Arena in WotLK

I was looking at Squiggle’s arena point the other night after we had finally got back into the swing of arena and realised that I have quite a few (over 2000) and was wondering what to do with them. At that time it occurred to me that I had no idea what would be happening to arena points once we got into Northrend. This morning my question was answered by Wryxian on the European forums, once you hit level 71 your points will be reset to zero. Therefore spend away because in a couple of months they will be gone!

In addition to this there will be skirmish brackets for 71 - 75 and 76 - 80 with Arena teams to be implemented at some stage post release for level 80 players. I hope we will be able to reforge Triptych at level 80, perhaps as a ret paladin, holy priest and mage team?

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In the coming weeks..?

I was so busy writing my previous article on multi boxing that I only just noticed this doosey. In preparation for Wrath of the Litch King Blizzard will be releasing a pre expansion content patch.

• New class spells and talents
• Stormwind Harbor
• Barbershops in capital cities
• Zeppelin towers outside of Orgrimmar and Tirisfal Glades
• Two brand-new Arenas featuring challenging new layouts, terrain hazards, and moving obstacles
• Guild calendar
• Hunter pet skill revamp
• New profession: Inscription

Those of you who were around for the release of Burning Crusade will remember the pre-release patch which introduced some of the talent changes and lead into Burning Crusade. I am joyous to see the same for Wrath which will let us get a head start on talents and abilities along with an in game guild calendar (ours seems to break all the time). I am absolutely ecstatic that is will include Inscription. The hours I have spent collecting herbs were not in vain. I will be prepared! Oh wait wrong expansion…

The Key point here and I quote Eyonix is

"we will be issuing a new content patch in the coming weeks"

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Your best friend and you - Multi boxing

A couple of weeks back Blizzard released their new “Recruit a friend” program. By recruiting a friend you will get a free mount, bonus experience (300%) when questing together and be able to pass levels to the lower level player. If you can find a friend to recruit or have a someone lined up to join you in your gaming this is a great offer which should help you really speed though the levels.

However arising from this is a lot of discussion about multi boxing. This is a completely legitimate way to alter your play experience that can be as simple (well not that simple) as running wow twice on your computer and leveling two characters at once or as complex as controlling 46 characters between two people. Motivated by a desire to get myself a cool mount and some curiosity I decided to look into what exactly was entailed in multi boxing and how/why you would do it. In the process I unearthed some interesting examples.

The 47 computers you see in the picture to the right are used by two people to control 26 characters each. These two could field a whole AV team, two raid groups or just dominate any zone they wanted. It appears that he started multi boxing in Everquest and only when his girlfriend started multi boxing did decide to go all out. The pair have put a serious amount of cash and time into this setup. The articles I found about them if you are interested in more pictures and info are here and here.

There is also the story of the 5 shaman controlled by two players that are taking the arena by storm. This very successful team is run with one player controlling 4 Elemental Shaman and a second player keeping them alive with a restoration shaman. This season they seem to be doing reasonably well (from what I see on their Arena team page). They gained fame when Wow Insider did an article on them, you can view it here.

What about two of you multi boxing five players then running Karazhan with two people? Apparently it's possible, these guys managed to down (at least some of) Karazhan between the two of them. The again I suppose successfully coordinating all the characters in a raid is only as hard as actually building your setup by hand. Another example of a dedicated couple with what appears to be too much spare time; then again I am using my spare time to write this article.

One thing that seems to come up a lot is “why?” Well I can see several reasons, firstly, is the challenge, it’s quite a project to build and successfully run 4+ characters at once. It requires skill, knowledge and patience. Along with that is the bonuses for leveling with your ‘friend’, 300% makes for some speedy leveling and means you can get to endgame easier and faster. The third thing would have to be ownage, in PvP a multi boxer can make a big impact. Communication will win or loose a battleground and a multi boxer is the pinnacle of communication and coordination. When played right they are a force to be reckoned with. If you do the maths, 5 chain lightings cast exactly at once on the one target are pretty much guaranteed to kill what ever was targeted and seriously messed up anyone near by.

An ironic twist to multi boxing is that it is only legit if all the accounts are yours. If your mate stops playing and gives you his account then you are breaking the rules and you can bet that warrior who just got double POM pyroed will complain.

Personally I thought it would be new and fun, and when I eventually get a new computer might look into trying it. I don’t think I have the coordination to track and control 5 characters but I could manage two especially if they were the same class.

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Wow Podcasts

I have recently discovered, and become slightly addicted to, Wow related pod casts. Personally I’m sick of radio and their contrived stories which always lead to call ins. I used to listen to Triple J all the time then I switched to a combination of News Radio and Hamish and Andy, but I’m getting over American politics and wars and it seems like Hamish and Andy are just rehashing old material. So podcasts burnt to CD are making the perfect drive time listening.

So far I have three shows that I have enjoyed plus the official Blizzard pod cast.

Wow Insider – May favourite so far this is basically an amalgamation of the stories posted on the Wow Insider website along with some extra discussion and fluff. It is well balanced as the presenters come from different aspects of the game and topics are varied. There is however some very lame wow based songs which make you cringe. It airs weekly on a Saturday afternoon (in the USA) but can be downloaded from their archives here or you can subscribe to it via iTunes.

Casually Hardcore – Runner up this show is a lot of fun, I have only listened to one episode so far but it was full of tangents, amusing discussion and laughter. Quite similar to Team speak in a typical Ch8ildren of Stormwind raid. The best thing is that it is targeted to the casual player, the presenters themselves typify this with one of them trying to quietly occupy her toddler (guessing) son while doing the show. The topics are also focused on casual players which is nice for those of us who work full time or are trying to finish their Phd. The show airs once a week on a Sunday, you can view their archives here or subscribe via iTunes.

The Instance – This is a podcast produced by the team at Extra Life. I stumbled upon this one after looking at their comic strip (which is quite good). Content wise this is very similar to the Wow Insider show, it is amusing and well balanced with some good discussion. I haven’t listened to a huge number of these but entertaining if you have some extra time. I couldn’t find a show schedule but you can view their show page here or subscribe via iTunes.

Blizcast – This relates to all of Blizzards franchises so includes news and information on Starcraft and Diablo as well as World of Warcraft. The biggest pull of this podcast is their access to guest which no other podcast would easily get, Blizzard staff. It’s a good production and worth a listen, the transcript is also available if you just want to read about it. You can find project homepage here or you can subscribe via iTunes.

Image from http://thats-china.com/?m=200703

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Holy cow I just saw this on Wow Insider!

After my small hissy fit earlier this week it seems like Blizzard are buffing warriors in Wrath to their rightful(read overpowered) state.

• Heroic leap has moved from Tier 11 to Tier 9
• Titan's Grip has been shifted to the bottom (Tier 11) of the fury tree
• Titan’s Grip will only have one rank and doesn’t have a speed penalty
• Shield Mastery (in the protection tree) will increases block value by up to 30% instead of increasing the amount blocked by 30%
• Furious Attack, has been added to the fury tree. This two point talent will have a 50%/100% chance to reduce healing done to the target by 25% for 8 seconds. It will stack up to two times

So warriors will get access to Heroic Leap at level 50, will have a passive mortal strike debuff and dual wielding two handers has never looked better. At this rate it will be hard to stop me from swapping to fury, I better start looking for a couple of nice two handed weapons to get me started. The shield mastery changes which on the surface look pretty ordinary are actually quite impressive, 30% more block translates to shield slams that hit 30% harder!

I saw this at the Wow Insider Page here.

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Title Screen Music

Are you tired of the old TBC music when you open wow? Well i just found out how you can change it, this was part of "The Instance" pop cast who got it from their forums.

1. Locate your wow folder
2. Open the folder named 'Data'
3. Create a new folder inside the 'Data' Folder, call it Sound
4. Open the 'Sound' Folder and create a new folder inside it, call it Music
5. Open the 'Music folder and create a new folder named GlueScreenMusic
6. Get a song you want to use as login music, it must be in a .mp3 format.
7. Rename the song to bc_main_theme
8. Copy the song you just renamed and past it into the GlueScreenMusic folder as you just created, Close wow, and bring it up agian, There you go a new login music

Please be aware this is not my own work I have copied the tutorial from here and edited it slightly.

