Category Archives: wow-new-patch

Are those 4.0.1 spells shiny enough for you?

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Normally, WoW Insider brings me in to wax poetic (or at least punny) about elemental shaman -- but today, I had a grouch. I am dazzled by the new sparkles emitted by paladin friends, and I cheer on my mage friends as they try out Flame Orb and Ring of Frost. There is a gorgeous array of new spells on offer in patch 4.0.1 ... So why do I feel so underwhelmed by my new elemental rotation?

The dust of patch 4.0.1 is not settled and won't be for some time if Deathwing has anything to do with it, but now we start to see the shape of things to come. I've had a chance to settle into the new abilities. I've annoyed more than a few fishers with my Earthquake. I've gleefully retrained my fingers to become reactive, in order to enjoy the full benefits of Fulmination and Lava Surge. My guildmates tell me I am too happy about Totemic Wrath and Rolling Thunder. Good times, all in all. However, I am still a grumpy shaman. I am mostly happy with the new spells, but the effects feel like an afterthought.

Continue reading Are those 4.0.1 spells shiny enough for you?

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Are those 4.0.1 spells shiny enough for you? originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 14 Oct 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Kill Halion, take his stuff

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors is about warriors, who hurl themselves into the fray, the very teeth of danger armed with nothing more than the biggest weapons and armored with the absolutely heaviest armor we can find. Hey, we're not stupid, we're just crazy.

Never fear, we'll be doing more leveling posts and more report cards in the future. (I've been messing around with arms again lately on my night elf warrior -- having some fun with it, too.) But this week, we'll be talking about the Ruby Sanctum instance. The storyline of the Ruby Sanctum links Wrath of the Lich King's storylines with those of the upcoming Cataclysm, but the encounter mechanics and loot are still pretty solidly Wrath.

First we'll talk about the minibosses and Halion himself from both a DPS and a tanking perspective. Since much of that work has already been done by Michael Gray, we'll then go on to talk about loot. Then I'm gonna go eat something. I'd invite you, but by the time you read this I will have already eaten. The bane of the internet: I can't share my jalapeno-flavored chips with you. (Nor, to be honest, would I. They're mine. MINE!)

The first thing to talk about in Ruby Sanctum are the trash pulls. As a DPSer, you really just need to know what the kill order is and to stick to it, but I also suggest to be aware. Remember Ulduar on the way to General Vezax? Yeah, it's like that. There most likely will be CC, and it's a bad idea to Whirlwind/Bladestorm in the middle of it. So pay attention and use your abilities responsibly. As a tank, you should likewise watch your AoE threat moves and make sure only to break CC when you need to. Make sure to use Charge to get right back on the Charscale Invoker when it punts you, and in general, use your stuns and silences to keep the casters locked down as much as possible when tanking them. If you're tanking the Charscale Commanders, pull them out; don't let them use Rallying Shout. There's no reason to let a five-or-so-mob trash pull get a 25% DPS increase.

Once you get done with the trash, it's on to the mini-bosses.

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Kill Halion, take his stuff originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 09 Jul 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ruby Sanctum is open [Updated]

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Although several realms are still under extended maintenance in preparation for Cataclysm, Patch 3.3.5's Ruby Sanctum is currently open for business. Players can enter the instance at this time and kill the trash and minibosses, and Halion is able to be engaged. We've not yet received word on whether or not he's killable, or whether anyone has killed him. It's likely that this was unintentional.

We'll keep you posted, though. Now would probably be a good time to brush up on the dungeon's final boss with WoW.com's Guide to Halion!

Update 6:29 p.m. EDT: The opening of Ruby Sanctum might be a bug, but nonetheless, it's up and running. We have staff who are running it both on normal and heroic mode on the live servers. Blizzard is being coy about it, so who knows ... either way, the boss is up and can be engaged right now.

Update 6:39 p.m. EDT: Nethaera confirms that this isn't a bug: Ruby Sanctum is open, despite several battlegroups being down for another day.

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Ruby Sanctum is open [Updated] originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 29 Jun 2010 18:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ruby Sanctum is open [Updated]

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Although several realms are still under extended maintenance in preparation for Cataclysm, Patch 3.3.5's Ruby Sanctum is currently open for business. Players can enter the instance at this time and kill the trash and minibosses, and Halion is able to be engaged. We've not yet received word on whether or not he's killable, or whether anyone has killed him. It's likely that this was unintentional.

We'll keep you posted, though. Now would probably be a good time to brush up on the dungeon's final boss with WoW.com's Guide to Halion!

Update 6:29 p.m. EDT: The opening of Ruby Sanctum might be a bug, but nonetheless, it's up and running. We have staff who are running it both on normal and heroic mode on the live servers. Blizzard is being coy about it, so who knows ... either way, the boss is up and can be engaged right now.

Update 6:39 p.m. EDT: Nethaera confirms that this isn't a bug: Ruby Sanctum is open, despite several battlegroups being down for another day.

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Ruby Sanctum is open [Updated] originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 29 Jun 2010 18:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Wrath report card — protection

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors is about warriors, who hurl themselves into the fray, the very teeth of danger armed with nothing more than the biggest weapons and armored with the absolutely heaviest armor we can find. Hey, we're not stupid, we're just crazy.

With patch 3.3.5 upon us and the absolute last raid instance of Wrath of the Lich King set to go live in a week or two, we're finally at the end of the roller coaster of class design for this expansion. Whether you love your class (i.e., play a warrior) or hate it (play one of those other classes like mages -- that one's for you, Dom), it's fair to say that barring any last-minute surprise redesigns, what you see is what you're going to get until Cataclysm.

