The voice acting could use some tightening up and the pace kicked up a little faster. There are a few awkward pauses played for laughs, but I wasn't certain it was a purposeful awkward pause or just an honest-to-Elune awkward pause. Still, that kind of feedback is almost universal; faster pace, tighter soundtrack. The same could be said for nearly every movie ever made, so Griffter's on the right track.
Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.
Tags: featured, griffter, guide-to-machinima, machinima, malfurion-and-sylvanas, movies, ow-machinima, slightly-impressive, world-of-warcraft-movies, world-of-warcraft-videos, wow-created-movies, wow-fan-movies, wow-guide, wow-machinima-guide, wow-movie-guide, wow-movies, wow-video-guide, wow-videos
Sunday, March 31, 2013
WoW Moviewatch: Malfurion and Sylvanas: Episode 2
Saturday, March 30, 2013
The Queue: Unbearable
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. Chen jokes worst jokes.
dmezrahy asked:
Is it illegal to sell your WoW (or Battle.net) account?
It's not illegal in the strictest sense -- that is, there's no actual law against it -- but it is against the End-User License Agreement, which Blizzard requires you to legally agree to before you play the game. Some EULAs have been held up in court before as legally binding, but it's not like you'd go to jail if the cops found out you sold your WoW account. Blizzard would have to take action against you.
Dope_Danny asked:
So i've gotten 4 sigils of power for the legendary from lfr, but i wondered, since its a quest item and not on the loot table can you run lfr more than once to try and get more for the 10 total? or does it lock those out when the loot tables also locked out?
The sigils require that you loot the boss, which you can't do more than once a week.
Morgy asked:
Can I still get the Netherwing Drake? Is it still the same long grind?
You sure can. It's not so bad now -- the spawn rate of eggs was increased and (obviously) the mobs you fight will be no real challenge at 90.
forkezan12 asked:
Is there going to be a Hallow's End Guide for 2012?
There already is!
zengarzombolt11 asked:
is it logical to think that the pandarens that chose to join horde or alliance are minority?
i think the pandaren that came from the wandering isle is like less than 10% of the whole pandarens population.
Yeah, that's a safe assumption. Most of the pandaren on Pandaria are more focused on other things, like wanting to protect their homeland, than rushing off to join a foreign faction. That's why the Wandering Isle was a nice out.
Broleap asked:
whole, 2%, 1%, or skim? Or soy, for that matter
I drink 2% but I've never had a particular reason for it.
Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW Insider crew is here with The Queue, our daily Q&A column. Leave your questions in the comments, and we'll do our best to answer 'em! Tags: featured, guide, qa, question-and-answer, wow-answers, wow-daily-answers, wow-daily-questions, wow-guide, wow-player-questions, wow-q-and-a, wow-questionsFiled under: The QueueVengeance hotfixes explained
If you've never played a tank and are unaware of Vengeance, it's a tanking-specific ability that causes you to gain attack power equal to 2% of the damage taken from an enemy. Vengeance, therefore, makes a tank's attacks more powerful based on what's hitting them. This helps with threat generation, and gives tanks a way to keep aggro when faced with big-hitting DPS trying (intentionally or otherwise) to pull mobs off them. Vengeance has caused some discussion, granting tanks with huge chunks of attack power whenever people hit them in PvP, which was fixed a while back during Cataclysm. There have been a few changes to Vengeance lately, which have been causing a little confusion, so Blizzard Blue Daxxarri has stepped in to alleviate players' concerns.
DaxxarriThere has been some confusion about the recent changes to Vengeance that we'd like to clear up. Two things have changed with Vengeance lately: Oct 8 - Vengeance should now ramp up more quickly. Avoidance will now grant Vengeance based on the average damage of the avoided NPC auto-attack, instead of just refreshing existing Vengeance. This does not apply to enemy special attacks.
There should be an addition to this: Vengeance was also reduced by 10% at the time that hotfix was noted. We apologize for that being missed in the patch notes. Vengeance now accrues at a rate of 1.8% of damage taken, down from 2.0%.
Oct 16 - Fixed an issue with the way that Vengeance is calculated that could cause very large but infrequent spikes of damage to grant much more than the intended amount of Vengeance.
Based on the hits a tank takes, Vengeance attempts to predict what 50% of average Vengeance for that level of incoming damage will be, and bumps the tank straight to that level. However, it previously based that calculation on a 1.5 second attack speed. It now bases the calculation on the enemy's auto attack speed for auto attacks, and a 60 second interval for special attacks.
Tanks will still get the expected amount of Vengeance from the damage taken. This change just means that the first hit from a slow-attacking boss will bump Vengeance straight up to the expected amount.
Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.Tags: featured, hotfixes, vengeance, vengeance-calculation, vengeance-hotfixes, wow-hotfix, wow-hotfixesFiled under: Hotfixes, Mists of Pandaria
Friday, March 29, 2013
MMO Roundup: Last week on Massively
Sometimes, you'd like to know that there are other MMOs out there, right? It's not all WoW, all the time! Our sister site Massively can provide you with everything you need to know about all of the other MMOs around -- past, present and future.
EVE Online player loses tiny ship worth over $6,000EVE Online is well known for its sandbox gameplay and ruthless citizens, with monumental kills and record-breaking scams popping up year after year. Earlier this week, player "stewie Zanjoahir" reportedly lost over 213,000,000,000 ISK when he tried to transport a huge cache of valuable blueprints in a tiny, unfitted frigate. Through EVE's currency conversion, that's worth about $6,422.50 US.
League of Legends finals get some serious viewershipIf you're a League of Legends fan, odds are good you know all about the championships that took place recently. If you're not, however, you might be wondering whether or not this was really a big deal or just something the fans are fixated on. Turns out that it was kind of a big deal after all, as Riot Games has revealed that the live coverage of the finals was watched by over 8 million individuals, including more than 2 million from Korea.
Massively's hands-on with The Elder Scrolls Onlinehe Elder Scrolls Online has caused quite a clamor since it was first revealed back in May. MMO gamers are deeply divided about TESO, and some vocal potential players are most displeased to see the venerable sandbox world of Tamriel being reduced to yet another themepark MMO experience, but is that actually the case? Massively takes the game hands-on to find out!
Massively's week in reviewDon't let WoW Insider do all of the talking when it comes to Massively's best content of the week. The Massively staff themselves have picked out what they think is the best content their site has to offer in their own weekly roundup.Tags: eve, eve-online, featured, league-of-legends, massively, mmo-roundup, teso, the-elder-scrolls-onlineFiled under: MMO Roundup
The Light and How to Swing It: "Control" and the new tank gearing paradigm
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Protection specialist Matt Walsh spends most of his time receiving concussions for the benefit of 9 other people, obsessing over his hair, and maintaining the tankadin-focused blog Righteous Defense. I admit, I'm a bit of a jerk to have dropped the bomb that I did in my last column, regarding the new gearing paradigm described by Theck recently. It really is a huge shift for us and how we choose to gear ourselves, and I admit it is disconcerting at first glance. However, I assure you, it's based on solid theorycrafting and will allow you to tune your damage profile to something that will not only make your job easier, but your healers' as well.
Why so much hit and expertise?
So, as I explained in the last column, your gearing priorities will be the hit and hard (yes, hard) expertise cap, then focus on either haste or mastery, depending on taste (more on that ahead). Your dump/reforge-from stats will, sadly, be avoidance.
With regards to hit and expertise, the reason you want the maximum of both is due to the workings of our active mitigation system. In order to generate holy power, we need to hit things. Crusader Strike and Judgment must all connect to allow us to stack the good stuff (Avenger's Shield procs just need to be cast to build holy power). And thus, the more steady and guaranteed our holy power generation (HPG) is, the more reliably we can hit Shield of the Righteous and get its buff up.
The idea is that the more often you have up Shield of the Righteous, the more often you will be able to cut incoming physical damage by 30%, which can have a very positive effect on eliminating damage spikes. And while hard-capping expertise may seem extreme, it serves the same purpose as hit and expertise soft-cap in the pursuit of the spike-reduction goal. As Theck said in his first post on this subject,
The real eye-opener here is what expertise does to the large spikes [in the sim]. ... Stacking expertise up to hard cap dropped the frequency of [the largest damage-taken-per-second] spike events by a factor of 10 or more, down to 0.02% or less [compared to soft-capping].With expertise hard capped (along with hit capped), your HPG attacks cannot be dodged, blocked, or parried, and you are guaranteed the maximum uptime on your Shield of the Righteous buff. What follows is the best protection against the most deadly spikes that you can reasonably manage outside of the wishes-based strategy of going with avoidance gearing.
Remember that the bane of a tank's existence in a raid environment is going to be spikes. Big hits mean that your healers need to go into panic-mode and bomb you with their larger, more expensive heals, which will make it harder for them to make it to the end of the fight with their mana bar intact. Smaller hits over time are far more manageable. Likewise, you are far more likely to die from ill-timed spikes in a short period of time than you are from what has been called a "trickle death" (death by a thousand cuts, so to speak) over a longer period of time/over the course of the fight. In short, total damage reduction is not the way to go.
