Tag Archives: BlizzCon

The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Class and specialization abilities in Mists of Pandaria

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Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host.

Continuing the discussion from a month ago, we look again at the three specializations for warriors in Mists of Pandaria. We can do this because Blizzard itself has released the talent calculator for the expansion, and it has loads of information for us to go over. The calculator lists class abilities and specialization only abilities in addition to talents, which means we now have more details to examine in terms of what's coming.

One thing I noted immediately was that yes, arms is going to be the only tree with Colossus Smash. It will be an ability gained at level 81, and the redesigned CS also applies the current Blood Frenzy debuff rather than its being applied via bleeds. Since this is what we expected would happen with arms in Mists back when we talked about it in October, I think it's OK if we pat ourselves on the back here, fellow warriors. We saw this coming.

Since we have three specs to talk about, let's get started. There's a lot of ground to cover in Pandaria's new talent scheme.

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Class and specialization abilities in Mists of Pandaria originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 26 Nov 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Class and specialization abilities in Mists of Pandaria

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Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host.

Continuing the discussion from a month ago, we look again at the three specializations for warriors in Mists of Pandaria. We can do this because Blizzard itself has released the talent calculator for the expansion, and it has loads of information for us to go over. The calculator lists class abilities and specialization only abilities in addition to talents, which means we now have more details to examine in terms of what's coming.

One thing I noted immediately was that yes, arms is going to be the only tree with Colossus Smash. It will be an ability gained at level 81, and the redesigned CS also applies the current Blood Frenzy debuff rather than its being applied via bleeds. Since this is what we expected would happen with arms in Mists back when we talked about it in October, I think it's OK if we pat ourselves on the back here, fellow warriors. We saw this coming.

Since we have three specs to talk about, let's get started. There's a lot of ground to cover in Pandaria's new talent scheme.

Continue reading The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Class and specialization abilities in Mists of Pandaria

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The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Class and specialization abilities in Mists of Pandaria originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 26 Nov 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Is it time to kill the global cooldown?

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OK, so I was playing some Diablo III beta last night. Since this is a site that covers World of Warcraft, I'll just say that the little snippet I managed to play through before passing out was such that I could describe it in superlatives. But one of the things I noticed when playing was that the barbarian class plays absolutely perfectly to me. There are attacks that gain you the resource (fury) that you then spend on larger, more punishing attacks. You can spam those fury-gathering attacks; there's nothing limiting you from making them. You could hammer the keyboard all night if you wanted to. And it felt good.

This is when I realized that I hate the global cooldown. I guess it's double kudos to Blizzard that it got me to accept the global cooldown for seven years and then got me to despise it with another of its own games. Looking over the list of class abilities not affected by it, I find myself starting to wonder if it even serves a purpose anymore. Or is it just a holdover from the game's original design?

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Is it time to kill the global cooldown? originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 15 Nov 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Is it time to kill the global cooldown?

Posted on by
OK, so I was playing some Diablo III beta last night. Since this is a site that covers World of Warcraft, I'll just say that the little snippet I managed to play through before passing out was such that I could describe it in superlatives. But one of the things I noticed when playing was that the barbarian class plays absolutely perfectly to me. There are attacks that gain you the resource (fury) that you then spend on larger, more punishing attacks. You can spam those fury-gathering attacks; there's nothing limiting you from making them. You could hammer the keyboard all night if you wanted to. And it felt good.

This is when I realized that I hate the global cooldown. I guess it's double kudos to Blizzard that it got me to accept the global cooldown for seven years and then got me to despise it with another of its own games. Looking over the list of class abilities not affected by it, I find myself starting to wonder if it even serves a purpose anymore. Or is it just a holdover from the game's original design?

Continue reading Is it time to kill the global cooldown?

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Is it time to kill the global cooldown? originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 15 Nov 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lichborne: BlizzCon cause and effect for death knights in patch 4.3

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darkmoon arena
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done.

So the past few weeks have actually been pretty exciting for death knights. We saw a lot of new info come out of BlizzCon, including getting a couple long-standing questions answered with new updates to the patch 4.3 PTR. Today, we'll cover the basics of what we discussed with the devs at BlizzCon and see what fruit those discussions have borne on the PTR itself.

Bloody questions

One of the first questions asked at the Class Q&A on BlizzCon 2011 day two was more of a laundry list of blood death knight grievances, such as our issues with spike damage and with avoidance working against mastery. While we have gotten a good bit of dev love on the forums on these beefs, it was actually pretty nice to see it answered candidly on stage, if only to see a dev give an on-the-spot, straight-up answer.

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Lichborne: BlizzCon cause and effect for death knights in patch 4.3 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 08 Nov 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lichborne: BlizzCon cause and effect for death knights in patch 4.3

Posted on by
darkmoon arena
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done.

So the past few weeks have actually been pretty exciting for death knights. We saw a lot of new info come out of BlizzCon, including getting a couple long-standing questions answered with new updates to the patch 4.3 PTR. Today, we'll cover the basics of what we discussed with the devs at BlizzCon and see what fruit those discussions have borne on the PTR itself.

