Segment 51: Old Friends Revisited

Let’s look at the pre-Cata add-ons covered in the Emporium once more, quickly, and see what’s still useful. Any dates referenced here will be 2011 unless otherwise stated.

From the top:
Omen3 – Outdated. I’ve personally moved to Skada.
Carbonite – Updated January 25th.
Decursive – Updated March 4th.
Grid – Use Healbot.
Mage Fever – Updated February 14th. Use Curse to get the latest version.
Lorack’s DK Optimizer – Out of date. Use SpellFlash with the DK module.
DeclineDuel – Out of date but still working.
AchievementSnap – Out of date.
DingRecorder – Out of date.
AuctionLite – Updated January 22d.
Advanced Trade Skill Window – Updated February 9th.
Free Refills – Updated March 7th.
InfiniteIgnore – Updated February 21st.
RankWatch – Outdated and obsolete.
EasySerum – Updated for patch 4.0.1 and should still work.
GoGoMount – updated March 9th, and GoGoPet updated for 4.0.1 in October 2010.
Add-on updaters are updated whenever you run them.
Outfitter – Updated January 8th.
_NPCscan – updated January 23rd.
Parrot – updated February 16th.
WetSpot – Obsolete.
SkillScore – obsolete. Use PlayerScore/GearScore instead.
RaidBuffStatus – Updated March 15th.
ArkInventory – updated February 26th
AutoEmote – still works even though it is long out of date.
AutoProfit is out of date, use AutoProfitX2, updated March 4th, instead.
LightHeaded was updated March 9th.
Leveling Guides – possibly no longer needed with Carbonite and Lightheaded. It’s up to you.
HealBot – updated March 6th. I’ve received email that there may be an issue with the slash command for HB, but I have not had time to investigate.
XtoLevel – updated January 25th.
AutoAspect – out of date. Consider SmartBuff as a replacement.
OmniCC – updated in December 2010 for WoW 4.0.3a
ControlFreak – updated January 4th 2009, but amazingly it still works.
Panda – updated March 5th.
Xloot – updated in December 2010 for Wow 4.0.3a
Talented – updated January 7th.

And at that point we started hitting add-ons by class.

Quick tip: Every add-on you have active uses some memory, so for best performance, only enable add-ons you intend to use.

Music for this segment is from Archive.org and is entitled “Nostalgia of Freedom” by Nicolas Panderis

Download the MP3

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Not to be overly academic, but WoW and Blizzard have essentially formed a relationship with each and every one of their consumers. We have developed norms with the way we interact with each other and when those norms get violated it is always very difficult to navigate a recovery process. I have often said in private to Jason and others that I now feel like Blizzard/WoW and I are navigating a rough stage in our relationship. It’s like when your partner/spouse tell you that they don’t love you anymore but because you so deeply love them you want to try to work it out… I feel like Blizzard/WoW is the partner/spouse who doesn’t love me as a player and a consumer anymore. Yet, my devotion to the game remains even despite its best efforts to get rid of me.

So here is my two cents on what is wrong in WoW, and what Blizzard should do to fix it.

Raiding
I know a lot of you probably cringe when I say that I believe the first tier of Cataclysm raiding is far too difficult for the majority of the player base. I’ll agree that Naxx and Obsidium Sanctum in Wrath were quite easy especially considering that I was able to complete both within 2 ½ months of Wrath’s launch (and I had to level my DK from level 55 in that time). I was also a young and new raider at that time, I knew very little about past raiding ventures and wasn’t experienced in the ways of classic and BC raiding, but I tried my best and did my research and though it wasn’t too terribly difficult it was still time consuming and fun… and I could learn. After all isn’t learning what the first tier of content for an expansion should be all about. So after having done my fair share of heroic modes in ICC, ToC, and Ulduar, and having 2+ years of raiding and raid leading experience under my belt jumping into Cataclysm raiding should have felt like ok… new fights… but lets do this. Instead it feels like everything I learned about raiding has been shattered and crapped on and Blizzard ratcheted the games difficulty up so much that even a now highly skilled player like myself (topping charts even when I pug in with hardcore guilds and players) feels like a complete and utter scrub and I’m left throwing my hands up in the air like did the last 2 years mean nothing?

Finally, this notion of being “spoiled” by a video game is utterly ridiculous in my book. Games are supposed to be fun, and completable by people with some challenge mixed in. Wrath was a challenge for many players but with enough work and effort even if it took them longer they got to do the content, not hard modes, but normal modes. Hard modes are for the hardcore, normal modes are for everyone who has the time and effort to put in. Blizzard should strive to give the hard core players better and more unique loot so they can feel that hard modes really do prove that they’re leet and they have something unique to show for it (not some recolored same model from an easy boss), but still make the loot for normal modes look appropriately cool (just not as cool as hard mode stuff). That’s the way I think it should run.

Dynamic Content
For all intensive purposes Azeroth is about as static of a world as you can get in an MMO. I’ve been a vehement defender of Blizzard on a lot of fronts, but this upsets me now more than ever that I see a number of lesser funded and developed MMO’s having dynamic content.

Take for instance the rifts and invasions in Rift… open world PVE content that actually gives you something for completing them (Rifts version of Justice Points). They encourage players to cooperate and are challenging but do not end up causing players to have to inspect each other’s gear/spec or anything like that before tackling them. Sure it might be slower than raiding or dungeoning… but it’s fun. No stress I get to join a public group of random people and go pwn some monsters and get stuff. The best part is… hardly anyone is judgmental or mean in those groups. Everyone has this attitude of “Yeah! Let’s do this!” You die… so what… run back and keep fighting the good fight. Why doesn’t Blizzard have something like this? In Wrath it could have been scourge invasions of towns and quest hubs or out in the world. In Cataclysm, it could easily work as Twilight Cult invasions… Imagine cultists overrunning Crossroads or Goldshire randomly, or your out running your dailies in Twilight Highlands and uh oh Dragonmaw Port is under attack by a swarm of cultists and twilight drakes so you and everyone else in the zone go rush to fight it off. Click a “Join Public Group” button and go in and save the day. I’m telling you… it could work and in Azeroth it would be awesome.

Community
I’m not sure if this is because of the content or just the maturity of the game but the player base of WoW is unbelievably judgmental and terribly inconsiderate and rude. In Wrath I used to see people pugging raids and dungeons all the time because it was fun even if you didn’t complete the dungeon. Now on a Friday night I log in and barely see anyone talking in Trade Chat… not even the obligatory “Baby” or “Murloc” memes. It’s like a ghost town…. no one wants to talk… no one is pugging. It feels for lack of a better word… empty or hollow.

Not to mention when you do finally get to the stage of getting into a pug or some other groups activity. You are under constant pressure to perform (spec, rotation, gear, ability) and at the first sign of trouble you’re kicked or not invited. Though I realize this is an ever-present and necessary trend in any group wanting to get stuff done, ratcheting up the game’s difficulty has increased the amount of scrutiny given to players and even friends that you have raided with for 2 years… who are good players! Is that what Blizzard wants to do to their community? Punishing people who enjoy playing together by making it so that they can barely get down 2 bosses a week? Making it so that you have to berate your friends about gameplay mechanics when I know that they know what to do? I urge Blizzard not to sacrifice the most important aspect of their game, the community, for the sake of appeasing the few people who enjoy excluding others from the fun, the others whose sense of accomplishment is directly related to the failure of others.

I recall Chris Metzen, in his “Geek Is” statements at Blizzcon 2010 talking about Dungeons and Dragons… and saying “Geek is sitting around a table with your best friends… armed with only graph paper and funny dice… and imagining far flung worlds of your own.” He even said that that was his favorite slide. For me “Geek Is” spending an evening raiding with my best friends enjoying jokes and downing bosses with minimal stress… still requiring skill and a few wipes… but minimal stress. Why does it now feel like Blizzard doesn’t want me to do this anymore?

Are there any people out there who aren’t experiencing these woes? Is it confined to my server? Is it just a random series of events that has plagued me as of late? I don’t know the answers to any of these questions, but I ask for help and your opinions. Please keep in mind these are my experiences and opinions and they may be very different from your own. I encourage respectful and intelligent disagreements, but don’t want to see any ignorant comments about “how I suck” or “qq” etc.

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Segment 50: Add-ons for Shaman

I have been informed that, during the per-class segments, I somehow contrived to miss the shaman. Let’s correct that right now.

The shaman is a hybrid support class, providing DPS via spellcasting or melee, or healing. In addition, the shaman can place totems to provide additional benefits to the party or deal additional damage to enemies.

To help your shaman in his chosen role, I’ve put together a list of some well-regarded add-ons. All of these are available from Curse.com – see the segment notes for direct links.

First, we have SpellFlash: ReSham, a module for the SpellFlash add-on. SpellFlash: ReSham will provide visual cues for appropriate spells or abilities duing combat and out of combat. You can easily disable certain talent trees, and also disable it when out of combat.

TribalEnhancement is a lightweight add-on supporting all shaman specs. It provides totem, buff, debuff, and shield tracking using a “least intrusive” philosopy.

Tyler is a Nub is a simple add-on to remind you to reapply your weapon buffs. It also works for rogue poisons and warlock buffs.

SmartRes2 provides intelligent and co-ordinated party and raid wipe recovery. You’ll want every class who can rez to run this add-on, and then hope you never need it.

Lastly, we have Shaman Friend. This add-on is specifically designed for the shaman and provides lots of useful functions for all shaman specs. There are too many to go over here; take a look at the add-on page, as linked in the segment notes.

Music for this segment is from Jamendo.com and is entitled “Deranged” by Fox.

Download the MP3

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As I write this, it has now been almost a week since patch 4.0.1 went live. Anyone who has been through a major World of Warcraft patch before knows that this means instability, numerous server restarts and mini-patches, and broken add-ons for several days. For add-ons, it can be even longer, depending on how complex the changes are, and if the add-on developers are still maintaining their products. In this segment, I’m going to interrupt the series devoted to class-specific add-ons and talk about how to handle the current situation.

First, be patient. The World of Warcraft is a huge software undertaking, exceeding even your operating system in complexity. It is, after all, not merely an entire virtual world, but two such worlds, Azeroth and Outland. The mere size of the installation on your hard drive should tell you that much; my Windows 7 Ultimate install folder is less than 20 gigabytes, while my WoW 4.0.1 install takes up close to 28 gigs. Granted, I probably have more screenshots and add-ons than any normal person, but that’s still a huge amount of storage space.

Secondly, be prepared to abandon some add-ons, perhaps even your favorites. Some add-on authors are not going to keep up development. That’s just how life is. You may be able to find replacements, or you may learn to play without them.

Lastly, be very careful when choosing replacements for your add-ons. Sometimes what seems to be the perfect answer turns out to be a nasty surpise just waiting to happen. For example, while I was waiting for the update to AutoProfit, I found and installed LootMagic, which automatically deletes the “least valuable grey item” in your inventory when your bags are full, and you grab more loot. I uninstalled it when it deleted my Chilled Meat.

If you visit the WoWphiles.com Web site and find the Add-On Emporium Summarized, there’s a link at the top to WoWwiki, showing add-on statuses. Not everything is there, but it’s a huge help.

Finally, let me tell you what has been updated that I consider essential: Carbonite and Deadly Boss Mods, two add-ons I feel crippled without. For those who are still awaiting LUI4, you’ll be pleased to know that Xperl seems to be working.

Next week, we’ll move on to Druid add-ons. Suggestions – and update status – are welcome!

Music for this segment is from Freeplaymusic.com and is entitled “Starting Over,” by D. DiFonzo

Download the MP3

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Let the fallout begin. If you’re a part of a large guild, it’s about to get scary for you.

Here is the full post from Mumper:

“We will be introducing a new, hard cap of 600 members in a single guild for Cataclysm. This function will go live with patch 4.0.1 and is already live on the beta and PTR’s.

As most of you already know, we have supported a soft cap of 500 members in a guild since World of Warcraft launched. We have allowed guilds to exceed the 500 limit up until now since being in a guild really just amounted to ranks and chat channels. With the advent of the new guild system in Cataclysm we are tracking many more things on each individual player in a guild and in order to support that, we need to limit the amount of members to a reasonable level.

The new cap of 600 members is fully supported in the new guild system and that means that everyone will be visible in the ui and able to contribute to all guild functions like experience and reputation gain. We have pulled a large number of statistics to get to the 600 member cap for guilds and we are happy to say that this value covers more than 99.9% of all the active guilds in World of Warcraft.

The small number of guilds that are over the 600 person cap will be able to keep their guilds intact (and fully supported in the new guild system), but they will not be able to add new members until they fall below the 600 member cap.”

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Blizzard has released a new version of the World of Warcraft Cataclysm Beta client for download through Battle.net. I for one am pretty bummed about this because it is slowing down my testing and blogging about Cataclysm.

I have limited time to get into the Beta and today I am greeted with this download which will prohibit me from getting back in until at least tomorrow.

There are some interesting features with the new Cataclysm Beta Launcher that will allow you to play while streaming new content.

The new Cataclysm Launcher allows you to stream game data while you play. This will reduce the time you spend downloading, installing, and patching World of Warcraft. We will be releasing this new Launcher into the Cataclysm beta soon, and we’d like to get your feedback on the toolset and gameplay experience.

The new launcher system will allow players to play, without sitting waiting for long downloads. I do appreciate the fact that Blizzard is trying to keep us from being locked out of the game.

We’ve redesigned the Launcher to explain your installation progress. You will see a new progress bar with sections (Red, Yellow, Green) that represent the amount of data you currently have installed.

There are three stages of download progress:

- SETUP (RED): Core game content is being prepared. You cannot enter the game at this time.

- AVAILABLE (YELLOW): Major game content is not completely applied. You can play, but your game experience will not be ideal.

- PLAYABLE (GREEN): Final game content is almost complete. You may experience a few game issues with playing at this stage.

in the long run I think that the update will be a good thing, but in the short term it has me locked out of the Beta tonight.

So, for lack of a better phrase: this sucks.

Meanwhile, if you haven’t seen it yet, I have some screenshots posted on Flickr. Be sure to keep checking back as I update the gallery for Cataclysm Beta Screenshots

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Talents and Specializations
Blizzard announced a complete overhaul of the talent system. We discuss.

Icesnake’s Addon Emporium
Icesnake is back this week to bring us the addon: Lightheaded

Listener Email & Comments
We mention some of the things that you, our great listeners, had to say this week.

LoreDucation with Evinrue
Evinrue discusses the first couple volumes of the World of Warcraft comic book.

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This post comes to us courtesy of our listener Kurg from the Kargath server. He has some ideas on how to make fishing more interesting.

I have noticed a big question lately has been: how can blizzard make fishing more interesting? One suggestion might be to make fishing more in depth like a crafting profession. For example, fishing lures could be created by recipes. A player could make certain lures with recipes and those lures will have an effect on their fishing such as: an increased chance at catching a certain type of fish or an increased quantity of that type of fish, catch special fish that give you abilities such as: water breathing, faster swimming, water walking, etc.

There could also be epic lure recipes that can drop from dungeon and/or raid bosses. The epic fishing recipes could do things like give you the ability to fish faster, fish with greater accuracy, fish up artifacts associated with archeology, or other items that are vendor trash but sell for a lot gold so that fishing can be a viable way of making gold other then putting fish on the Auction House.

Some lures could be shallow lures that will fish up certain fish and items, and other lures could be deep running lures. With this idea fishing will be more in depth and a potential way to spend time advancing your character with archeology or some other trade skill tie in, as well as catching larger quantities, fishing faster, and making gold.

As far as the fishing mechanic Blizzard could give more control over the cast. Blizzard could allow you to control the strength and accuracy of the cast. Perhaps when you begin to cast, a small slider bar pops up with moving markers; one marker moves up and down the slide scale, and one left to right, each controlling the strength and accuracy of the cast. The closer you get these marks to land in a small identified range the more accurate your cast is and the better your catch is. The Epic lures could affect this mechanic also and could slow it down to give you a better chance to get the mark to stop where you want, or make the margin for error a little bigger to obtain the perfect cast.

With the addition of more water in certain zones in Cataclysm, more water mounts could be introduced. Players would also be able to fish from the backs of these water mounts. Fish pools may spawn only in areas accessible to people with water mounts.

It’s possible that some or all of these ideas will either make or break fishing for people. If the process made less people fish, fishing becomes more valuable seeing as the fished up items that could be sold on the Auction House would be rare and most expensive. The downside to less people fishing is that Blizzard would probably not like this–seeing as how they like to get as many people involved in as many facets of the game as they can–and would want to find a way to get more people involved..

