Thu, 17 May 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Filed under: Hunter , (Hunter) Scattered Shots Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery , marksmanship and survival hunters. Frostheim of Warcraft Hunters Union and the hunter podcast uses logic and science (mixed with a few mugs of dwarven stout) to look deep into the hunter class. Mail your hunter questions to Frostheim . If there's one thing that defines the hunter class, it's our smoldering good looks. But just behind the irresistable allure of our sculpted flesh, the defining aspect of the hunter class is our pets. There is nothing hunters love more than our pets, and the most common questions hunters ask about Mists of Pandaria are about our pets. What will the new pets be? What are their special abilities? Will we get more stable slots (because the extra 20 we got last expansion are already full)? And of course, what about spirit beasts? Happily, we're far enough into the beta process that we can begin answering some of the questions about new hunter pets. Join me after the cut for the rundown of the new tameable pet types now available and what their new abilities are. Continue reading Mists of Pandaria Beta: New hunter pets Mists of Pandaria Beta: New hunter pets originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 17 May 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Skill Mastery: Shield Barrier takes the beating for you

Wed, 16 May 2012 22:00:00 +0000

Filed under: Warrior , Analysis / Opinion , Mists of Pandaria Shield Barrier is one of my favorite new abilities. One of the reasons I love it is that it scales both with the amount of rage you have when you use it and with your attack power, meaning that it will continuously get better as you level and gear up. Shield Barrier provides you with a damage absorption shield that, when used with the minimum amount of rage (20 rage), puts up a respectable amount of absorption. On my level 89 tauren warrior, above, it did roughly 6k with a baseline use, eating more than half of that Agitated Seedstealer's fire spell. But when used at full rage, it can do significantly more. The most I've seen was a 20,000 absorption shield, which will admittedly be fairly rare because it's hard to ensure you have exactly 60 rage when you use the ability. You're more likely to pepper the area with 10k or 12k absorbs that make soloing an absolute dream. Tanking in 5-mans, it's still a potent part of your arsenal, but you're much more likely to alternate it with Shield Block there. Shield Barrier is an ability warrior tanks have probably needed for a very long time, a way to mitigate incoming damage no matter what it is. I personally love the ability. It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria , World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ , or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details! Skill Mastery: Shield Barrier takes the beating for you originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 16 May 2012 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | Email this | Comments

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How I learned to love tanking again

Wed, 16 May 2012 19:00:00 +0000

Filed under: Warrior , Analysis / Opinion , Cataclysm , Mists of Pandaria So yeah, I'm tanking again. There are a few reasons for this. Reason #1 is my experiences testing prot in the Mists of Pandaria beta . Quite frankly, I think it's going to be much easier to level to 90 as a tanking warrior, what with the spec working quite well on the beta at the moment. Since I expect us to be doing so by August at the latest, I wanted to get a jump on things. Another reason is simple necessity. We needed a tank; I happen to be capable of doing the job and doing it well. Even back when threat was harder than it is now, I always knew I was a respectable tank. I pay attention to my positioning, I know how to use my cooldowns, and I've got a lot of experience with the role. When my guild found itself short a tank, it seemed like the right thing to do. It's just plain easier to recruit a DPSer and have someone established doing the tanking. I've asked before if it's time to kill tanking . Almost a year down the road from that question, here I am tanking again. I think what I'm learning is that, at present, it's fairly easy to tank decently and not very hard to tank well, but tanking itself is now split into two halves, and one of them is actually more difficult than it has ever been. It's easier to learn but not easier to master. Continue reading How I learned to love tanking again How I learned to love tanking again originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 16 May 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Spiritual Guidance: The new shadow priest trend of backtracking

Wed, 16 May 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Filed under: Priest , (Priest) Spiritual Guidance Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline , holy and shadow priests. On alternate Wednesdays, shadow priesting expert Fox Van Allen comes from out of the shadows to bask in your loving adoration. I spent a long time trying to come up with the perfect word for what's happening to shadow priests on the beta right now. At first I thought up d

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Encrypted Text: Rogues can actually tank