Bloody questions

One of the first questions asked at the Class Q&A on BlizzCon 2011 day two was more of a laundry list of blood death knight grievances, such as our issues with spike damage and with avoidance working against mastery. While we have gotten a good bit of dev love on the forums on these beefs, it was actually pretty nice to see it answered candidly on stage, if only to see a dev give an on-the-spot, straight-up answer.

Continue reading Lichborne: BlizzCon cause and effect for death knights in patch 4.3

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Lichborne: BlizzCon cause and effect for death knights in patch 4.3 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 08 Nov 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Win a Mega Bloks Thrall figure from WoW Insider

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Visitors to BlizzCon 2011 got an exclusive lil' Thrall figure courtesy of Mega Bloks, and if you didn't make it to the con, then you might not ever get this particular mini-World-Shaman -- that is, of course, unless you get one from WoW Insider! We happen to have five Thrall figures to give away to lucky readers. For a chance to win, all you have to do is comment on this post by Friday, Nov. 11 at 11:59 p.m. PST.

There are a few rules, of course! You can only enter once, and make sure you have a valid email address attached to your profile, since that's how we'll get hold of you if you win. Only legal residents of the 50 United States and Canada (excluding Quebec) can enter, and you have to be 18 years of age or older. See the complete official rules for details.

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Win a Mega Bloks Thrall figure from WoW Insider originally appeared on WoW Insider on Tue, 08 Nov 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gold Capped: What we didn’t learn at BlizzCon

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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 by making him a festive fall cookie platter.

Honest, guys, I tried my best. I was there at BlizzCon 2011. I got up and in line at the Q&A panels, determined to ask the Blizzard development team questions about the game's economy.

Ultimately, I was foiled by a bunch of dudes who wasted our time offering shout-outs to their guild (and by my own poor planning of not getting in line two hours before the panel started). But I digress. The fact of the matter is that there's a lot of stuff wrong with the World of Warcraft economy and Auction House. Issues that need to be addressed in the next expansion to promote a fair and level playing field, something WoW has lacked ... well, something the game has lacked for years.

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Gold Capped: What we didn't learn at BlizzCon originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 04 Nov 2011 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Post-BlizzCon 2011 Store sale starts Nov. 11

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BlizzCon 2011 ... remember that?

It was that time when Fogs of Black and White Bears was announced, or something like that. There was also this meetup where a bunch of people got together and drank and hung out while talking about WoW at the Anabella. That was cool.

What is also cool (in the way of cold, hard retail steel shelves)? The BlizzCon 2011 Store! And now, you'll get an opportunity to order from it again starting at 10 a.m. PST on Friday, Nov. 11, ending at 10 a.m. PST on Friday, Nov. 18.

To order from the BlizzCon Store, you must have purchased a DirecTV ticket, been subscribed to the live stream, or be the purchasing Battle.net account for actual BlizzCon tickets. The full blue post below details the sales.


Miss out on picking up that special piece of commemorative BlizzCon loot? Beginning Friday, November 11 (rescheduled from the originally announced date of November 4), we're making select items from the BlizzCon 2011 store available once more to those who joined us for the show in person or via the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket.

Beginning November 11 at 10 a.m. Pacific Time through November 18 at 10 a.m. PT, BlizzCon 2011 ticket holders*, Virtual Ticket buyers, and DIRECTV viewers who ordered the BlizzCon 2011 Pay Per View event will be able to purchase select BlizzCon 2011 store merchandise online (while supplies last). To participate, simply log in to the online Blizzard Store using the Battle.net account associated with your BlizzCon ticket or Virtual Ticket during the sale times listed above. DIRECTV viewers can use the Battle.net account on which you redeemed your BlizzCon Virtual Ticket code.

*Please note: For those who attended BlizzCon in person, only the Battle.net account associated with the ticket purchased will have access to BlizzCon 2011 merchandise during this online sale. You can view this information in the ticket buyer's Order History.

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Post-BlizzCon 2011 Store sale starts Nov. 11 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Thu, 03 Nov 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mists of Pandaria: The myth of the talent tree choice

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Blizzard played up the Cataclysm expansion as a groundbreaking expansion that would change everything, but the truth is that the Shattering was nothing compared to what is happening to class talent trees in the new Mists of Pandaria expansion. Those giant talent trees we visited every two levels are gone, replaced with six separate choices spread across the course of 90 levels.

To be fair, there are a lot of terrific ideas in what Blizzard is planning to do with our talent trees. Removed are the choices that everyone should make. And yes, Blizzard did say that in Cataclysm, but this time, the designers mean it. What shadow priest doesn't take Vampiric Touch? What balance druid doesn't invest that crucial talent point to take Moonkin Form?

But ultimately, if the goal here is to make things easier on the players, to make this a choice that players don't need to extensively research, Blizzard totally missed the mark.

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Mists of Pandaria: The myth of the talent tree choice originally appeared on WoW Insider on Mon, 31 Oct 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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