Ultimately, the name of the game for both you and your healers should be spike prevention. That is the road to more effective survivability.
Haste, really?
I agree, this sounds insane after multiple expansion packs of not even thinking hypothetically about that stat. However, Mists of Pandaria changed that when we were given access to Sanctity of Battle, which allows haste to modify the cooldown on Judgement and Crusader Strike, our two non-proc HPG abilities. As such, the more haste you have, the faster you can hit those buttons and generate holy power.
One of the benefits of having enough haste, that Theck sees, is being able to cover more hits with Shield of the Righteous (since you'll be able to use it more often). As he writes,
To clarify that thought: thanks to all that expertise, our HP flow is very steady, so we know we'll reliably get a SotR off at fairly regular intervals. For example, let's say we cast SotR to cover the first swing in our 5-swing period. With enough haste we're guaranteed to cover the last one as well. Note that [time between ShoRs] for the exp/haste set is around 6.7 seconds, fast enough that it will definitely cover both the first and last swings in a 7.5-second period. On the other hand, the exp/mastery set only gets SotR off every 7.3 seconds. There will be some variance on that due to CS/J clashes, so there will still be some events where we can only cover one swing of the five-swing period.He goes on to debate the value between favoring haste or favoring mastery (as those two stats are roughly equivalent). Mastery is better at the 80% spikes in his sims, while haste is better at the 90% spikes -- though, we're talking about probabilities of .3% to .01% here -- it's nonzero, but still noticeable.
The tie-breaker, however, is with regards to DPS. Haste is one of our best damage/threat stats, and if you're the kind of person who cares about your damage output while tanking (or raids in a setting where tank DPS can be a factor) then you will probably find value in choosing haste over mastery. At high Vengeance levels, haste is our best DPS stat after hit and expertise. Not to mention more haste means more Seal of Insight procs, as well as more Sacred Shield absorbs.
So, when it comes to choosing between haste and mastery, your choices are essentially a little extra survivability (.3% more) against the nearly-worst spikes or a little extra survivability (.01% more) against the worst spikes and a chunk of extra DPS. Personally, I think I'll be going for haste.
Is this really worth it for someone not doing heroic raids?
I would argue that it is. If you're doing any degree of raiding, you should care about your damage profile. Even in 10man raids (which I run), I want to be as easy to heal as humanly possible. I want to minimize spikes so that healers don't have to burn through their mana bringing me back from the edge of oblivion. No matter what format of raiding you engage in (aside from perhaps LFR?), you can eat a dangerous spike. This control style of gearing help mitigate that.
It's critical to note that the key to all of this is, as the name implies, control. You need to have control over your rotation, always generating holy power when an ability to do so is available. If you don't think you are doing the rotation optimally, this is not the ideal gearing strategy for you.
Nevertheless, in the end, isn't this all what tanks should care about most? Dealing with and lessening the absolute worst-case scenarios? Our stock and trade should always be cutting off any corner-cases like it's a sheet of paper on the Galactica. Anything you can do to bring your survivability more under your own control is an excellent and worthy goal.
The Light and How to Swing It shows paladin tanks how to take on the dark times brought by Cataclysm. Try out our four tips for upping your combat table coverage, find out how to increase threat without sacrificing survivability, and learn how to manage the latest version of Holy Shield. Tags: featured, guide-to-paladins, guide-to-pallies, guide-to-pallys, Haste, paladin-guide, paladin-info, paladin-protection-the-light-and-how-to-swing-it, paladin-talents, pally-guide, pally-info, pally-talents, protection-paladin-the-light-and-how-to-swing-it, wow-paladin, wow-paladin-info, wow-paladins, wow-pally, wow-pally-info
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Quest for Pandaria part 3 now available
You know, of all the things I mourned about Cataclysm, I think highest on the list would have to be the fate of the tol'vir. Despite being a fascinating race in their own right, one that was absolutely ripe for potential, their story was overshadowed by yet another jaunt with Harrison Jones. It was disappointing, particularly because the end of the tol'vir story arc was so open-ended. What happened after the war was completed? What of the tol'vir now? Quest for Pandaria attempts to answer a few of those questions in its latest installment as Chen Stormstout and his niece Li Li continue their search for the lost continent. Upon heading to the sandy deserts of Uldum, both Chen and Li Li come face to face with the aftermath of the tol'vir war -- and deal with the consequences of the fallout in their own way. It's another small glimpse of the elusive tol'vir race, this time illustrated through the eyes of complete strangers to tol'vir society.
