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Posts with tag bear

Get your bear mount before Wrath

Posted May 12th 2008 2:30PM by Eliah Hecht
Filed under: News items, Mounts, Wrath of the Lich King

You know that awesome Amani War Bear? The one that has been sold for 20,000 gold? Well, you'd better work on getting it as soon as possible if you want one, because when Wrath of the Lich King comes out, it will no longer be attainable. Currently you get it as a reward for a time-based challenge in the ten-man raid Zul'Aman: free all four prisoners in time, get bear.

Tigole just posted in the official forums that upon Wrath's release, the bear will be replaced with "a very good, epic item," basically to preserve the prestige of having gotten the bear at its intended difficult level. He says they plan on doing a similar thing with the "Hand of A'dal" and "Champion of the Naaru" titles as well. I can understand this move -- it would probably be trivial to get the bear with a raid full of level 80s. And there is still a fair amount of time before Wrath comes out.

However, it makes me sad to see something become impossible to get. I think it would be a better solution if they made it so the bear could only be attained by a raid containing no members above level 70, personally. As Zach pointed out to me, the change that they're proposing now means that no Death Knight will ever be on a bear mount, and that's just sad. Unless, that is, they introduce a polar bear mount in Northrend -- did somebody say panserbjørne?

If this is one of your goals before Wrath, don't forget to check out WoW Insider's complete guide on how to get your own Amani War Bear.

Update: Chances look good for a bear in Northrend. Tigole said: "Polar Bear sound cool?"

What WoW should learn from certain quests in and around The Barrens

Posted Apr 29th 2008 7:00PM by Daniel Whitcomb
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Quests, Expansions, Lore, Leveling, RP

Lakotamani welcomes you to the beautiful Barrens!So I've been thinking a bit about questing lately as I traverse Outlands on my latest project, a level 61 Blood Elf Paladin, working on the Outlands quests. I think my favorite part of playing a lowbie hordeling is how many quests there are to "stumble upon" in the oft-maligned Barrens. Technically, they're all very basic "find and kill these dudes" quests, but the presentation is such that I always get a big rush from doing them. They really do make me feel like a mighty hunter.

Continue reading What WoW should learn from certain quests in and around The Barrens

Ready Check: Zul'Aman -- Getting your first bear

Posted Apr 5th 2008 2:00PM by Jennie Lees
Filed under: Tips, How-tos, Walkthroughs, Instances, Guides, Mounts, (Raiding) Ready Check


Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Kara or BT, everyone can get in on the action and down them some bosses. This week, a bear talks about... bears.

Since the introduction of Zul'Aman many raiding guilds have been fascinated by the time trial; defeat all four animal bosses within 45 minutes and the last prisoner will gift you with a scary-looking bear mount, plus the adoration of your entire server. This article will take you through preparing for, and succeeding at, the Zul'Aman timed run.

Okay, so you want to get a bear.

Perhaps there are ten people in your guild who, bored with farming or wiping, want a slightly different challenge to take up an evening or two a week. The end goal of getting a bear mount (or ten) is an incredibly fun one to aim for, but it's also a lot of hard work (provided you don't just want to pay 20,000 gold).

The first stage in collecting your very own bear cavalry is to assemble a good team. While you can put together a run with whichever guildies feel like going from week to week, we recommend at least starting with a fixed group that's optimised for success. As you become experienced at running the gauntlet, it won't matter quite as much if the team isn't static.

Continue reading Ready Check: Zul'Aman -- Getting your first bear

Shifting Perspectives: So, is Nurturing Instinct worth taking now?

Posted Feb 26th 2008 9:00PM by Allison Robert
Filed under: Night Elves, Tauren, Druid, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, PvP, Raiding, Talents, (Druid) Shifting Perspectives


Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives is typically written by someone who is not Allie Robert. This week, she has Prowled onto John Patricelli's turf, Pounced him, and run off shouting, "Ha ha! I have your column and there's nothing you can do about it for the next un-talented 3 seconds!"

