Around Azeroth 3 - It's A Bird... It's A Plane... It's really a plane

It's A Bird... It's A Plane... It's really a plane
Plane above the Stormwind Harbor

This week on Outland with Curs (30/10/11)

The Cursed got to level 17. I've created a new logo for the guild as well, time for some renewing. It looks a bit like batman ;-).

Guild Page with new The Cursed tabard

As said in one of my previous posts i would finish off leveling my Warrior. And it done:

Kaylo, Warrior level 85

Warsong Gulch sucked to level in so i quested a bit in Twilight highlands.
Now 2 characters/classes left to get the 85. My Mage 71 and my Rogue 82.

The past week I noticed a couple of glitches in World of Warcraft.
- While i leveling in Twilight highlands i noticed some weird named chairs.

Weird chair names.

- When you use the Faded Wizard Hat and it's another gender costume, the armory will not show the costume but the costume's gender. My Mage is a female troll. I had a blood elf male costume on.

Female Troll with Faded Wizard Hat costume

By this I got reminded with the existence of this hat and decided to get it for my Death Knight aswell.

Transmogrification for my Warrior

Warriors have some really cool sets and some more boring sets in my opinion. I took 3 out that i like:

Might (t1)

Valorous Dreadnaught (7)

Onslaught (t6)

Might set, tier 1 looks really cool with the spikes on the shoulders. also really oldschool. I think this will be my 2nd preference and easy to obtain.
Onslaught has some spikes aswell but they are rather small, the head does look a bit better though.
My number 1 choice is the Dreadnaught set, 25 man version because of the color difference and the extra "blade" on the skull on the shoulders.

Transmogrification for my Priest

I play both my specs actively on my priest and there for I do want 2 different sets, one for disc and one for when I'm shadow.

Absolution (t6)

I was thinking of the Absolution set(Tier 6) for being shadow as the set itself is pretty dark of color.
I think it suits the darkness of shadow.

Avatar (t5)

As for disc I was think of the Avatar set (Tier 5). I like the wings on the back, they could have had a bit more animation like the warlock tier 6 set.

Around Azeroth 3 - The Frostbrood Vanquisher with the hat

The Frostbrood Vanquisher with the hat

This week on Outland with Curs (23/10/11)

The Cursed got to level 16 on Thursday. We've obtained the cash flow guild perk now. Some more gold in the bank weekly. Might buy some additional tabs soon.

We also got Critter Kill Squad, killing 50 critters

Critter Kill Squad

I got the Creepy Crate on my death knight, it has some cool animations.

Creepy Crate

I leveled my rogue and my warrior a bit during the AV weekend. About a level each, although it was a lot harder on my rogue because we kept losing... Horde sucks at AV in the 80 - 84 bracket.


Thursday I had the chance to raid Firelands again with my Death Knight and the helm of Alysrazor dropped.
Wearing the earlier in week obtained  The Horseman's Horrific Helmet, I noticed that my item level 365 had more strength than Greathelm of the Voracious Maw (ilvl 378).

Someone made an intresting note on wowhead though:

Cata itemization has been incredibly linear(/bland) so it's a big surprise to see something like this come along. I wonder if it's a bug or if it's going live like this.
Reference.
i353: 263 in primary stat (usually Strength for plate, sometimes a tanking stat)i359: 281 in primary stati365: 301 in primary stati371: 322 in primary stati372: 325 in primary stati378: 348 in primary stat (some variance here; the tank ones have 388, the new 5-mans 346)i384: 371 in primary stati391: 400 in primary stat (tank ones 440)i397: 426 in primary stat (tank ones 466)i403: 454 in primary stat
This helm is a 365 with the Strength budget of a 384, the secondary stats of a mid-350s, and Stamina of a mid-330s. Given how much better Strength is than secondary stats this expansion, this makes it a ridiculously well-itemized piece and very comparable to 378s.

Mists of Pandaria - Blizzcon 2011 - Monk 2

They released some info on some of the abilities of the monks:

Level 1 AbilitiesJab 40 Chi - Melee Range, Instant
Requires Stance of the Drunken Ox, Stance of the Fierce Tiger.
You jab the target, dealing 5 damage and generating 1 light force and 1 dark force.