And it's also another well placed step towards rounding out Chen's character. I love Chen Stormstout, and I love the direction they're taking him. This is the third chapter to the four-part story written by Sarah Pine, and I think it's my favorite so far. You can take a look at the chapter in its entirety in the Expanded Universe section of Blizzard's official website.
Tags: blizzard-entertainment, blizzard-short-stories, chen-stormstout, garrosh-heart-of-war, global-writing-contest, in-the-shadow-of-the-sun, li-li-stormstout, lore, pearl-of-pandaria, quest-for-pandaria, sarah-pine, shen-zin-su, short-story, tolvir, uldum, world-of-warcraft, wow, wow-short-storiesFiled under: Lore, Mists of Pandaria
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Officers' Quarters: Leading as a teen
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook. How young is too young to lead a guild? What do you do when your guild doesn't even know your true age? This week, a teen guild leader wonders how long he can keep things going.
Hi Scott.
I'm a fifteen year old teenager who loved Wow. A couple of months ago I joined this guild, it was a level three guild full of nice,social players. I loved the guild as it had a brilliant atmosphere. I joined there raid team and rose through the ranks to become an officer.
In August, I took two weeks off and when I returned the two guild leaders were absent. Neither of them had been online in a few days and members were leaving the guild.
So, I took over the guild and have begun rebuilding it. It is now a level 10 guild with nearly a full raid team. But, I am worried about a few things surrounding my leadership.
Hi, YAGL. First of all, I salute you for stepping up when the previous leaders disappeared. Taking over a guild is not an easy thing to do under any circumstances. When a guild is failing and leaderless, it is doubly difficult. It sounds like not only did you keep the guild alive, but you've managed to turn it around into a successful raiding guild. So, first and foremost, pat yourself on the back for that.As I have said, I'm only fifteen. None of my guild mates know my true age.
I also lead our raid team but as I am only fifteen I have no proper access to financial resources to rent a server for Ventrillo. And on top of all that I do not hold the rank of Guild Master as the old GM never promoted anyone. I am waiting till he's gone ninety days so I can officially take over.
My main question is, at my age how can I properly and fairly run this guild and get players interested in a raising guild who does not even have Ventrillo?
Please help!
Sincerely,
A young, anxious Guild leader.
Internet anonymity
The beauty and the curse of the Internet is that we're all, to some degree, anonymous. The beauty is that we can judge others based on their actions and not their appearance, race, or even in some cases gender. The curse is that people feel like they can get away with things that they otherwise wouldn't be able to.
In your case, anonymity has worked in your favor. Would they have followed you from the beginning if they knew your real age? I really can't say. The important thing, however, is that they are following you now. That has nothing to do with your age and everything to do with your actions.
Time to come clean
Now that you've had success as a leader, it's time to tell them. One way or another, people will eventually find out. You don't want to lie to them, and if you don't come clean, then sooner or later you will have to. They know the unfortunate circumstances that led to your promotion to guild leader, and I'm sure they are all grateful to you for keeping things together.
It doesn't have to be a big deal, and it shouldn't be at this point. Don't let anyone make it into one. Keep the focus of the discussion on your success as a leader, not on your age. You stepped up when no one else would -- don't forget that.
As for the Ventrilo situation, part of being honest with your guild can be to ask for help getting a server set up. Also, there are free alternatives to Vent, such as Mumble, Xfire, and Vivox.
Voice chat isn't 100% essential for raiding, but it is an incredibly powerful tool to have at your disposal. It can mean the difference between a wipe and a bonus roll button.
Teen leaders
If your guildmates can't look past your age, that isn't your problem -- it's theirs. History is full of amazing people who accomplished great things as teens: Joan of Arc and Alexander the Great were teenage military leaders. Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein when she was 19, and Bill Gates founded Microsoft at the same age. Louis Braille invented his system at 15. It's not impossible for a teenager to make a great guild leader, or to do anything else (legal) they put their mind to.
In this case, you've proven you can handle the job. You deserve to keep it and you deserve the respect of your guildmates. Don't hide who you are just to make them feel more comfortable.
/salute
Officers' Quarters keeps your guild leadership on track to cope with sticky situations such as members turned poachers or the return of an ex-guild leader and looking forward to what guilds need in Mists of Pandaria. Send your own guild-related questions and suggestions to scott@wowinsider.com. Tags: building-guilds, featured, guide, guide-to-officers, guild-advice, guild-leadership, guild-management, guild-officers, guilds-guide, leadership, officers-quarters, teen, teen-guild-leader, teen-leader, teen-officer, wow-guide, wow-guild-management, wow-guilds, wow-leadership