Fishing does however, need some sort of makeover to help make it a more rich and rewarding experience. In it’s current state it still feels to much of a grind without enough fun and variety to make it worthwhile.

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Murlocs are real!
Handfish species of fish that look like murlocs.

Remote Auction House details
Thanks to a comment from Hiruu, we got to the bottom of what the charges are for in regards to remote services.

Healing in Cataclysm
We look at how healing is changing in Cataclysm.

Icesnake’s Addon Emporium
Icesnake is back this week with the addon RaidBuffStatus

Evinrue’s NPC of the Week
Evinrue is back with her segment to tell us about Keristrasza

Listener Email & Comments
We mention some of the things that you, our great listeners, had to say this week.

Staying interested until Cataclysm
We talk about some things we are doing to stay interested and keep the game fresh until Cataclysm comes out.

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Mobile Auction House
The Mobile Auction House is coming soon: is it worth the money?

Female Worgen Screenshots
Are they killer werewolves or sexy foxes?

Putricide Strategy
We give you our tips on the Professor Putricide encounter in Icewing Citadel

Listener Email & Comments
We mention some of the things that you, our great listeners, had to say this week.

Predicting the Bosses of Cataclysm
Evinrue joins us to talk about what bosses we might be facing in Cataclysm

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Cataclysm Professions
Blizzard officially released information regarding Cataclysm profession changes. We put our two cents in on the subject.

Good Cop / Bad Modem
Blizzard flexes their NDA muscle and we discuss

Icesnake’s Addon Emporium #21
Icesnake is back this week with the addon SkillScore

Listener Email & Comments
We mention some of the things that you, our great listeners, had to say this week.

Ruby Sanctum
We give our thoughts on the upcoming Ruby Sanctum.

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The developers did a fantastic job with Wrath of the Lich King. My wildest hopes and dreams for the Expansion were actually realized. Paladins are now full fledged members of the tanking team across the game. We have two real cool downs, a real taunt, well itemized gear. We got a Shield Slam and some unique mechanics like Sacred Shield and Ardent Defender.

Paladins can now stand toe to toe, not only with ANY raid boss in the game, but also against any other tanking class in the game.

Raiding opened up and now 10 man Raiders can experience all of the raid game.

Best of all, I haven’t been asked to spec Holy ONE TIME since I installed Wrath.

After some initial turmoil, the guild situation in Wrath turned out to be better than I could have hoped. Boston ended up creating the exact guild I always wanted to be a part of. It’s a bunch of good, mature guys and gals who have fun online and kill stuff. I can’t wait to go kill Arthas with those guys and gals.

So after getting just about everything I could have wanted out of Wrath, what would I like to see in Cataclysm?

Schism

Take the inelegant solution. Balance the game and abilities so they can work in both Arenas even if they have to work differently. It will improve the experience for both PVE and PVP.

Sanctuary

Blessing of Sanctuary is no longer a Blessing but simply a self buff, perhaps even rolled into Righteous Fury. The Developers have put the 10% stamina and then 10% strength on BoSanct to try to get Paladins to use it over Kings, but we still dig the avoidance from Agility. Is that next, 10% Agi? At that point it really just is Improved Kings. Other tanks have their Rage from Avoidance talent and do not have to choose between BoKings and getting Rage from Avoidance. Paladins shouldn’t have to make that choice either.

Interrupt Me

A short cool down, off the global cool down interrupt. One of the things I’ve come to love about my new Blood Elf is Arcane Torrent. It’s the off the global cool down interrupt I’ve always wanted on my Paladin. The problem is that it has a 2 minutes cooldown. Interrupts remain one of the main weaknesses of Paladin Tanks (and to be fair Druids also suffer here). You can see this clearly on fights like Jarraxxus or General Vezzax. You want a tank with a reliable, short cool down interrupt that is off the global cooldown for those fights.

Close the Gap

One of my favorite things about my Warrior alt is the mobility of Charge. Paladins need a gap closer. We have some fantastic ranged tools but sometimes you really need to be at a certain place RIGHT NOW. Some sort of Holy Charge would be fantastic. Warbringer is a very fun dynamic on my Warrior and I’ve love to see that on my Paladin.

