The guild Shards of Existence on the Illidan server hasn't managed to down Illidan himself yet, but apparently that hasn't stopped them from having a little bit of fun with the other Black Temple bosses. According to their site, they've been having a bit trouble with tanks losing their computers, which has in turn frustrated their attempts to put Illidan on farm status. But just because they're still getting their replacement tanks geared up doesn't mean they have to sit back and wait.
Introducing Gaeowyn, The first Rogue to tank Mother Shahraz, the harem mistress of Black Temple. Notes Nihilum's news site, she pulled it off by stacking massive amounts of agility, while keeping enough expertise to cause adequate threat to keep the boss' attention. Raid buffed, she had 76.31% dodge, 12.16% parry, and 14.16% chance to be missed, meaning that she had 102.63% avoidance - just enough to take physical damage out of the equation.
If nothing else, that alone makes me wonder if I could pull that off on my Druid tank - It certainly would make tanking Prince Malchezaar's phase 2 easier. Of course, Bears cannot parry, alas, so I'd have to make up some major ground somewhere.
The video is a fun watch, especially at the end where it looks like Gaeowyn tries her hand at tanking Illidan. Is this a sign that we can expect Rogues to be fighting with Paladins, Druids, Warriors, and Death Knights for tanking spots come WoTLK?
One Yellow socket (socket bonus of +4 attack power)
Improves Haste rating by 53, and attack power of 120
With the Agility on there, this thing is probably best meant for Hunters -- only they can really benefit by changing Agi directly into Ranged Attack Power. Warriors and Paladins may benefit occasionally, but since Agi translates into Armor and Dodge for them, and the goal when wielding a big two hander is to do damage, not dodge it, it's really at cross purposes with most DPS melee-ers. Armor is always good for tanks, of course, but a shield will give you much more armor than this thing's Agility will.
The only problem with this thing is that it doesn't really have any Stamina or hit/crit on it, so players looking to max those will probably pass on this for something else. But Hunters looking to crank ranged DPS (especially with a slow bow or gun) will like this one a lot.
How to Get It: It's brand new in the game as of patch 2.4, and while on the PTR it supposedly dropped from Felmyst, we're told that it now drops from the trash near Kalecgos. Since players are just starting to head in that way, expect this to start showing up in player hands soon.
We don't have too much info on the drop rate yet, but there's good news and bad news. Since it's from trash you'll have a lot more chance for it to drop, because it'll be in the loot tables of more than one mob. The bad news, of course, is that it is probably a super low rate, so cross your fingers and hope for it to show up if you're running Sunwell Plateau regularly.
Getting Rid of It: Disenchants into a Void Crystal, as usual, and sells to vendors for 18g 80s 53c.
Since patch 2.4, hunters have been having some problems. Aside from the outrage over the fact that our traps are now announced, we seem to be having issues with mana.
On the forums, hunters are not seeing much love from the non-hunter crowd, but I suppose that is to be expected. It is important to note however, that our mana efficiency is an intended attribute of our class. We are useful, not solely, but arguably primarily, because we can provide sustainable, long-term DPS. No, we don't crit like mages. In a boss fight though, we can keep going after mages short out.
Why are hunters all of a sudden having issues with mana? There are a few theories floating around, but we have yet to be graced with a blue response. Take the jump to learn more about why this might be happening.
Last week we did a high end raiding item, so this week we only do a piece of husky loot, but it's still pretty impressive. Why? It's the fastest gun in Azeroth, east or west. This... is my boomstick!
Ok you primitive screwheads, listen up! As far as I can tell (and it seems like whenever I make a blanket statement like this, our commenters always prove me wrong), this is the fastest non-magical projectile (not thrown) ranged weapon in the game.
There's good news and bad news on that one. The good news is that for hunters, firing this fast will mean that any abilities that proc (Improved Aspect of the Hawk, Go for the Throat) will do it more often. You'll also get more crits, which is always nice, and some twink PvP hunters say this can actually keep casters from casting-- it hits so fast that their casting bar slows way down.
But unfortunately, speed isn't everything-- as fast as this gun is, lots of hunters would rather have a slower gun that does more damage per hit. Not to mention that all this firing spends your ammo like it's going out of style-- more bangs means more money for new ammo. For BM hunters who autoshot a lot, this gun is nice at the level, but for most other hunters, it's probably not worth the time unless it falls into your lap.
Rogues could also use it-- the agility in the ranged weapon slot is nice for the level. But anyone who takes it around 45 or so will probably be passing it up for something better within a few levels anyway. But that's how it is with lowbie weapons-- first you want to kiss them, then you want to kill them. Blow.
How to Get It: It's a world drop, which means it could drop from almost anywhere in the world. So either you'll just get really lucky and have it fall into your lap while leveling or grinding, or you'll have to pick it up from the AH-- like other world epics, it is Bind on Equip. It's gone for hundreds of gold in the past, but even though I haven't priced it lately, I wouldn't imagine it being near that high these days-- 200g at the absolute most, and probably under 100g on most servers. You could probably get it cheaper, but only if you shop smart-- S-mart.
Getting Rid of It: If you had it drop and don't need it, sell that sucker on the AH! Otherwise, a vendor will give you 2g 45s 40c for it, or it'll DE into a Large Radiant Shard. Hail to the king, baby. Gimme some sugar.
It looks like feral druids will not be denied their bit of love in patch 2.3. The feral talent Heart of the Wild, will be changed to gain +10% attack power in cat form rather than +20% strength as shown in the current version above. As Vorox notes for us in his forum post this is a buff for feral druids.
It may be a nerf for those druids who have stacked as much strength as possible to the exclusion of other stats, but especially considering that they plan to raise the attack power on items that buff druids' attack power while shapeshifted, having this talent to make them even more powerful seems pretty nice to me. It also makes agility scale even better for cat druids than it did before, and in many cases it enables us to get more bonuses from many buffs and items (such as Blessing of Might, and... rogue gear!).
For the mathematically inclined amongst you, here is the formula for calculating your new buffed-up attack power from the original poster Vorox (who translated from German): (Current AP - (Strength in cat form - Strength in caster form)*2)*1.1
I don't know about you, but when I first started playing World of Warcraft, I couldn't have told you the difference between strength and spirit. I equipped every piece of gear I found without regard for what statistics it had. Intellect for my rogue and strength for my warlock -- why, yes, that sounds almost exactly the way I must have started my adventures in the land of Azeroth. But, yes, I did learn eventually. I read my class forums a lot, took advice from fellow players, and finally figured out what all of those funny numbers meant on my gear -- and whether they were good for my class and playstyle or not. But I imagine there are some new players in the audience who haven't gotten to that phase yet -- and this is written to help them out.
Curious to see what the five base statistics -- agility, intellect, spirit, stamina, and strength -- actually mean? (Note: there are many more statistics to consider than these base five, like attack power and critical rating, but all of the other statistics are influenced by the main five -- so we'll discuss these today and the rest later this week.) Keep reading to find out all about them!
Our second polearm ever is a brand new shiny piece from Sunwell Plateau, perfect for Hunters who want to talk softly and carry a big stick.
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