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While alchemy is certainly not the most flashy or popular profession out there, alchemists are an integral part of the game, and any guild worth its salt has at least one, preferably several, working to supply guildmates and fill the guild bank with stacks of consumables and transmuted items.
This week's leveling guide will feature the usual cheapest route, and the most useful, to 375 for solos and casuals.
For those of you who will be working for your guild (and hopefully are also being financed, or supported by herbalists), we'll show you how to reach 375 by making the most useful items. They might cost more, but your guild will be requiring them anyway, so you might as well get your skill points that way, rather than making stacks of items you won't be using.
Bloodlust/Heroism will not stack with [the new] Power Infusion, however.
He tells us the reasoning behind this is "...two spells increasing haste by a percentage will not stack if both can be cast on a target other than the caster..." So this appears to continue the trend we've seen of modifying haste based abilities, both in their power and stacking abilities.
For those that don't know about Shamans, Bloodlust and Heroism are Shaman abilities (Bloodlust is the name of the spell for the Horde, Heroism is the name of the spell for the Alliance) that decrease casting time by 30% for 40 seconds. It is often used in raids to get that extra "umpf" necessary to get a boss down quickly.
Icy Veins is a Mage talent based spell that decreases casting time by 20% for 20 seconds (and increase the chance the target will freeze by 20%). The combination of Bloodlust/Heroism and Icy Veins is a very potent combination.
Power Infusion is a Priest talent that will have some changes come patch 2.4. It will now decrease casting time by 20% as well as decrease the mana cost by 20%. It's interesting that Blizzard decided to allow the stacking with Mages, but not with priests. The difference in the two spells is that Power Infusion can be cast on other targets, while Icy Veins can only be cast on yourself. Indeed, this follows with what Tharfor said in his post (which Drysc left out).
What do you think of these changes? Any major issue with them?
Ever since patch 2.3, a number of players have been having a lot of trouble with their instant abilities, especially in PvP. They're finding they get constant "spell is not ready yet" and "target is out of range" errors whenever they mash their buttons. The main source of this problem has to do with a change to the way your computer communicates to the server what your character is doing. It's not very easy to explain, but I'll do my best here. First, I'll explain how the change affects longer spell casts, and then afterward look at how it affects instants.
Here's how things worked in patch 2.2:
I press a button to cast a spell or activate an ability.
My computer says, "Hey! Realm server! David wants to cast Frostbolt!"
The realm server says "Okay!" 300 milliseconds or so later (this round-trip communication time is your "latency").
My computer then starts a 1.5 second global cooldown, and shows me the Frostbolt casting bar.
I cannot use any other abilities from the time I press the button to the time my Frostbalt casting finishes, unless I manually cancel the spell (as with a /stopcasting macro), or unless the server tells my computer, "Okay the spell is finished already!" or "Whoops! That spell got interrupted!"
Either way, without a manual interruption on my part, I'm waiting on the server to tell me the outcome of the first spell before I can tell it to start casting the second.
Here's how things work in patch 2.3:
I press a button to cast a spell or activate an ability.
My computer says, "Hey! Realm server! David wants to cast Frostbolt!"
My computer goes ahead and starts the global cooldown for me, assuming the Frostbolt will succeed.
The realm says "Okay!" 300ms later, and the casting bar shows up.
Alternately, if there's a problem, then the realm says "No way, silly! David isn't finished casting Fireball yet! Wait a moment to try again, and cancel that global cooldown while you're at it!"
Either way, I can send my commands to the server whenever I want, as long as my global cooldown isn't currently active -- and if it gets activated too early, I just have to wait for the server to tell my computer to cancel it before casting another ability.
Sounds fine, right? Before, we had to wait for latency between our computers and the realms in order for any spell to go through, but now we just have to wait if we press a button too early.
Word's flying around about a Void Reaver exploit that involved mind-controlling a Tempest-Smith, and then blasting the heck out of him with the bomb ability. One guild, as seen above, has brought VR down within a minute-- apparently the ability has no cooldown, so VR can come down as fast as your mind-controlling Priest can click. However, Blizzard has said this is an exploit, and it is not recommended that you do this on the live realms. Blizzard will definitely be watching VR raids-- avoid the banhammer!
But still, a fix has got to be incoming as fast as possible. The question is: how? The most obvious answer is that they have to simply make the Tempest-Smiths not be mind-controllable, but I'm not sure how it works-- in order for the groups to go down right, most raids will sheep or trap these guys, so they do have to still be vulnerable to some kind of CC. The other option is to put the bomb on a cooldown, but even then, that kind of DPS will still help the raid against VR.
At any rate, Blizzard will think of something, and probably sooner than later. Interesting exploit, but an exploit just the same, and a definite no-no.
Super-power gamers probably know this one already, but for my part I know this is something I always struggle with. If I have an ability or item with a cooldown of more than one minute, I find myself always hesitating to actually use it; I keep wanting to save it for that emergency moment when I'm really going to need it. The problem is that those situations don't come once every minute, or even every 5 or 10 minutes. They come unexpectedly, and often that one cooldown you've been saving for that situation isn't really enough to save you.
So, as Matticus says, "Use them. Please." It makes a lot more sense to use the cooldowns on a regular basis (like, roughly every time the cooldown is up) than it does to hardly use them at all, or only in situations where it's too late. Now, if you're like me and you think about this for a while, and reluctantly agree that yes it does make sense, then you come up with another problem that you want to use these cooldowns only at moments when it'll be most effective. On my hunter, for example, I hate to use "Bestial Wrath" (and "Beast Within") unless I believe there's at least 18 seconds left in the fight, because I hate seeing myself and my pet all Big and Red with nothing to kill!
But the plain and simple fact is, people like me need to be less stingy with cooldowns. I don't mean we should blow them at moments that don't matter, of course, rather we would do better if we used them much more often, especially when they're not absolutely necessary to succeed. They can help the various sorts of grinding, farming, and trash-mob fighting go by a bit faster, and sometimes in long boss fights you can use them more than once!
Can you think of any cooldowns that you think should be saved for that somewhat rare panic-button moment (such as a rogue's "Vanish," perhaps)? Can you think of cooldowns that you see people often forgetting or hesitating to use?
Are they toying with the Escape Artist cooldown? I sure thought this thread, after reading the first post today, would get closed down but quick, but instead, after a player asked for Escape Artist to be removed from the game, Drysc offered the compromise of a cooldown.
Wait, what? Was he joking? Escape Artist, the Gnome racial ability that allowed them to ditch any roots once per minute, got a nice buff and was made instant cast at 2.0, but I hardly think it's overpowered enough that it deserves a cooldown. Drysc's comment seems a lot like a joke (and an MVP shows up later in the thread to "deny" the change), but could the ability be facing a nerf in the form of a longer cooldown?
Advocates for it point to Will of the Forsaken, another "break free" racial ability (it allows Forsaken to break fear once every two minutes, and if EA is nerfed, it would probably be given a two minute cooldown). But WotF also provides 5 seconds of fear immunity after being used, and EA doesn't provide any immunities at all.
Hopefully this is all a moot point, and Drysc was just messing with Gnomes (a hilarious pastime to be sure). But it could also mean that the little kneebiters are looking at an upcoming nerf.
This twinkalicious quest reward isn't exactly much loved, but it has its place.
Name: Everglow Lantern Type: Uncommon Offhand Damage/Speed: NA Abilities:
+3 Stamina
Use: Heal your target for 135 to 165. Unfortunately, there's a gigantic 30 minute cooldown on this one, so it's not extremely useful. But in certain situations it comes in handy, and while it's likely you'll ditch this one fairly quickly, for the level or two that you have this paired with a good one hand weapon, the extra healing helps in a pinch.
The thing looks pretty cool, too, as the glow spreads on your character, other characters, and in the surrounding area. Kind of fun to carry around at night with all the graphic options turned up, and RPers may even keep it around for those nighttime play sessions.