So where are warriors as a class right now? Since we're a tank/DPS hybrid with two roles and three specs (if you count PvE, anyway; if you include PvP, then we effectively have four roles and three trees to fill them), how well does the class do in each role, and how do our specs shape up? This week we'll discuss protection, the dedicated tanking tree for warriors.

At the beginning of Wrath of the Lich King, warrior tanking saw a pretty significant shake-up in terms of its talents and abilities. Tanking in general was redesigned to be more fun, and a new hero class that was a tank/DPS hybrid was introduced. All of this changed the playing field for warriors pretty significantly. Warrior tanks found that for the first time, protection was possibly the most viable leveling build.

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Wrath report card -- protection originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 25 Jun 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Patch 3.3.5′s Out of Storage error

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While some players are happily playing with the new features included in Patch 3.3.5, many others are unable to do so due to problems that cause the game to crash. Blizzard has noted this situation and is working diligently on a fix to this problem. In the meantime, a thread on the Technical Support forums addresses this issue and what players can do to make the game playable again. The issue appears to pop up as an Out of Storage error for players running World of Warcraft on a 64-bit OS. What can you do while waiting for a fix? Simple -- turn down your graphics settings. Blue poster Datth had the following suggestions to make:

Datth
Extremely low view distance settings (177 vs 1277) is more than enough to compensate for the extra memory being used in this patch by a few factors. A lot of people are able to get by with setting View Distance from max to about halfway using that alone. Using d3d9ex mode (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=21723843232&sid=1) can shave off another ~100-200MB from what it's currently doing right now too.

Blizzard hopes to have the game fully functional for all players at any level of graphics quality soon; however, there is no ETA currently on when this fix will occur. Keep an eye on the thread in the Technical Support forums, as they are sure to post more information as they learn more about the errors.

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Patch 3.3.5's Out of Storage error originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 24 Jun 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Patch 3.3.5: Servers coming online

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It looks like the long wait may be over, as US servers appear to be slowly coming back online from a lengthy extended maintenance. For now the list of servers up is small, and there's been no official confirmation from Blizzard as to whether or not the downtime is over -- however most servers that are up and live are experiencing queues in the thousands and are locked from further character creation at this time. We'll update this post when the servers are officially back up and running -- until then, why not check out the Tuesday Morning Post for reading material you may have missed?

Update #1: The official Warcraft Twitter just noted the following:
#WoWInfo - We are continuing the process of marking realms live. We will provide an update on our progress at approximately 7:00PM PDT.
Also, all servers that are currently live appear to be locked.

Update #2, 7:21PDT: The official Warcraft Twitter just noted the following:
#WoWInfo - We anticipate all remaining realms will be brought online within the next hour and appreciate your ongoing patience.

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Patch 3.3.5: Servers coming online originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 22 Jun 2010 20:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Patch 3.3.5 known issues

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Just released is the initial official list of patch 3.3.5 known issues... and it's a big one. Some of the major highlights:
  • Performing the /eat emote while dancing as a male Blood elf can cause some very unnatural character movement.
  • Pit of Saron - Scourgelord Tyrannus can remount Rimefang during the encounter.
  • The last remaining player in a random instance group can miss out on Random Dungeon loot.
  • Players from different servers can't trade dungeon items necessary to progress through the dungeon.
  • The Twilight Orbs periodically disappear during Phase 2 of the Halion encounter.
  • It is possible for a level 70 to receive the Wrathful Gladiator's Tabard.
  • You cannot get the "Call To Arms" Achievement through the Looking for Battleground feature.
  • Mage Summon Water Elemental does not fully function as a permanent pet when glyphed with Glyph of Eternal Water.
It appears that this includes some unfixed bugs that were present in previous patches, such as Tyrannus remounting Rimefang. There is no indication as to when these bugs will get fixed.

The complete list after the break.

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Patch 3.3.5 known issues originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 22 Jun 2010 17:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Blizzard releases Patch 3.3.5 Ruby Sanctum storyline

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While you're waiting for Patch 3.3.5 to hit the live servers, you can check out Blizzard's latest preview of the final raid instance in Wrath of the Lich King -- the Ruby Sanctum. European Community Manager Wryxian just dropped by the forums to link the Under Development page for Ruby Sanctum, which contains some new images and (perhaps most importantly, for some) the storyline behind the instance.
"Next to nothing is known about who might be responsible for the assault on the Ruby Sanctum: the black dragonflight is not known for forgiveness or patience, but its numbers in Northrend are surely limited. What force would be powerful or daring enough to assail the stronghold of these ancient wyrms? How could such an enemy sneak by the temple's guardians undetected? Surely an approaching air or ground force would have been caught by Wyrmrest Temple's defenders.

For the moment, the members of the accord and their allies must assume the worst scenario that they can conceive of: that all life within the Ruby Sanctum rests on the precipice of extinction, and only immediate intervention will prevent the red dragonflight from being decimated. They'll find that the truth is far worse."
I think some of us know the truth already! If you're raring to go for a trip into the Ruby Sanctum after reading this, prepare yourself by checking out our guide to Halion, the instance's grand poobah.

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Blizzard releases Patch 3.3.5 Ruby Sanctum storyline originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 22 Jun 2010 15:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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World of Warcraft patch 3.3.5 download mirror

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WoW.com and our sister site Big Download have teamed up to provide you with some lightening fast mirrors of patch 3.3.5. These patches are for the Mac and PC versions, and will only work with North American versions of WoW. The European and international versions of the patch are not out yet -- they're coming next week.
We'll update this post once we get the international versions in next week.

Comments on this post are disabled to protect your computer. We can only verify the integrity of files coming from our network.

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World of Warcraft patch 3.3.5 download mirror originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 22 Jun 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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