Proc Me

I’d like to see something added to Paladins to would break up our metronome rotation: 9-6-9-6-9, 2, 3, 4, 9-6-9-6-9, 2, 3, 4. Let me again point to my Warior alt and the talent Sword and Board. This is a proc that finishes the cool down of a Warrior’s Shield Slam move. Giving something like this to Paladins would help to break up our rotation. Perhaps borrowing something like Art of War from our Retribution brothers would be a nice addition here.

My secret hope is that it would also allow some differentiation based on skill between two Paladin tanks, and add some complexity to the class. Although my experience is limited with Death Knights and Druids, I would guess that Paladins are probably the easiest of the 4 tanks to learn. This can be great for new tanks, but some of us vets who’ve been doing the Tankadin thing since before Mt. Hyjal are itching for something more.

Challenge Me

Paladins need an AoE taunt akin to Challenging Shout or Challenging Roar. The closest thing we have is Righteous Defense which can taunt up to 3 targets, as long as all three are targeting the same person.

AD For All

While the Guardian Spirit ‘Save’ should remain the Paladin’s 2nd cool down, I’d really like to see some version of Ardent Defender given to Druids and Warriors. Death Knights have an AD like skill with Will of the Necropolis. I am of the opinion that the 4 Tank classes will continue to be difficult to balance as long as AD is only in the tool belt of half those tanks. With AD across the board, the tanks can be more easily balanced and encounter designers would have a better idea of exactly what they could throw in an encounter to challenge any tank.

No Spell Power Plate

I want to see the end of Spell Power plate. I don’t have the first clue how you pull this off. Perhaps the easiest solution would be an armor multiplier deep in the Holy tree and then encourage Paladins to roll on Resto Shaman mail, which seems to get wasted nearly as much as Spell Power plate, at least in the raids I attend.

No More ‘Badge’ Gear

Now hear me out on this one before you go rushing for the Comment button. Instead of making and itemizing separate gear, allow the gear that drops from bosses to be purchased with Emblems. One of the problems that emblems were supposed to solve was that you couldn’t get a particular drop you needed from a particular boss. So put those specific drops on the vendors and when you run the dungeon 12 times and it doesn’t drop, then you can go buy it.

Fix Retribution

Ret should be one of the easiest specs to balance. They don’t have a complicated resource loop like Rage, or Energy. They have a fairly predictable rotation, and their tool set is well known to the Developers. It seems as though Ret has vacillated between facerolling people in PVP to barely holding its own. Use Cataclysm beta to finally fix Ret as a balanced spec.

Embrace Tank Equality

The Developers have done a fantastic job of balancing the 4 tank classes in Wrath. The memo didn’t quite get to Encounter Design Team. You can see it at every tier that those guys had Warriors in mind as they designed the fights. Now to be fair, over 50% of all tanks in the game are Warriors (citation needed, but I can’t seem to find it), so I can understand to a certain extent them designing with Warriors in mind. However, if you are going to truly embrace Tank equality that means designing fights with all of your tanks in mind.

Let me give you a couple of examples from Wrath. The most obvious to me is the timer on Lord Jarraxxus fireball ability matches up exactly with a Warriors Shield Bash. That kind of screams ‘we had a warrior in mind when we designed this.’

Also, Gormok the Impaler can be disarmed on Normal mode to reduce the damage the Tank takes. General Vezzax really hurts a Paladin’s ability to generate threat, but doesn’t hurt a Rage/Runic tank nearly as much. Charging back in after Mimiron’s Shockwave allows for keeping him still and getting more time with melee dps. The Whirlwind ability of the Vyrkul in the Thorim encounter can be stopped by Disarm. Spell Reflect allows a Warrior to tank the Head in Mimiron.

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Icecrown Citadel 5-Man Dungeon
We examine some of the early details that have come out about the Icecrown Citadel 5-Man Dungeon that is coming out in World of Warcraft Cataclysm.

Goblins, Worgen, and the future of the Horde
Cataclysm will bring us the new Goblin and Worgen starting areas and big changes for the leadership of the Horde.