How to Get It: This is a quest reward, that's available to both factions via two different quests. For Alliance, you've got to do Supplies to Auberdine, an escort quest in Ashenvale, and Horde can do Weapons of Choice at Camp T in the Barrens. Horde can get their quest at level 17 (though the mobs are much higher level, around 23-25), and Alliance can get the quest at 19 (though it too will be hard for someone that low to complete. But with help it's more than possible, so if you really wanted to put this on a 19 WSG twink, you definitely could.
Truthfully, there are better items you could put on a twink, but speaking as a Mage who brings this thing into the lowbie battlegrounds, there's nothing like getting funny tells when people wonder how you heal yourself. I can only hope the other side wonders, too. Getting Rid of It: Oh right-- this is why I have this section. Because not all the phat loot you get is worth keeping. A vendor will give you 16s 32c for this, or it will DE into a Strange Dust, Lesser Astral Essence, or a Small Glimmering Shard.
And speaking of Phat Loot, have you left a comment on our Spectral Tiger Mount contest yet? The contest ends tonight at 7:00pm EST-- if you haven't, hurry over and get it done!
While a Rogue is my highest level alt (heading through Outland as we speak!), I have to admit that I hardly ever use the skill Blind. A 10-second disorient on a 3-minute cooldown (yes, I know the first patch 2.2 notes said it was going to be reduced to a 1-minute cooldown, but that change was reverted)? Perhaps I am a complete newbie of a Rogue, but 10 seconds hardly seems like enough time to accomplish anything, and so the skill sits, collecting dust on a rarely-hit hotkey. However, Doomilias points out that Blind really can be a useful crowd control -- and that ten seconds can make all the difference, both in solo and group play. 10 seconds can give you time to finish off a mob when you've gotten an add, it can give you time to get in some bandaging, in a group situation it can keep a hard-hitting mob off your healers for a few precious seconds. So, Rogues -- do you find Blind to be a useful form of crowd control?
In the 2.0.12 patch notes, there was a little surreptitious note that seemed pretty tame: "Using the customer support 'Auto-Unstuck' will now trigger the one-hour cooldown on the player's hearthstone." Whenever your character model gets stuck in the world, you can enter the help menu, and choose an "Auto-Unstuck" option that was placed there early in the game's life (so that GMs wouldn't have to come along every time a player got stuck to fix the issue).
What "Auto-Unstuck" actually does is (after a little tweaking to try and get you out close to where you are) port you back to your hearthstone city. I think I've used it once the whole time I've been playing the game. But apparently there was no cooldown on it at all, so what lots of players were doing is using it as a second hearthstone. I knew the possibility was there, but apparently I underestimated players' usage of it-- tons of people were "exploiting" the feature, and now lots of people, both here in America and in Europe, are angry that the hearthstone cooldown is tied to Auto-Unstuck.
If you ask me, it's nothing to get angry about-- the Auto-Unstuck, as Drysc says, is a support feature, and any constant use of it to cut down on travel time indeed "bordered on exploitative use." Players reply that a second hearthstone helped them save travel time (well of course it did), but Drysc says that the devs want the world to feel like a world-- though they've made steps (like Meeting Stones) to cut down on travel, they never wanted players to move around "without any thought to the distance they have to travel."
I gotta side with Blizzard on this one-- they gave you one hearthstone, and using Auto-Unstuck as a second one is against the rules. Some players say that the common cooldown means that if they get stuck twice in the same hour, they're screwed, but that's not necessarily true. A nice warlock could always summon you away, or you could do what one of my groups did to a guy who got stuck in Underbog-- we let him die and then rezzed him back out in the open.
Well, maybe. In response to a posted complaint about health and mana potions sharing a delay, Eyonix tells
us that the mechanics of consumable items are currently being
re-evaluated. According to this explanation, he goal seems to be to categorize items based on their effects
and then have cooldowns based on category. This is an interesting change which would have repercussions on both
PvP and PvE content - but we'll have to wait to see how these suggested changes show up in finalized form.
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Tharfor
Are they toying with the 
While a Rogue is my highest level alt (heading through Outland as we speak!), I have to admit that I hardly ever use the skill 
In 
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