Both Duncor and John "BigBearButt" Patricelli were on the podcast with me last Saturday, and despite my being a bit behind (Liberty City claimed most of my time last week), the show went really well.
We chatted a lot about the mounts of Warcraft, including why you can't ride most of the bug mounts outside of AQ.
And we answered lots of emails -- a few more jokes, a little advice, some good thoughts about Trinkets (and maybe putting an extra inventory slot in there), player housing, and lots of making fun of Duncor for quitting the game.
And we figured out the real pronunciation of melee -- here it is.
Definitely give it a listen -- there's a lot of good stuff in there. As usual, the show is available over on WoW Radio, or in iTunes if you'd rather get it that way.
And here's a special announcement: This coming week on the WoW Insider Show (which will be live on WoW Radio at 3:30pm EST on May 10th), we'll have a special Mother's Day edition of the podcast. Not only will we have Robin Torres (who is herself a mother) on with Turpster and I, but both Amanda Dean and her mother will be live on the show as well. Moms and WoW -- next week on the WoW Insider Show.
A little earlier, Eliah mentioned the world first M'uru kill by SK-Gaming. What caught my eye was a particular item that dropped off of the poor Naaru: The Shifting Naaru Sliver. This item doesn't yet appear on Wowhead or Wowdb quite yet, but the spell effect that accompanies it is.
It caught my attention because it made me think a little about future itemization. Most of the trinkets in Magisters' Terrace and the Sunwell Plateau have little effects that basically do the same things as other items, but they're done in slightly more interesting ways. There are a few that are almost entirely unique of course, but overall, they're just new ways to do old things. Personally, I adore it and can't wait to see Wrath trinkets and rings.
The Shifting Naaru Sliver in particular caught my attention, because the way it's phrased is so different from other On Use trinkets. It implies that only the caster of the buff gets that buff, so overall, it's the same as something like the Icon of the Silver Crescent. The spell is pretty unique though, so it might be an indication of more widespread applications of this sort of thing later. Being able to flesh out your spell/buff repertoire via a necklace or a ring would be pretty interesting! I suppose LeatherworkingDrums do something similar, but this excites me a little more for some reason. Perhaps in Wrath raiding, we'll see people gearing up to complement their party's damage as well as their own moreso than we see currently, thanks to item buffs like these. We'll just have to wait and see.
As Eliah reported in the undocumented changes post yesterday, MMO Champ has done a little searching through the PTR files, and come up with some interesting changes to mount speed items. According to the code found yesterday, Blizzard was trying to change items like Carrot on a Stick and the Riding Crop to mount enchants (like the Shoulder or Head enchants available from many places for rep) so that they simply enchanted a mount with a faster speed rather than taking up a trinket slot. Sounds like a great way to cut down on trinket space, right?
Not so fast -- (ha! get it? "fast"?) as Dariusmdev points out, this would actually mean that you'd have to buy even more Riding Crops, probably even throwing up the price on the servers. Because instead of getting one mount trinket and using it for all your mounts, you'd have to get one enchant per mount that you have. Good news for Leatherworkers if the change goes through, not so good for people who like to use a lot of mounts.
Which may be why Blizzard may have decided against the change at all -- according to Eliah, this change isn't actually implemented on the PTRs yet. So mount enchants are only in the code for now, and not actually available in the game. But it does show that the folks at Blizzard are actively trying to come with ways to help us handle trinket management, and that's definitely appreciated.
Before 2.4.2 is even up on PTRs, MMO-Champion and World of Raids have undocumented changes listed on their sites. That's dedication! Of course, given that none of this can be verified, you should take it with a grain of salt, but most of the time changes found in the game files end up going live. Here's what's been noticed so far:
Most mount-speed-increasing trinkets (Carrot on a Stick,Skybreaker Whip, Riding Crop) have been changed to enchantments, which can be permanently applied to a single mount in your inventory and cause it to become soulbound. Furthermore, Charm of Swift Flight (which will stay a trinket) now also reduces the mana cost of Flight Form and Swift Flight Form by 115 mana, and Carrot on a Stick is now craftable (1x Simple Wood, 1x Fine Thread, 1x Golden Sansam). I imagine it would be an engineering recipe.