What is Harvest Festival Anyway?
We take a look at what the Harvest Festival is and what it means for players.

Northrend Beasts and Lord Jaraxxus Tips and Strategies
For new raiders wanting to get into the Trial of the Crusader we give some tips and strategies for dealing with the Northrend Beasts and Lord Jaraxxus encounters.

Why an Undead Paladin Makes Sense
Modem gives us his take on why the Undead should have been given Paladins as a class to play with the new race/class combinations that were announced for Cataclysm.

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With regards to the Light leaving the Forsaken, this can be refuted with the following points.

- Where do Holy and Discipline Forsaken priests get their skills from?  That’s right… the light.  It’s not like all Forsaken priests are shadow priests.

- A’dal has the power to grant protection from the light and the source of power that paladins use (see Lady Liadrin and the Blood Knights)

- Sir Zeliek, a member of The Four Horseman, was a paladin in life and still commands the power of the light in his undeath.  From WoWWiki, “According to Commander Eligor Dawnbringer‘s lecture in Wintergarde Keep, Zeliek is, “so strong in his faith, that even in undeath, the power of the light still heeds his call, smiting his foes in battle.”  Now explain to me why there aren’t some Forsaken paladins out there for me Blizzard.

I’m really hoping someone from Blizzard reads this can can explain to me why Forsaken paladins weren’t added to the new Cataclysm race/class combos.

What are your thoughts?

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There is going to be a wealth of information spread out all over the internet soon enough on the many, many changes coming out in the new expansion and since I’m not at Blizzcon myself I can only get you the information that I can find myself or hear via twitter.

The official release date has not been given (yet), but it will be in 2010 from what they have told us so far. My guess is that it will be around November, but only time will tell.

New Race/Class Combinations
The first thing I want to cover is the new race/class combinations because this is something that I have wanted since I started playing. I have hated racial restrictions on classes since it first appeared way back in the days of early Dungeons and Dragons. I like all options to be open and restrictions, while good for the Lore freaks, annoy me to no end.

So, here is your chart for the new race/class combinations:

In case you aren’t able to see those changes, here’s a list for you:

Orc: Mage
Undead: Hunter
Tauren: Paladin, Priest
Troll: Druid
Blood Elf: Warrior
Goblin: Death Knight, Hunter, Mage, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, Warrior

Human: Hunter
Dwarf: Mage, Shaman
Night Elf: Mage
Gnome: Priest
Draenei: (nothing new here…)
Worgen: Death Knight, Druid, Hunter, Mage, Priest, Rogue, Warlock, Warrior

Starting Zones Remade
All of Azeroth has been royally screwed by the escape of a dragon known as Deathwing. The whole world map has been remade, and starting zones are changed to take you from level 1-15.

I love this because I love to level. This chance is going to open the doors wide open to leveling and I wouldn’t be surprised if I reroll a character of every race, and likely more than one of both the goblins and worgen.

Flying Mounts in Azeroth
This is something that Blizzard said they would never do. Of course, this isn’t the first time they’ve done something they said they wouldn’t. Regardless, it’s here. I said before that I did not see this ever happening because Blizzard would have to remake the whole world map to make it possible. Well, that’s exactly what they did and so we will now be able to use flying mounts in Azeroth.

New Profession: Archeology
This is a nice surprise, and one that has absolutely no details – yet.

We know that it will allow you to find ancient artifacts and special rewards, but that’s all they’ve told us so far. What does it actually do? Who knows?

Whenever we receive more information I’m sure I will post it here for you to see.

But Wait! That’s Not All!
There is a lot more that has been revealed, but I have even fewer details on that than everything else I have already posted here. As more information becomes available I will post it.

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It’s official! Not just rumor anymore.

At Blizzcon Chris Metzen announces that Cataclysm is coming next and they debut the trailer at Blizzcon.

The old world is rocked by the cataclysm and is reformed. The maelstrom is churning between the continents.

The Goblins have found new allies with the horde.
The Worgen have found new allies with the alliance.

New Race/Class combinations are official!

Level Cap raised to 85.

New secondary skill Archeology!

Classic instances get Heroic mode – Deadmines and SFK

New Character Progression – Path of the Titans

New Battlegrounds with rated team play

Flying mounts in Old World

Deathwing has returned

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