John's previously covered a number of the changes you can expect to see in the upcoming patch 2.4, but more recently we're heard of changes to the feral talent Nurturing Instinct. Currently the talent increases healing spells by up to 50% of your Strength. It's not such a bad bonus, but you'd be a rare feral indeed if you found a lot of leather gear with +Strength on it outside of the tier or arena sets. The vast majority of ferals continue to use specialized pieces like the Heavy Clefthoof set for bear tanking and mostly rogue gear for cat dps. Either way, the talent was of considerably less use than it might have been if more pieces like the Shadowprowler's Chestguard existed ingame (although the addition of badge gear has made it possible, albeit time-consuming, to get leather with "Druid stats"). Moreover, with the change to the Heart of the Wild talent in patch 2.3 (altering the full talent from a 20% increase to your Strength in cat form to a 10% increase to your AP in cat form), Strength became less important than ever. Take a tour through Emmerald's feral gear guide (updated to include 2.3 badge gear and - I hope - soon to be updated to include 2.4 badge gear) and you'll find that most of the best cat pieces are rogue leather with a ton of Agility.

Blizzard must have recognized that it didn't make much sense to keep Nurturing Instinct the way it was, so the talent has now been changed to increase your healing spells by 50%/100% of your Agility, and healing done to you by 10/20% of your AP in cat form. There still seems to be some confusion over how this change will play out, but the official PTR patch notes still say it's 10/20% of your AP in cat. While this will obviously depend a lot on how much attack power you're packing, this could be a considerable buff to your healing taken in cat form (approaching and, with AP increases, probably exceeding the average additional healing by a warlock's Fel Armor). Fully talented, this could mean an extra +400 healing done to you assuming you're at the druid boards' minimum standards of 2,000 AP and 30% crit in cat form for entry to Karazhan.

Still, Nurturing Instinct is problematic. Not because it's bad, exactly, but because it's one of those troublesome talents rife among hybrid talent trees that force you to ask what you really want to be playing that character for.

Continue reading Shifting Perspectives: So, is Nurturing Instinct worth taking now?

New cooking recipes for 2.4!

Posted Feb 5th 2008 7:30PM by Daniel Whitcomb
Filed under: Fishing, Cooking

Ever since 2.3 went live, it's been a bit of a struggle to make the leap from the 260 cooking range to the 300 cooking range, as both my poor Paladin and Shaman can well attest. With recipes such as Tender Wolf Steak and Monster Omelet, once the mainstays of any aspiring chef's training, going green and gray much earlier than before (That is, gray at 275 rather than 300), It's been a bit of trouble getting the needed skill to start cooking up the buzzard and ravager meat that makes the mainstay of the early post-300 cooking grind.

Luckily, the developers heard the cries of horror from all the cooks who thought they might have to grind up fishing to get the materials they needed to skill up, and promised us new recipes.

And today, European CM Vaneras let us know the details. New cooks will need to head to Felwood and Western Plaguelands and start killing themselves a few bears. New meat drops from the bears will allow you to make either spell damage or attack power food, not only removing fishing as a requirement for skilling to 300 cooking, but also giving players in the level 45-60 range a nice stat boost while grinding, questing, or leveling. The recipes themselves will be purchasable from Bale of the Horde or Malygen of the Alliance, both in their respective outposts in Felwood.

So put down your fishing pole and pick up your frying pan again, cooks. Salvation is on the way!

Around Azeroth: Dance!

Posted Nov 4th 2007 10:00AM by Elizabeth Harper
Filed under: Screenshots, Around Azeroth


Reader Emir sends us this shot whose location I am not entirely certain of... though if I were to guess I'd say it were the Aliance-side Arathi Basin battleground entrance. (Anyone out there have any suggestions for certain?) However, it's not the location that makes this shot worthwhile: it's the conversation going on within!

Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing a copy to aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com, with as much or as little detail as you'd like to share with the world!

Gallery: Around Azeroth

/silly: Dire Straits

Posted Sep 25th 2007 9:00AM by Arthur Orneck
Filed under: Odds and ends, Humor, /silly, Comics


Greetings, my brothers in arms! Once again it is time to delve into the land of my artistically rendered personal views on this walk of life we call World of Warcraft. A few hours of private investigations deep into my inner psyche brought forth this small one panel sight gag, aimed at those sultans of swing, the Feral Druid. Since this ended up being a mere one panel affair, I invested extra time into the quality of the art, so no one should feel that they wasted their money for nothing.

Addendum: Check after the jump for a nifty bonus pic!