Wed, 16 May 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Filed under: Rogue , (Rogue) Encrypted Text Every week, WoW Insider brings you Encrypted Text for assassination , combat and subtlety rogues. Chase Christian will be your guide to the world of shadows every Wednesday. Feel free to email me with any questions or article suggestions you'd like to see covered here. In the original WoW beta, rogues were designed to be off tanks. Complete with a high dodge coefficient from agility and a buckler , rogues could survive quite a beating. Evasion was a tanking cooldown, and Vanish was a useful tank-swapping ability. Hunters worked similarly, also sporting bucklers and using Feign Death to lose aggro. Obviously, the developers scrapped both of these ideas before launch. During The Burning Crusade , Gaeowyn broke the combat table by achieving unhittable status with 102.63% avoidance and using it to successfully slay Illidan . After that, the crew slew Gruul with just five people while it was still relevant content. In Wrath , Jider abused Shadowstep and our amazing damage output to solo several Naxxramas bosses. The upcoming Mists expansion looks to again revitalize rogue tanking, with the advent of the druid ability Symbiosis and our bonus ability, Growl . Continue reading Encrypted Text: Rogues can actually tank Encrypted Text: Rogues can actually tank originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 16 May 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Lichborne: Death knights remain in holding pattern in Mists of Pandaria beta

Daniel Whitcomb — Tue, 15 May 2012 19:00:00 +0000

Filed under: Death Knight , (Death Knight) Lichborne , Mists of Pandaria Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood , frost , and unholy death knights. In the post- Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. When one takes a two-week vacation, one generally looks forward to things having changed, even slightly, when one returns. This is especially sure when speaking of the Mists of Pandaria beta test. Strangely, that hasn't been exactly the case for death knights. There have been changes, certainly, but not as drastic as we might have hoped -- and not as well-explained, either. Today, we'll take a look at a few of the more important changes and what they imply for our class. In addition, we'll see what Ghostcrawler did and didn't say about death knights in a recent post . Plague Leech and disease issues There've been a few changes to death knights, but the most interesting one comes with Plague Leech . This first-tier talent, which replaces Vile Spew , will allow you to generate a death rune by canceling the diseases from your target. The nice thing about this skill is that it gives us another much-needed Blood Tap replacement now that Blood Tap itself has been turned into a somewhat more restricted talent. The bad thing about this skill is that it's probably going to become mandatory for min-maxing DPS death knights. If your diseases are about to expire anyway and you can eat them for an extra death rune, it's hard to see how that won't become a DPS increase. Once we all reach level 90 and the math has been sufficiently mathed, it seems relatively obvious that Plague Leech will be considered mandatory by the hardcore PvE community, for better or for worse. Continue reading Lichborne: Death knights remain in holding pattern in Mists of Pandaria beta Lichborne: Death knights remain in holding pattern in Mists of Pandaria beta originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 15 May 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Spiritual Guidance: Lightwell, Lightspring, and the latest on priest healing in Mists

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Filed under: Priest , (Priest) Spiritual Guidance Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline , holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers the healing side of things for discipline and holy priests. She also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast . Well, we got it. I never thought I'd see the day, but we finally got the Trial of the Crusader Lightwell that shoots heals at allied players instead of requiring them to click. Holy priests will gain access to the new Lightwell, called Lightspring , using a glyph of the same name. Before you get too excited, however, I should mention that there is a catch. Apparently, automatic Lightwells don't heal for nearly as much as a manual ones do, so depending on the fight and your raid members' ability to use the Lightwell in the first place, you may choose to skip the Glyph of Lightspring now and again. Good ol' Derevka has already written up a thorough first look at Lightspring in which he points out many of the spell's limitations. In the post, he points out that Lightspring only heals targets at less than 50% of their health, and it has a 5-second cooldown between heals to prevent it from being used as a raid cooldown. To read the rest of Derevka's write-up and see his comparisons on the numerical output of the two spells, head over to Tales of a Priest . Continue reading Spiritual Guidance: Lightwell, Lightspring, and the latest on priest healing in Mists Spiritual Guidance: Lightwell, Lightspring, and the latest on priest healing in Mists originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 15 May 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Skill Mastery: Ascendance takes shaman to new heights