This seems like a good change for the most part, since we won't have to use add-ons to swap in our riding speed trinket all the time (and we'll save an inventory space). However, it does have the major drawback that you'll need to get a new one for each of your mounts, which could get expensive if you're a mount collector. More business for the leatherworkers, I suppose.
Continuing on the mount theme, a sort of horned Swift Zebra mount appears to have been added to the game, as well as a Headless Horseman's Mount (both pictured).
Aspect of the Viper has been buffed. Previously, it generated mana equal to up to 55% of the hunter's Intellect every five seconds; now, it generates up to 55% of the hunter's Int plus 35% of his or her level. This means a boost of up to 24.5 mp5 at level 70.
There are also some changes to various items and recipes; check MMO-Champion for those. What do you think of this mount trinket change? Oh, and if you haven't seen the official patch notes yet, check Adam's post from early this morning.
Update: I just signed on to the PTR, and was unable to verify the change to Riding Crop. So this might well not end up happening after all.
The Darkmoon Faire is in town, and it's on time this month! This time around you'll find it in Mulgore, just outside of Thunder Bluff. For future visits to the Darkmoon Faire, you can always check the official Events Calendar to find out when and where!
If today will be your first time at the Faire, Daniel Whitcomb has a few neat little guides of you to take a look at, right here on WoW Insider. First, we have a guide for those interested the Faire's ticket system(why you would be, I do not know), and another about the very cool trinkets you can get via the Darkmoon Decks.
The real awesome part about the Faire, though? The Iced Berry Slush. I'm serious! Go try one! Go go go!
The release of patch 2.4 was epic by anyone's standards. New content accessible to every level 70, new items, new high end raids, and a new instance. Magisters' Terrace is the newest addition to the WoW 5 man instance family, and has a lot of great goodies in it for the intrepid traveler.
Heroic mode Magisters' Terrace can be a thing of beauty or a real pain. I find that while it's challenging and requires a lot of good social communication amongst participants, it can be a bit ridiculous at times. Especially the 9 mob pull right before you face Kael'Thas.
However with that said, one of the best rewards in any five man instance comes out of heroic Magisters' Terrace's Priestess Delrissa: the trinkets. The tanking trinket in particular makes me cry it's so great. Five hundred seventy more HP and an amazing live saving dodge increase. The DPS trinkets, casting trinkets, and healing trinkets are equally great. Let's take a closer look at them.
Mats for the new Alchemist Stones have been reduced. Old mats were Alchemist Stone, 2 Nether Vortices, and 16 primals; new mats are reduced by 10 primals, i.e. Alchemist Stone, 2 Nether Vortices, and 6 primals. Which primal is required varies based on the stone in question: Assassin's = Shadow, Guardian's = Air, Sorcerer's = Fire, Redeemer's = Life.
The Philosopher's Stone is now a trinket requiring level 35, and gives +5 to all stats.
Jewelcrafters can get patterns for four new epic gem cuts (Reckless Pyrestone, Steady Seaspray Emerald, Quick Lionseye, Forceful Seaspray Emerald) both from the Shattered Sun Offensive at Revered and from the Scale of Sands (the Mount Hyjal faction) at Honored.
The models have been changed for Vanir's Right Fist of Brutality, Crossbow of Relentless Strikes (pictured), Vanir's Left Fist of Brutality, Vanir's Left Fist of Savagery, Gavel of Naaru Blessings, Grand Magister's Staff of Torrents, Vengeful Gladiator's Pummeler, and Vengeful Gladiator's Bonecracker; see MMO-Champion for screenshots.
It looks like the new Philosopher's Stone is a cool little trinket; I don't remember there being much competition for that slot that early in the game. It's an interesting move to make those cuts available from two factions, and should appease the hardcore types who, presumably, are at least Honored with Scale of Sands by now. Looking at the Primal requirements for the Alchemist Stones, most of those are easy primals, but Air is significantly more expensive. Rogues get it easy. And all those new models look groovy; a good set of changes overall.
Tipster Aikiwoce points out something intriguing on the PTR for alchemists and jewelcrafters. We've already said some things about Razorthorn Rise and the the new daily quest from the unlocking of the Harbor Phase of the Sunwell dailies that sends you there, but here's a bit more information for you. It is given by an NPC named Mar'nah, an alchemist who needs the roots from the quest to "get started" on her efforts to assist the offensive. Another NPC standing next to her, a Draenei named Shaani who is marked as a jewelcrafting supplier but currently has nothing to sell, says that she believes that once Mar'nah's laboratory is complete, they "will be able create gems that were thought to be lost to time."
What exactly could this mean? Let's talk about it after the break.
Five epic trinket jewelcrafting recipes have been added, all with passive benefits and on use effects. See this MMO-Champion screenshot for materials.
Crimson Serpent: +33 Int, + 49 Stam, use: +150 damage/healing for 20 sec (2 min cooldown)
Empyrean Tortoise: +42 def rating, use: +165 dodge rating for 20 sec (2 min cooldown)
Shadowsong Panther: effective stealth level increased by one, +80 attack power, use: +320 attack power for 15 sec (2 min cooldown)
Khorium Boar: +84 attack power, use: summon the Khorium Boar to fight for you for 30 sec (5 min cooldown)
Seaspray Albatross: +18 mp5, use: restores 900 mana over 12 sec (3 min cooldown)
New gem cut: Regal Nightseye, +4 dodge rating, +6 stam, matches red or blue
Warlocks' Drain Mana buffed by 50%; top rank now drains 300 mana per second (was 200). But remember that resilience now affects mana drain, to the tune of -20% at 400 resil.
Paladins' Holy Shock damage buffed by about 35%, healing buffed by about 75%. Top rank now deals 721-779 damage or heals for 931-987 (was 530-574 damage or 530-574 healing).
That's a lot of changes. And now that I look at those numbers, those are big shifts for Drain Mana and Holy Shock. Is anyone now reconsidering those spells? Do you think those buffs will last through testing?
As I've mentioned before, The Darkmoon Faire is currently in Terrokar Forest, just outside Shattrath City, so if you have decks to turn in or need to refill your private stock of Darkmoon Special Reserve, now's the time to get on it. But if you're still a little bit taken aback by the prospect of gathering all those cards, or wondering if the trinket at the end will really be worth it, we'd like to help you out.
In this post, we'll be looking at both the old and new decks and listing some pros and cons of each deck so you can figure out if you want to spend the next month tracking down cards before the Faire shows up in Elwynn Forest in March, or even if you just want to blow your epic flying mount fund on getting a deck before it leaves for the month.
In a world of dice rolls and random number generators, its not too strange to get a little superstitious. Like we've touched on before, every raid has their own dark rituals they perform before or during a raid, whether that be rolling dice to predict success or sacrificing their enhancement shaman to the loot gods. But what about the players?
Personally, when my raid hits a roadblock against some boss, I equip my good luck charm. I've used it in all of our "big" firsts: Lady Vashj, Kael'thas, and Archimonde have all fallen to the might of the Shard of the Fallen Star. I'm sure my raidmates are tired of seeing that thing in the middle of an epic battle, but it works, so don't knock it! Besides, a giant meteor falling out of the sky and hitting Archimonde is totally awesome.
I've seen mages equipping their fishing hats for specific bosses and warlocks summoning their favorite demon, no matter how useless it is, when they're in need of a little good luck. What about you guys? Do you do anything special to shed the bad mojo?
The Care and Feeding of Warriors is the column for warriors. It has warrior in the name, even, it's baked right in warrior goodness. Actually, now that I think of it, how good would it be to bake warriors right in? I probably should have used an entirely different saying there. Matthew Rossi has been leveling two new warriors over the week (when he had internet at all, that is) and can feel your burning eyes upon him, judging, always judging..
Yes, for those of you who always find it hard to believe, I'm actually working on two lower level warriors at the moment, in addition to trying to get my NE, my human and my tauren properly geared up for their various chosen roles I'm bringing a draenei warrior up (he's through the Dark Portal and newly 60 as of today) and working on my first undead character, a level 20 warrior. Part of the reason I'm doing it is to make sure that things I tell you about lower level warriors still hold true at the moment, but that's not the real reason. The real reason is that, eventually, I want to have a level 70 warrior of every race that allows one.