Continue reading /silly: Dire Straits

More Zul'Aman previews

Posted Jul 23rd 2007 5:30PM by Mike Schramm

Here's two more previews from Zul'Aman floating around the Interwebs. Games Radar has a nice little preview up, including info on the bear mount (!), which (apparently-- it's not confirmed yet, although come on) drops from Narolakk, a bear boss that you actually have to chase across the city. GR says the instance will be "a spiritual successor to Zul'Gurub" (music to the ears of many players, including me), and that it'll be a little brighter and more wide open than the other late game instances, which should get yet another mark of approval from players.

Frictionless Insight also has a preview, in which they say the four animal bosses will consist of Bear, Eagle, Lynx, and Dragon Hawk spirits. Strangely enough, we've already heard that there will also be a "god of evil" as well as a witch doctor and the end boss Zul'jin, which means there may be more than the six bosses that Blizzard first hinted at. Additionally, we've heard from quite a few sources now that the Zul'Aman trash will be very sociable (as in, there will be mobs that bring more if you're not careful), but Frictionless Insight says the dungeon itself will start with a boss, not trash, so even more good news for most raiders.

All in all, Zul'Aman seems to be shaping up nicely. There's no telling when we'll see it on the PTRs, but I would be very surprised if Blizzard didn't let us play it (or at least see a preview of it) at Blizzcon. Storm the castle!

Thanks, Aaron!

Shifting Perspectives: Awesome tanking gear and how to get it easily

Posted Jun 19th 2007 4:53PM by David Bowers
Filed under: Druid, Items, Quests, Guides, (Druid) Shifting Perspectives


Bears make some of the awesomest tanks around. There are advantages and disadvantages to having a druid tank as opposed to a warrior, or maybe even a paladin, and we can leave the discussion of which is best for another day. You are probably aware, though, that one of a druid's main advantages in tanking is the extremely high armor he or she can achieve in bear form. Shifting to bear form increases the armor of a druid by 400%, and there are a number of leather items out there which have a higher-than-average armor that can send our physical damage mitigation through the roof.

Let's just assume that you're leveling up your feral druid, thinking about when you reach 70 and wondering what kind of gear you're going to need going into the high-end 5-person instances and raiding. The thing you might not know is, as you're leveling up towards 70, some of the best of these high-armor items are easily available through quests. These may be "just green" in some cases, but that armor rating makes them extremely valuable for a druid for a long time. They often outshine their bluer or purpler counterparts in their bearish tanking power. Continue reading for a short guide to these what these items are how to get them.

Continue reading Shifting Perspectives: Awesome tanking gear and how to get it easily

Around Azeroth: Mommy?

Posted May 16th 2007 10:00AM by Elizabeth Harper
Filed under: Druid, Screenshots, Around Azeroth


Darkcow of Gorgonnash sends in this rather sad screenshot. How can such decorations make our druid brethren feel? Darkcow provides an appropriately Larson-esque caption for the scene:

Dead as a door... mat? No, that's not quite it. Mom?

Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! Or perhaps you'd just like to see more of your pics from Around Azeroth.

Gallery: Around Azeroth

An Outland gear guide for feral druids

Posted Mar 22nd 2007 1:51PM by Mike Schramm
Filed under: Druid, Items, Tips, Burning Crusade

Kaliban's Class Loot Lists (a.k.a. WoW Loot) does a pretty good job at providing overall views at gear for different classes, but I've never seen anything as detailed as this incredible list of Burning Crusade feral drood gear. They've got what looks like every piece for every gear slot, all organized according to its benefit to feral druids.

And in addition to the Bear tanking gear list, whoever put this together (I heard about it from outintospace) has also provided a gear list for "Cat durids" (they're for fite)-- both for sustained DPS and burst DPS. This is a lot of work-- even if there was some kind of script involved in an API, this is a lot of information to put together and organize, and it could be the only gear guide you'll ever need as a feral druid in Outland.

It's got all the way up to Tier 5, too, which makes this even more complete than Kaliban's List. Tier 6 isn't in there, but of course that's because we're just now hearing about what it will be. There you go, feral druids-- now you know exactly what gear you want and where it is. Get to tanking!

Update: And to go along with the Hunter Wiki from a few days ago, someone has started a Druid Wiki as well. Thanks to commenter Metaphyzxx for the link!


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