Category Archives: world-of-warcraft

Raid Rx: Healing the Spine and Madness of Deathwing

Posted on by
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poohbah of World of Matticus and a founder of Plus Heal, a discussion community for healers of all experience levels and interests. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading, the Matticast.

This is it. This is the final encounter of the expansion. Everything you've ever worked for and fought through has led to this point. This is the moment you get to help rid the world of Deathwing. First, we need to ground this oversized lizard. Immediately after the conclusion of the gunship (part two), you'll be parachuting onto Deathwing's back. We'll go over the different obstacles and what you and your healers need to do to get over the proverbial raid hump. (To the raiders who do 10-mans, you'll have to adjust the numbers a bit. I'm not as well versed on 10s, so you'll have to bear with me as I draw up assistance for the 25-man version.)

To attack the Spine of Deathwing, we need to peel off those metal plates on Deathwing's back so that we can really weaken him further. Our healing goal here is to ensure that our tanks live. Apparently, Deathwing has all sorts of little defenses that he'll use to try to shake us off; there are several threats on this fight that healers need to be aware of. You're on an extremely narrow field of battle here, so movement's going to be really limited.

What did you expect, though? You're fighting on the back of a former dragon aspect.

Continue reading Raid Rx: Healing the Spine and Madness of Deathwing

Filed under:

Raid Rx: Healing the Spine and Madness of Deathwing originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 23 Dec 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Are common quality items rare to find?

Posted on by
Common may not be quite so common anymore. While working on an article about a legendary quest chain, I recalled the days of class quests -- specifically, the days of Molten Core and The Eye of Divinity, along with the Ancient Petrified Leaf that started the class quests for epic weapons. Epic anything was rare to see in the early days of vanilla, and even when Molten Core first came out, it was rare to see people decked out in purple gear. But these days, it seems everyone is wearing epics, as it's dropping from dungeons with alarming frequency.

When you look at gear labels, each color of gear is assigned a different label. Common quality items are white, uncommon are green, rare are blue, and purple of course are epic. But as the game has evolved over time, each expansion offered more raids and more epic gear, which led me to the question -- just how common is common gear? How rare is rare? Is uncommon gear really that uncommon? I hit Wowhead just for a quick look at these items to compare numbers, and the results were actually pretty surprising.

Continue reading Are common quality items rare to find?

Filed under:

Are common quality items rare to find? originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 14 Dec 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Parks and Rec’s Aubrey Plaza stars in latest WoW commercial

Posted on by
Aubrey Plaza has made a name for herself in NBC's Parks and Recreation as the hilariously deadpan snarker April Ludgate. She channels that character in the latest Warcraft commercial recently posted by Blizzard, in which she tells the story of how her boyfriend disappointed her on her birthday with the gift of WoW.

I swear that is the truth, I actually twittered a few days ago that I'd love Amy Poehler to do a commercial spot for World of Warcraft. It looks like they got the next best thing -- one of her awesome coworkers. I just hope this commercial isn't Parks and Rec canon though, because April and Andy are the cutest couple.

Filed under:

Parks and Rec's Aubrey Plaza stars in latest WoW commercial originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 24 Nov 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Parks and Rec’s Aubrey Plaza stars in latest WoW Commercial

Posted on by
Aubrey Plaza has made a name for herself in NBC's Parks and Recreation as the hilariously deadpan snarker April Ludgate. She channels that character in the latest Warcraft commercial, recently posted by Blizzard, in which she tells the story of how her boyfriend disappointed her on her birthday with the gift of WoW.

I swear that is the truth, I actually twittered a few days ago that I'd love Amy Poehler to do a commercial spot for World of Warcraft. It looks like they got the next best thing -- one of her awesome coworkers. I just hope this commercial isn't Parks and Rec canon though, because April and Andy are the cutest couple.

Filed under:

Parks and Rec's Aubrey Plaza stars in latest WoW Commercial originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 24 Nov 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Parks and Rec’s Aubrey Plaza stars in latest WoW Commercial

Posted on by
Aubrey Plaza has made a name for herself in NBC's Parks and Recreation as the hilariously deadpan snarker April Ludgate. She channels that character in the latest Warcraft commercial, recently posted by Blizzard, in which she tells the story of how her boyfriend disappointed her on her birthday with the gift of WoW.

I swear that is the truth, I actually twittered a few days ago that I'd love Amy Poehler to do a commercial spot for World of Warcraft. It looks like they got the next best thing -- one of her awesome coworkers. I just hope this commercial isn't Parks and Rec canon though, because April and Andy are the cutest couple.

Filed under:

Parks and Rec's Aubrey Plaza stars in latest WoW Commercial originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 24 Nov 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Blood Sport: How will patch 4.3 impact PvP?

