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The Queue: Clearly, the correct answer is Tommy, the green Ranger

WoW Insider — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky (@adamholisky) will be your host today.

Andy provided the correct answer for yesterday's Queue. And let me tell you, he's right.

Except the Pink Ranger. I had such a crush on her ...

Shrinknet asked:

What level does my fishing need to be in order to catch Cata-level fish, and can I reach it with bonus items?

Continue reading The Queue: Clearly, the correct answer is Tommy, the green Ranger

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The Queue: Clearly, the correct answer is Tommy, the green Ranger originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 03 Jan 2012 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Totem Talk: 2011 for restoration shaman

WoW Insider — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement and restoration shaman. Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration, brought to you by Joe Perez (otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and co-host of the For the Lore and Raid Warning podcasts), shows you how.

Hard to believe that another year has come and gone, isn't it? It seems like only yesterday we were waiting in line for the Cataclysm to drop. Now we're at the end of the expansion, complete with the last raid tier and a battle for the survival of Azeroth against the aspect of death himself. But the new year has come, and it's a perfect time to look back on a rather full year of activity while we eagerly await the release of Mists of Pandaria.

Tier 11: A slice of heaven

The release of Cataclysm was something that was eagerly anticipated by a rather large number of players -- new talent trees, new spells and abilities, and a ton of new content. After making our way through the various dungeons and heroics, we set foot into the first tier of raid content for the expansion only to find out that we were pretty awesome. Using our new tools and tricks, we were able to destroy and outclass a lot of fights. Heroic Chimaeron was a perfect example of a fight in which restoration shaman just destroyed the competition and were heroes of a higher healing caliber.

Tier 11 gave us a lot of opportunity to make use of our brand new mastery, Deep Healing, and not just use it but let it shine. Many of the boss fights had mechanics that would bring a large number of the raid members' health down to very low totals, allowing our Healing Rain and Earthliving Weapon proc to explode onto the scene. Magmaw, Chimaeron, and Halfus all had a ton of damage to heal through and really let us pour on the healing juice.

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Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk

Totem Talk: 2011 for restoration shaman originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 03 Jan 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Profiting off the Darkmoon Faire

WoW Insider — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:00:00 +0000

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Fox Van Allen and Basil "Euripides" Berntsen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Feed Fox's ego by emailing him, tweeting him at @foxvanallen, or sacrificing your first born to him.

Hey everyone, great news! The Darkmoon Faire is back in town! From now until Saturday, Jan. 7, you can play some games, eat some carnival food -- and oh yeah, make a ton of money off it.

Usually when new content is released, it's only the level 85 characters who can make money hand over fist. But the coolest thing about the Darkmoon Faire is that you don't need to be a level 85 character to participate or even profit off it. A level 20 character can have just as much fun at, get just as much benefit, and even make as much money as a level 85. It just takes the right amount of knowledge.

And, oh yeah, it also takes a Darkmoon Adventurer's Guide. You're carrying one of those on you at all times, right? Right? Well, according to Wowhead, most of you sub-level 85 players aren't. And that's a gigantic missed opportunity for a lot of money -- thousands upon thousands of gold. The kind of money that's just unheard of at lower levels.

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Filed under: Economy, Gold Capped

Profiting off the Darkmoon Faire originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 02 Jan 2012 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Spiritual Guidance: Priest healing the Madness of Deathwing and heroic Dragon Soul

WoW Insider — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 21:00:00 +0000

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers the healing side of things for discipline and holy priests. She also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast.

This is it -- the last priest healing boss guide of the expansion! (After this, it's pandas or bust, baby!) Are you excited? You should be, because the last boss fight of Cataclysm is ~~a loot piñata that's actually easier than the second to last fight~~ a lot of fun! Hopefully, you all remember the drill from last week ... You want to familiarize yourself with the mechanics of this fight before progressing further into this guide. LearnToRaid.com has a nice video guide for Madness of Deathwing, and Icy Veins has an excellent written guide.

Priests of either spec should know that cooldown management is the key to succeeding in this encounter as a priest. The encounter as a whole is not particularly difficult, but using your regen cooldowns at the right time will pave the way for you to hold onto just enough mana from start to finish. I recommend using your first Shadowfiend after the Mutated Corruption dies on the first platform, and your first Hymn of Hope just after jumping over to the second platform. Your second Shadowfiend should be used as soon as it becomes available, which will allow you to pair your third Shadowfiend and second Hymn of Hope together (just like we used to always do it in Wrath -- cast Shadowfiend, then immediately follow it up with Hymn of Hope). From there, use everything on cooldown, and you should be sitting pretty for mana the whole fight.

Continue reading Spiritual Guidance: Priest healing the Madness of Deathwing and heroic Dragon Soul

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Spiritual Guidance: Priest healing the Madness of Deathwing and heroic Dragon Soul originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 02 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Daily Quest: Year in review

WoW Insider — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 18:00:00 +0000

WoW Insider's on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative, and entertaining
WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.

My guild decided to end the year on a nail-biting, last-second defeat of our first heroic 25-man boss in Dragon Soul. When I look back over the past year, we've made decent progression that will likely continue into whatever is ahead of us in 2012.

Today, here are a few year-end roundup posts from around the blogosphere for your consideration heading into the new year.

The Bossy Pally and the Giant Spoon talks about resolutions, blogging, and some pretty awesome posts from 2011.
World of Matticus continues in the yearly tradition of reviews and picking out some of the best blog posts of the year before.
MMO Melting Pot has done a fantastic series of posts rounding up some of the best of the blogosphere, month by month. Start with January and follow along on a year full of amazing blogging!

Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we should be following? Just leave us a comment, and you may see it here tomorrow! Be sure to check out our WoW Resources Guide for more WoW-related sites.

Filed under: The Daily Quest

The Daily Quest: Year in review originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 02 Jan 2012 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Queue: Being a nothlit is cheating

WoW Insider — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

I can't explain why, but last night on Twitter I went on an Animorphs nostalgia trip and took most of my followers down Reminiscence Lane with me. Eventually the discussion devolved into a debate over which animorph was the best. I think we need to settle this in the most relevant place possible: a World of Warcraft blog.

Personally, I'm going with Rachel. If you choose anybody but Rachel, you're wrong and should feel bad about yourself.

View Poll

Necromann asked:

What level in first aid do I need to do the DMF monthly? Also, is it weird to 0 linen cloth on the AH?

Continue reading The Queue: Being a nothlit is cheating

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, The Queue

The Queue: Being a nothlit is cheating originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 02 Jan 2012 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Officers’ Quarters: When your guild won’t recruit

WoW Insider — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press.

While WoW continues to bleed subs, guild leaders and officers everywhere are having a tough time recruiting quality players. In this environment, guilds sometimes find themselves in a permanent state of open recruitment. This week, however, we're looking at the opposite problem: a guild that is permanently closed to new players. A concerned officer wants to know what he can do to change this mentality.

Hello Scott,

I hope you had a great holiday season. I am an officer in a small guild of around sixty people... Of the sixty members many are alts or inactive with only a handful of active people (around ten). I came to the guild looking for an escape from the sheer number of people I had to deal with in my last two guilds that had 400+ members.

For a while everything worked just fine, but in the last few weeks some members have began making requests for recruitment. With the small amount of active players being on at odd hours some new members feel a bit alone and put off and end up leaving. We have a strong desire to make a 10 man raid team but don't have enough geared/leveled/interested people. We are just short of the perfect storm needed to raid with our current members so recruitment seems to be the only answer. The issue is that while I may be all for it, the other active players have issues with recruitment.

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Officers' Quarters: When your guild won't recruit originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 02 Jan 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Remembering our first year of holy power

WoW Insider — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 01:00:00 +0000

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome.

As I looked forward to this year last December, I wasn't sure holy paladins were going to survive 2011 in one piece. We were just learning to adapt to the three-heal model and figuring out how to manage our holy power properly, and I had serious doubts about our AoE healing and mastery bonus. Luckily, I was wrong, and we have thrived in Cataclysm. We started by focusing on our specialty, powerful tank healing, and then expanded to take over the raid healing role as the year progressed.

While holy power and the new healing model were the big topics of early 2011, AoE healing has clearly been the topic that defined this era in holy paladin history. Holy Radiance's first beta version, Healing Hands, was loudly trumpeted when the Cataclysm NDA was lifted. Light of Dawn's struggle to find a place in our arsenal has caused more lines of paladin patch notes than any other ability. Learning to AoE heal has been our biggest challenge this year but also our greatest success.

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Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It

The Light and How to Swing It: Remembering our first year of holy power originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 01 Jan 2012 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Know Your Lore: Top 10 lore developments of 2011, part 1

WoW Insider — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 23:00:00 +0000

The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

Since Rossi is taking a look at the top lore reveals of Cataclysm, I decided to jump in hand-in-hand with that. A little over a year and a half ago, I addressed some of the storytelling methods of Wrath -- what worked, what didn't work. It wasn't a look at specific lore moments as much as a look at how Blizzard was handling lore as a whole. Compared to the early days of WoW, Wrath made some giant strides forward in how we as players interacted and mingled with the various storylines of the expansion.

Much like Wrath, Cataclysm observed all that had come before, took a good look at all of it, and promptly made some giant strides of its own. What we've gotten in the past year has been nothing short of astonishing in terms of creating a meld of gameplay and lore that draws the player in and keeps them there ... to a point. After all, nothing's perfect in this world, and there are always things that could be tweaked and improved upon. Let's take a look at the top 10 lore developments of 2011 -- not the story we've seen in the foreground, but all those wonderful mechanics behind it.

Continue reading Know Your Lore: Top 10 lore developments of 2011, part 1

Filed under: Lore, Know your Lore

Know Your Lore: Top 10 lore developments of 2011, part 1 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 01 Jan 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Shifting Perspectives: 2011 for feral druids

WoW Insider — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 21:00:00 +0000

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. Welcome to our feral cat edition, brought to you by Chase Hasbrouck, aka Alaron of The Fluid Druid blog. Let the face clawing begin!

Just like last year, this December brings both new beginnings and endings. A new raid, with new toys, but the end of an expansion, with likely no significant changes to mechanics until the release of Mists of Pandaria. As we sit around the fire with mugs of cider, enjoying (or loathing) our new sweaters, let's take a moment to look back at the events of 2011. Those of you who have already set them on fire, feel free to follow along from outside. (Bad cat! Bad cat!)

Patch 4.0 blues

Let's face it: Life was not so hot in early Cataclysm for us ferals. It's long enough ago that it's hard to remember, but our AoE damage was just pathetic. Swipe hit so weakly that our best AoE strategies revolved around multiDoTing, which was quite difficult and even then wasn't very powerful. Heroic Maloriak really brought this out; feral was consistently the lowest DPS spec, a good 10% below the next spec and almost 50% below our fellow balance druids. While most of the balance issues are typically ironed out quickly, this one persisted for quite a while.Thankfully, our single-target damage was passable, but only just.

Continue reading Shifting Perspectives: 2011 for feral druids

Filed under: Druid, (Druid) Shifting Perspectives

Shifting Perspectives: 2011 for feral druids originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 01 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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