Tiger Palm 1 Light Force - Melee range, instant
Requires Stance of the Drunken Ox, Stance of the Fierce Tiger.
Deals 10 Physical damage, deals 5 additional damage if the target is above 50% health.

Level 2 AbilitiesRoll 50 Chi - Instant
Roll a short distance.

Level 3 AbilitiesBlackout Kick 2 Dark Force - Melee range, Instant
Kick with a blast of energy, causing 28 physical damage to an enemy target. If the target is killed by blackout kick, you are returned 1 Dark Force.
Level 5 AbilitiesFlying Serpent Kick 8-40 Yards range, 25 Seconds Cooldown, Instant.
Soar through the air towards a targeted enemy, knocking them down and stunning them for 2 seconds.
Spinning Crane Kick Instant, 2 Lights and Dark Forces
Requires Stance of the Drunken Ox, Stance of the Fierce Tiger.
You spin while kicking in the air, dealing 23 damage every 1 second to all nearby enemies within 8 yards. Movement speed is reduced by 30%, last 6 seconds.
Level ?? AbilitiesStatue of the Jade Serpent 5 Sec Cast
Summon a statue at the target location. Anytime you deal damage, a nearby friendly target within 20 yards of the statue will be healed. You can have up to 3 Jade Dragon Statues active at a time.

The moves:

Looking forward to tryout this class. I do wonder how the moves will look on the other eligible races.


I read some stuff might become account wide, things like achievements, I hope the rewards become account wide as well then.
Would be cool then if you switched main and you got that "special" mount for doing a series of achievements you can still use it.
At the moment I got 2 Frostbrood Vanquisher mounts, on my warrior and on my paladin. And now I mostly play my horde characters and none of those are being used.

Also noticed in the Q&A that someone asked for an expansion on character slots.

I have 10 characters, will you add an 11th slot so we can have all 11 classes? Not sure just yet, might keep the current character cap but let you have them on any realm, so you can have many many charaters on one realm.

I really hope i can get more slots on one realm so i can have my monk with the rest of my characters.

Mists of Pandaria - Blizzcon 2011 - Talents - Deathknight in depth

So the new talents would bring more choice... less forms of cookiecutter builds/choises
I've decided to take a closer look (from pve perspective) to the Death Knight ones and try form an opinion about the given choices per tier.

All Talents can be found in this post.

Deadknight Talent Choises

Tier 1

Deadknight Talents Preview: Tier 1 

Blood Boil: could be nice, some extra damage while spreading your diseases, this only useful in aoe situations though.
Corpse Explosion: It requires first a mob to die with diseases before it has any use? Doesn't seem all that useful in aoe situations you mostly already have your diseases spread and the Blood Boil seems much more usefull then?
Outbreak: This one is actually useful in single target situations (most pve bosses). I assume that it works like it does now. I think this one is the most useful one for raiding?

Tier 2

Deadknight Talents Preview: Tier 2

Some defensive abilities to choose from

Lichborne: Seems to be mostly for pvp, if you can switch out as easily as they claim it might be useful on fights where the boss has some fear.
Anti-Magic Zone: A damage reduction for the raid. Could definitively be useful in some situations with heavy raid damage.
Bone shield: If there is some random damage, but no heavy stuff on the raid. This one could be my default.

Tier 3

Deadknight Talents Preview: Tier 3

This seems mostly to be a pvp tier
Death's Advance: Only against someone that is trying to get away from you but it does require you to have used 2 unholy runes so they must have been in range before.
Chillbains: 3 second immobilize and 50 slow on frost fever. Does seem nice
Asphyxiate: I don't really understand how this one works, Does this last till cancelled? Then you can stun someone forever?

Tier 4

Deadknight Talents Preview: Tier 4

Self healing abilities
Death Pact: Nice strong heal but rather long cooldown.
Death Siphon: Deals some damage and heals for 75% of the damage. I think this one is nice to use next to Deathstrike, also doesn't seem to require a rune. I think this will be my choose. Seems most useful while soloing stuff.
Vampiric Blood: Seems tanking talent.

Tier 5

Deadknight Talents Preview: Tier 5

Increased rune regeneration options
Blood Tap: Requires you to actively click the spell. 1 minute cooldown seems long as well. Will build up easily though.
Runic Empowerment: 45% to randomly activate a rune, seems a lot more useful than Blood Tap if it occurs more than once a minute.
Runic Corruption: 100% faster regeneration for 3 seconds after Frost Strike, Rune Strike or Death Coil.
As it is now i do use Frost Strike a lot so this one will be very intresting aswell.

In the end I think will be Runic Empowerment or Runic Corruption will regen the fastest your runes and one will be the cookiecutter choice.

Tier 6

Deadknight Talents Preview: Tier 6

Aoe damage options
Gorefiend's Grasp: Aoe damage and pulling enemies close. Seems like maybe an aoe taunt for tanks?
Remorseless Winter: Aoe damage, I think this one will do more damage.
Desecrated Ground: Aoe damage and immune to CC. Seems more of a pvp ability.

Also in this tier one of the 3 will do the most damage and in pve raid situations there will be a cookiecutters choise

Mists of Pandaria - Blizzcon 2011 - Talents

Another talent overhaul...
Another attempt to make talents less cookie cutter builds.
I don't exactly know how they came up with the idea of reducing the amount of talents points gives you less cookie cutter builds. (Talking about the current talent tree's, 31 points, vs the old ones, 61 points.)

I do think this time they did a better job. I think with Talents 2.0 there will be some more choice now.
But they're still be some cookie cutter elements in it.
If you have 3 damaging attacks you'll naturally want the strongest one?

The New Class Talent SystemPerhaps the most exciting of these changes is the removal of the old talent tree system. Rather than each class having three separate trees, one for each specialization, players will now choose talents from individual sets which are awarded every 15 levels. Each class will have its own selection of talents, and the entire list will be available to all characters of that class regardless of  specialization.
Each talent set is comprised of three talents which fall into a clear "theme." Some sets will offer utility such as movement speed increases and boosts to survivability, while others will reduce the costs of certain situational abilities. Currently, the goal is to avoid making any particular talent mandatory or to have them play a role in ability rotations directly. Instead, they're intended to give players interesting ways to customize their characters according to their preferred playstyle.
In total, there will be six talent sets, with players unlocking a new set every 15 levels. This means that there will be fewer talents overall, but each talent you choose has the potential to have a much more dramatic effect on your gameplay.

Examples of possible talents for paladins in Mists of Pandaria

Class Talents vs. Specialization AbilitiesSo what does this mean for important spec-based spells and abilities like Hammer of the Righteous and Circle of Healing?
At level 10, players will still select a specialization and unlock an iconic class specialization ability. As players level up, they will then automatically learn both class-based and specialization-specific abilities at set intervals. The specialization abilities you learn will be largely comprised of old talents we feel players should have, as well as core class abilities that not every spec needs.
For example, for a level 25 Protection paladin, his or her training list may look a little something like this:

Level 10:	Avenger's Shield	(Protection ability)
	Judgments of the Wise	(Protection ability)
Level 12:	Rightous Fury	(Class ability)
Level 13:	Redemption	(Class ability)
Level 14:	Flash of Light	(Class ability)
Level 15:	Hand of Reckoning	(Class ability)
Level 16:	Lay on Hands	(Class ability)
Level 18:	Divine Shield	(Class ability)
Level 20:	Hammer of the Righteous	(Protection ability)
Level 22:	Supplication	(Class ability)
Level 24:	Consecration	(Class ability)

These spells and abilities will be trained in the field, appearing immediately in players' spellbooks once they reach the appropriate level. As a result, there will no longer be a need to visit class trainers save to re-spec or purchase Dual Specialization, keeping players engaged and doing what they enjoy.

 Some interesting notes:

• Class Abilities are available to all specs in the class. All warriors learn heroic strike for example.
• Spec Abilities are available to certain specs. Only Arms warriors learn Slam. Retribution and Protection paladin get Hammer of the Righteous, etc .
• Talents are optional skills/bonuses available to all specs. Any warrior can choose Throwdown, and you will have to pick between 3 different crowd control abilities on this level of talent.
• Level 15 - You pick your first talent. For example, warriors have to pick between Juggernaut / Double Time / Warbringer and players will have to pick which mobility ability they want to pick depending on their playstyle.
• Access to stuff you never could before. If you were a subtlety rogue you knew you weren't going to get something like Killing Spree. And because talents are going to be all in the same tree, you're going to be able to combine them in a way that you never could before. For example, any rogue can have Shadowstep!
• If you don't see a beloved talent in your new talents list, don't worry, it's probably something we gave your spec as a baseline. For example all Holy priests now have Circle of Healing.

It is nice they split talent abilities from specialization. Giving indeed more options to choose from.

I do like the idea that some abilities will be always usable then no matter what spec.

Talent recap for all classes:

Mists of Pandaria - Blizzcon 2011 - Panda's & Monks

Woot new expansion announced. No surprise it's with the panda's though.

Pandaren Racials:

• Bouncy: reduces fall damage by half.
  Seems nice in some situations but don't think it will matter that much in raiding circumstances
• Inner peace: double rested XP.
  Cool while leveling but useless at max level?
• Gourmand: +15 to cooking.
  Will this matter in the end?
• Epicurean: double stats to food buffs.
  This one does sound awesome
• Quaking Palm: You touch a secret pressure point on an enemy target, putting it to sleep for 3 sec.
  Could be nice in pvp to "interrupt" some cast and leaving out a healer for a couple of seconds

Monk New Class

• Brewmaster - Tank spec
• Mistweaver - Healer, a healer who can stand up in melee and will let players experience a "new healing style"
• Windwalker - Melee DPS
• This is not a hero class, and it will start at level 1
• The class is very martial-arts based
• Lots of monk-only animations, the healer and tanks will have different stances they can stand in, etc ...
• Monk Races - All of them except Goblin and Worgens

Monk Equipment

• Leather Armor (Agility or Intellect)
• They hit a lot with hands and feet
• They will need weapons for some finishers: Staves, Fist Weapons
• They will also be able to use 1H Axe and maces, swords
• Healers will get off-hands, they don't want healers to use shields.

Monk Resources

• Chi (energy) slowly regenerates and is only used for your Jab and Roll abilities.
• Jab generates Light and Dark force, which are used for everything else. Some finishing move uses dark force, some use the light force.
• No auto attack! Devs want you to have this street fighter feel where you punch a lot

Pandaren Monk

The Mistweaver healer part looks really cool.
With the leather armor and 3 roles it does seem to look a bit like a druid on first sight, I really hope they can differentiate here. It does have new resources, looking forward to test those out.
And no auto attack -> loads of  keyboard smashing :P ?
I do hope they add more character slots as I'm currently full on Outland.


They released 2 nice looking video's.
Pandaren preview

Zones preview

I do not cover all changes and new things in my posts, just the things i wish the share and/or comment on.
For all news about Blizzcon & Mists of Pandaria checkout:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/
and
http://www.wowhead.com/

Transmogrification for my Paladin

I think paladins got a couple of nice sets and some of them might get very popular which will make them unfortunately not very unique.

My choices below:

Tier 2: Judgement

Tier 6: Lightbringer

Tier 10: Lightsworn Sanctified Heroic

Tier 10: Lightsworn Sanctified

I think Tier 2, Judgement, will be to popular to actually enjoy it. Tier 6, Lightbringer, looks again very nice.
This one might be very popular aswell.
The Lightsworn Sanctified Heroic version looks best. I posted an image of the Lightsworn Sanctified version aswell as I currently have that one.
I might put in some ICC 25 heroics to get the upgrades.

Hallow's End started

Kinda lost sight of this so it was some surprise today when I logged on and noticed Hallow's end started with a bunch of new quests and new loots.
Immeadtly queued for the Headless Horseman.

On my Headless Horseman first run today with Cursive, my warlock, I got the The Horseman's Horrific Helmet, The Horseman's Sinister Saber and Sinister Squashling.

On Cursedknight, my Death Knight, I got The Horseman's Horrific Helmet aswell, finally something to replace that last ugly troll item :-), along with Sinister Squashling.
I did a couple more runs to get the ring, Seal of the Petrified Pumpkin. I started doing some quests on Cursedknight, will have a better look at them this weekend.

Cursedknight at Hallow's End event in Undercity

I noticed you can buy several items with Tricky Treats.
Definitively want to buy the Little Wickerman and Feline Familia. 

Transmogrification for my Mage

I can't really say there are a lot of nice looking sets for mages. Some look really dull like tier 2 with the water bulbs on the shoulders.
My mage is currently only 72 but I'll reach 85 at some point eventually ;-)
If that happens I was thinking about the Tempest set:

Tier 6: Tempest Regalia

Around Azeroth 2 - On the border of Silithus and Uldum...

On the border of Silithus and Uldum...

This week on Outland with Curs (16/10/11)

The weekend started very nice with an unexpected nicely run through ulduar 25 man with achievments giving me some Reins of the Ironbound Proto-Drake. Best proto-drake every in my opinion.

Ironbound Proto-Drake

Oh and I wasn't alone there with a Swift Zulian Tiger. I did have the biggest one ;-)

Swift Zulian Tigers

My warlock got 85, that means I got 3 left to get to 85.

On saturday I got my first Elementium-Edged Scalper crafted.
And during a BOT pug run i got finally some replacement for my ugly Skullpiercer Pauldrons, namely Magma Plated Pauldrons, looking bad ass again now.

Sunday was rather calm not much happened, I did some random Zandalari's on my DK and on my warlock.
And i got my second Elementium-Edged Scalper crafted.

Transmogrification: Cloaks

Wowhead wrote a very nice guide about all the cloaks in game with their different looks and patterns and colors.
http://www.wowheadnews.com/blog=196096/transmogrification-a-guide-to-all-cloak-styles

Darkspear Shroud (event edition)

In my posts on the sets i want for my different characters i only talked about sets, mainly looking at them in terms of tier.

I personally really like the Darkspear Shroud, the long one then from the event.
Also the TBC ones (Black Temple and Sunwell) looks nice.



As for what I'll use will depend per character. I do not always show the cloak (mostly I don't on melee's).
Otherwise my Horde characters will probably use the Darkspear shroud (long) if they got them.
And for my Alliance characters i'll try to get one from Sunwell or Black Temple.


A small overview of my other posts on Transmogrification:
1h swords sheathed on back
1h axes sheathed on back
Cloaks
The Wowhead tool
And Others

Transmogrification for my Rogue

While I still was thinking about what I want for my rogue I came across this image:

Someone has their gear ready for transmogrification ;-)

Anyway back to the task at hand what do I want for my rogue.

Looking at the different sets I found it quite disappointing that not one of them was a real eye-catcher.

Do leather sets really suck that much, I had a hard time deciding what to get for my druid aswell and not much shiny came out of it.

My first selection: 

Bonescythe (t7)

Bloodfang Armor (t2)

Deathmantle (t5)

 I suppose the Deathmantle looks best with the purple eyes and the mouth it does kinda look like death.

Transmogrification for my Hunter

I was already looking at the sets for hunters for quite some time and I kinda felt nothing suited me.
I did remember there was a recolor of Skyshatter in TBC and as said earlier in my shaman transmogrification post, I do like the Skyshatter set.

Skyshatter Recolor

So if I had to pick a set i would probably take that one.
I've know talked about what sets i wanted for my 4 of my Horde characters which I play the most.
I doubt I'll have all sets ready by patch 4.3 but it's nice to make plans in advance about what I want in the future for each different character.

Transmogrification for my Druid

Wow, looking over the different druid sets I can't say i really like alot of them...
I came up with 2 sets I sort of like:

Tier 11: Stormrider

My first choice and the one most likely I'll obtain is the Stormrider's set.
It's not a green/brown set for once and it has some small animation on the shoulders, dropping feathers and some small lighting.
This is tier 11 so this is pretty easy to obtain, I already got 2 pieces, just need to get a pug for BWD & BOT for the 2 others the chest I can easily get by doing some heroics.

Tier 6: Thunderheart

The other set I like is from the days I did arena with my druid (when they were overpowered ;-))

It looks like the Tier 6 Thunderheart set.