I have toons of other classes, obviously...two 70 shamans, for example, with a third shaman being worked on, various paladins in the high 40's or low 50's, a hunter I really enjoy sitting in the inn soaking up rested state at the moment... but my obsession with this class predates the actual existence of World of Warcraft and I won't pretend that it's not a little weird. Whether you're standing up in front of a big monster and keeping its butt turned towards the raid so that they might fill it full of arrows, ice shards, and stabbings (I'm not even going to speculate as to what warlocks are doing to it) or pulling out the big two hander or second weapon and wreaking unholy havoc upon unsuspecting gold-stuffed piñatas, I enjoy the warrior so much I actually enjoy leveling them over and over again.
Heck, I even picked up the Boots of Valor for my draenei today even knowing he's never going to wear them, he aleady has better green boots from Outland. But I eventually want to get him the entire Valor set.
With Minor Allusion to Related Sciences or "Now You're Really Clucked!"
The Gnomish Poultryizer, among the more technically advanced devices produced by the Mechanical Engineering Guild, Associated, which we shall hereafter refer to as M.E.G.A., is a device of some controversy among Engineers Gnomish and Goblin alike.In this lecture we shall examine the Poultryizer and discuss its flaws and its merits, and how one might indeed become the other.
The creation of a Gnomish Poultryizer requires a pair of Hardened Adamantite Tubes, two Khorium Power Cores, ten Arcane Dust, and two Large Prismatic Shards.Breaking this down further, we see that the pair of tubes will require a total of six hardened adamantite bars, themselves requiring ten adamantite bars per, for a total of sixty adamantite bars for the tubes.The Khorium Power Cores will require a total of six bars of khorium and two Primal Fire.As for the Dust and Shards, none of you present here need be instructed on obtaining such.The device, once produced, is worn as a trinket, and when used will require a cooling down period of five minutes before it can be used again.
Even though I haven't raided on my rogue for about two months, I'm still pretty happy when I look at her gear. 4/5 T4, the Chestguard of the Conniver, the awesome offhand dagger from heroic Ramparts that I obtained after my guild found it in the chest, held the chest open, and summoned me in -- *Monty Burns voice* why, this is less a rogue than a god. (Disclaimer: My rogue is not actually a god, and yours is probably better geared and also prettier.)
But there are two blues disrupting my sea of adequate purples -- I have yet to replace either of my trinkets. And when I talk to other rogues, many of them have the same problem. The truly good epic trinkets for rogues are hard to find or have many competing rogues after them, and many of the other trinkets are just ... meh. So to help out my fellow rogues, I'm posting a guide to some of the best max-level trinkets (as rated by their power and their ease of attainability.)
Rikora over on the official forums posted about some hopes she has for what engineers will be able to do in the next expansion, such as building siege weapons and other such machinery. You've probably already heard that engineers will be able to craft flying mounts, but other than that we haven't heard so much.
Other posters got pretty creative too, though. There were suggestions of more goggles, more pets, more fun trinkets of course, but one suggested that we make remote controlled planes that can shoot each other down. Another person suggested that there be little remote controlled machines that could sneak past enemies and scout about or throw an optional switch in an instance.
The obvious thing that somehow didn't happen with the Burning Crusade, is just to provide upgraded versions of existing trinkets that actually help as much as the old trinkets did, a Gnomish Battle Piglet, perhaps, or a Goblin Gnome Launcher. One poster to the forum thread said Engineering should be a bit on the overpowered side, and I agree wholeheartedly, especially since many of its items can't be used in Arenas.
To my mind, it should almost be like a secondary class unto itself, with lots of different abilities, from crowd control to healing -- nothing as powerful as a native class ability of course, but something to make engineers feel really glad for choosing their profession and putting lots of work into it.
Both Duncor and John "BigBearButt" Patricelli were on the podcast with me last Saturday, and despite my being a bit behind (Liberty City claimed most of my time last week), the show went really well.
A little earlier, 
As Eliah reported in 
The release of 
In a world of dice rolls and random number generators, its not too strange to get a little superstitious. Like we've touched on 
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