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Warriors in Wrath - Mitigation

On the surface it seems like warriors are getting the raw end of the deal for Wrath of the Litch King. After the initial excitement about Titan’s Grip and Heroic Leap calmed down and people had an opportunity to try it out revealing that neither was all it looked to be. Titan’s Grip by many accounts yielding lower over all DPS than dual wielding one handed weapons and being prone to period of rage starvation. “But that’s all DPS stuff” I hear you saying “you’re a tank get to the relevant parts”. This is where my mixed feelings kick in. Previously warriors have had it good as tanks, we had the easiest road to becoming uncrushable. Well with crushing blows removed that era is over.


To be completely honest despite Ironarm’s best efforts I constantly look at the Druid and Paladin tanks with envy. Paladins almost seem to be able to tank whole instances at once while AFKing to make a coffee. Druids have dodge, amour and health so high they can switch to caster and battle res mid boss fight and on top of that when not tanking they rip things to pieces in kitty form. So sure I have spent hours looking through warrior information from the Wrath beta and I’m still confused but I don’t mind because it seems like Warriors, although not being given massive buffs on the protection side, have been shaken up some what.

But enough of the whining lets have a look at some talents. The most interesting things so far is the talents that lead to rage generation from mitigation. Shield Specialisation now gives 2 rage on a successful block and Stalwart Protector gives you 2 rage when your dodge or parry. Using the rage formula on Wowwiki a hit for 500 damage generates around 5 rage, considering in my current state I have a combined dodge/block/parry around 65%, across 20 hits I will generate about 41 rage (6 blocked hits yielding 6 rage, 7 dodge/parried hits yielding 0 rage and 7 connecting hits yielding 35 rage). Assuming I take these two talents in WotLK and keep the same gear I will generate 61 rage(13 blocked/dodged/parried hits yielding 26 rage and 7 connecting hits yielding 35 rage). Across 20 hits that is an addition 20 rage to play with. This does however neglect the damage and thus rage generation from a blocked hit or anger management but it is still a massive increase.

What does all this mean for a warrior? Well to start with more rage means we can use more abilities, but most importantly it means if you dodge/block/parry 13 attacks in a row you won’t be left with next to no rage and loose agro.

I have also heard a rumor (which I have been unable to confirm) that the formula to convert strength to block value has been significantly improved. This will not only mean larger shield slams and more absorbed with a block but with an emphasis on strength on tanking gear equals an over all increase in attack power and thus damage improvement. I will be on the look out for more on this front including some hard evidence if I can find it.

So despite Titan’s Grip not being all that was expected from it and paladins and druids being the envy of my world I think warrior tanks will be okay in WotLK. Even if only because all the Paladins will switch to retribution, Druids to restoration and well good luck getting a Death Knight to tank.

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I missed you to :P

Evidently a certain mage who will remain un named (Mudoken) missed me while I was gone. As recompense for my absence I have composed a haiku in his honor.

Triptych asunder
A gulf divides mage and priest
Now back at long last

Haikus are becoming a bit of a theme on this blog ever since the post on wow-kus. Then again I think my fascination stretches back a lot further than that, we used to make them in High School for some indeterminable reason.

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Inscription - The Glyphs begin to flow

There has been plenty of information from beta testing flying around of the last few weeks but for me none has been as interesting as the details on the new profession, Inscription. Sure people are getting new talents and abilities and I’m watching that but I have always found professions to be one of the most interesting and entertaining aspects of the game.

Inscribing seems to be shaping up to be a pretty stunning profession. Along with some basic entry level items including the Scroll of Recall which allows you to hearth every 15 minutes, some of the Glyphs are showing up on Wowhead. As previously mentioned there are three types of glyphs, and a mixture are appearing for Paladins, Priests, Druids, Shaman and Mages. At last count I saw over a hundred with a few over laps. Sadly they do not yet have their own section but I have been able to find them with a key word search.

Discussion is emerging about the pros and con of certain Glyphs with many being written off as next to useless and some seen as over powered. A good amount of testing will hopefully iron out these bugs and yield a fair and balanced system.

Two fun ones are Glyph of the Red Lynx and White Bear to give druids a little variety.

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I'm Back!

Well I am back from my extended holiday. I hope you all didn't miss me too much.

It appears that while I was gone there has been plenty of new information about Litch King from Beta testers. Please keep tuned for new posts appearing shortly.

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A Haiku for Kaith

Our long time member and dedicated raider is taking a break for the birth of his child.

Kaith I have composed a Haiku in your honor

Kaith heal bot for life
You have kept us all alive
now making new life

Best of luck my friend and we look forward to seeing you back soon.

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