Mon, 14 May 2012 19:00:00 +0000

Filed under: Shaman , Analysis / Opinion , Mists of Pandaria Ascendance is a new ability coming to level 87 shaman of all specs in Mists of Pandaria . For 15 seconds every 3 minutes, you'll transform yourself into an Ascended elemental form that looks very much like the trash mobs in Grim Batol or Bastion of Twilight. The actual Ascendant's appearance and the function of the form vary based on your current specialization. For enhancement, you take on the form of an air Ascendant, making your melee auto-attacks and Stormstrike become ranged attacks that are able to be used at up to 30 yards away. They also deal pure nature damage, which means they're benefited by Enhanced Elements and ignore armor. From a PvP standpoint, melee attacks from a 30-yard range that ignore armor will be frustrating for escaping clothies and plate-wearers that you're trying to keep your distance from. Elemental morphs into a fire Ascendant. In this form, your Chain Lightning morphs into Lava Beam . Lava Beam is similar to Chain Lightning but hits a total of five targets and doesn't reduce its damage when it jumps, which is potent AoE. For single targets, your fire Ascendancy makes your Lava Burst have no cooldown during its duration, which means back to back critical hits for 15 seconds. The last Ascendant form is restoration's water form, which functions very similarly to the Essence of Dreams in Ultraxion. For 15 seconds, every heal you cast duplicates its healing done and splits that secondary healing amount among all nearby targets. If you cast a 100k Greater Healing Wave on your tank, she'll be healed for 100,000 and another 100,000 healing will be split among allies near her. It's very potent. If you want more in depth views of Ascendance and the benefits and cons, Joe Perez and I recently wrote Totem Talks covering Ascendance for DPS and resto shaman. It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria , World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ , or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details! Skill Mastery: Ascendance takes shaman to new heights originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 14 May 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Blood Pact: When beta taps the life out of affliction

Mon, 14 May 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Filed under: Warlock , (Warlock) Blood Pact Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction , demonology , and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill continues to pinch herself, hoping to wake up from the nightmare of dying to a training dummy in Stormwind. I admit, destruction in Mists of Pandaria looks very cool. I've been leveling with it, and although a handful of buttons can get boring, I like the back-and-forth rhythm of Incinerates and Conflagrates . To top it off, Chaos Bolt looks totally badass, even if it still casts like slow fire . But as I hit the level cap once more, I decided it was time to return to my roots: affliction. I've always loved the flow of affliction -- health is mana is health is mana is health. To scare an affliction warlock, a master of fears, you can do something sneaky like spell reflect or spell stealing . Or you can just drain me of all my self-healing and expect me to continue tapping as normal -- that horrifies me just the same. I find myself fervently hoping that dried-up self-healing streams as affliction are just bugged. Continue reading Blood Pact: When beta taps the life out of affliction Blood Pact: When beta taps the life out of affliction originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 14 May 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Shifting Perspectives: Honey cat don’t give a …

Mon, 14 May 2012 01:00:00 +0000

Filed under: Druid , (Druid) Shifting Perspectives Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Welcome to our DPS edition, brought to you by Chase Hasbrouck, aka Alaron of The Fluid Druid blog. This week, we gem +10 in awesome. With apologies to Isaiah Mustafa ... Take a look at your cat. Now look at me. Now back at your cat. Now back at me. Sadly, your cat isn't me, but if you stopped playing that silly rogue and switched to feral, you could have a cat that looked like me. Look down, back up -- where are you? You're on a boat with an armored cat, the cat your cat could look like. What's in your hand? Back at me. I have it -- it's a clam with patch notes declaring ferals to be epic. Look again; the notes are now the tears of all the classes who wish they could look like me. Anything is possible when you roll feral. Forget horses; I'm a stag . Yes, I was tempted to end the column right there --but we've got so much good stuff to talk about. Armored cats A few weeks ago, Ghostcrawler mentioned that Incarnation would have specific art for cats, bears, and moonkin ; in the latest patch, a datamined model showed us what is likely the first example of that. At first, I wasn't too sure about the idea of putting armor on a feral form, but it's really grown on me over the last couple of days. It's obviously difficult to do cosmetic effects for a class that revolves around shapeshifting, but I'm grateful that Blizzard's continuing to add something for forms. I can't wait to see the bear and moonkin armor. (Do moonkin even need armor?) Continue reading Shifting Perspectives: Honey cat don't give a ... Shifting Perspectives: Honey cat don't give a ... originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 13 May 2012 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | Email this | Comments

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