Posted on by
WoW Insider covers the world of player vs. player action in Blood Sport for fans of battleground, world PvP and Arena play. Steering you to victory is Olivia Grace, who spends most of her time in Azeroth as a restoration shaman turning people into frogs.

With patch 4.3 imminent and Arena season 10 due to end Nov. 29, it seems reasonable to assume the patch will appear in early December. While you're racing to get your team into title range, get that last piece of gear, or just running laps of your capital city, you might be thinking forward to the arrival of the patch and wondering what your fate will be in PvP as the nerf bat winds up for another swing. Firstly, let's deal with some housekeeping.

Conquest points, the PvP equivalent of valor points, will now be far, far easier to earn from ordinary Battlegrounds. The first daily Battleground win will now award 100 conquest points, up from 25, and wins after that will award 50 conquest point, up from, well, none! The conquest cap will remain, so while it will still be far quicker to reach it through Arena, it will also be attainable via Battlegrounds of the non-rated variety. This makes it far easier for solo players to build up the resilience numbers people often demand (fairly or otherwise) for access to Arena and Rated Battleground teams or just to gear for Battlegrounds.

Continue reading Blood Sport: How will patch 4.3 impact PvP?

Filed under: ,

Blood Sport: How will patch 4.3 impact PvP? originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 23 Nov 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

5 reasons you should love Cataclysm

Posted on by
Oh, Cataclysm. You've gotten such a bad rap. Despite popular opinion, what we got from the Cataclysm expansion was nothing short of a miracle -- one that was desperately needed after the prior two expansions' worth of content. But it's undeniably difficult to look at the current expansion with anything other than an overly critical eye, considering the fact that we're playing through all that content right now.

In hindsight, it's likely the current expansion will grow on us, and some time in the distant future we'll be looking back on it with rose-colored glasses just like we do the others before it. Don't get me wrong -- while classic, The Burning Crusade, and Wrath all had absolutely fantastic reasons to love them, things didn't seem so rosy and wonderful when we were all playing through that content, and there was just as much grumbling in each of those expansions as there is about Cataclysm now. But hey -- there's still plenty of reasons to love Cataclysm.

Continue reading 5 reasons you should love Cataclysm

Filed under:

5 reasons you should love Cataclysm originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 21 Nov 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

5 reasons you should love Cataclysm

Posted on by
Oh, Cataclysm. You've gotten such a bad rap. Despite popular opinion, what we got from the Cataclysm expansion was nothing short of a miracle -- one that was desperately needed after the prior two expansions' worth of content. But it's undeniably difficult to look at the current expansion with anything other than an overly critical eye, considering the fact that we're playing through all that content right now.

In hindsight, it's likely the current expansion will grow on us, and some time in the distant future we'll be looking back on it with rose-colored glasses just like we do the others before it. Don't get me wrong -- while classic, The Burning Crusade, and Wrath all had absolutely fantastic reasons to love them, things didn't seem so rosy and wonderful when we were all playing through that content, and there was just as much grumbling in each of those expansions as there is about Cataclysm now. But hey -- there's still plenty of reasons to love Cataclysm.

Continue reading 5 reasons you should love Cataclysm

Filed under:

5 reasons you should love Cataclysm originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 21 Nov 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

World of Warcraft profits on the rise in China

Posted on by
Sister site Massively reported earlier today that World of Warcraft isn't just doing fine in China, it's doing extremely well. According to Gamasutra, the Chinese WoW operator NetEase just posted its Q3 revenue for the year, and the profits are doing nothing but rising. This is a little surprising given the information from the Activision Blizzard investor call earlier this month, which reported a loss of subscribers, mainly in the east.

Regardless, NetEase posted revenues of 2.0 billion Chinese yuan, up 39.8% -- a substantial number. In China, it seems that World of Warcraft is still a force to be reckoned with, dropping subscriber numbers or not.

Filed under: ,

World of Warcraft profits on the rise in China originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 17 Nov 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

New WoW ad airing during Sunday football

Posted on by
The official Warcraft Twitter account has teased a new World of Warcraft advertisement that will be airing during the Bears vs. Chargers game on Sunday. While we do not know the content of the advertisement yet, we know that it will potentially involve a foot, a hunter, someone's face, and a new Warcraft master. In the past, WoW commercials have featured celebrities attesting to their in-game personas, spelling out the awesomeness of their abilities. Who will be the newest WoW spokesperson?

Not to be disrespectful to our European audiences, I've translated the post above for you below:
Europeans, you'll be able to watch a new WoW commercial that aired during an American Gridiron game on YouTube this Sunday.
We'll have a video of the commercial as soon as it is available.
Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!

Filed under:

New WoW ad airing during Sunday football originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 16 Nov 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments