Posted on January 18th, 2010 by admin
Every Sunday Spiritual Guidance offers Holy and Discipline priests advice on how to wield the holy light and groove to the disco night. Your hostess Dawn Moore will provide the music.
I decided to take a break from gems this week to discuss a style of priest healing that is becoming popular among raiders: discipline raid healing. Though the concepts behind it are extremely simple to understand and execute, this style of play seems to have slipped under the radar of many players despite its amazing potential. Tag along with me after the jump and I’ll fill you in on the basics and benefits of disc raid healing. Holy priests, I’m talking to you, too.
Unfortunately for the average discipline priest, there were quick and inappropriate assessments made early in Wrath of the Lich King which tagged discipline as a “tank healing” spec. While I do agree that discipline’s burst response and damage mitigation lend themselves extremely well to healing a tank, there is a great deal of potential that will go untapped if a discipline priest never ventures outside of a little bit of cross healing. Take note – discipline priest are single target healers, not tank
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Posted on January 12th, 2010 by admin
Every so often, an email comes along the tip line that really gets the writers talking, and we received one such email last night from our reader Zikko, who was curious what people did while they were waiting for the Dungeon Finder to assign them a group (“Guess this only applies to DPS,” as he/she observed). While Zikko usually does dailies, watches TV, or farms mats for cooking and fishing, he/she wondered whether anyone had hit upon a better way to pass the time while the Dungeon Finder went on the search. I include the writers’ individual comments below, not just because it’s a nice “slice of life,” but I also think it’s a good peek at how different peoples’ experiences can be depending on the roles they play:
Matt Rossi: I have time to inhale a couple of times during the LFD queue.
Allison Robert: To amuse myself, I start counting, “One mississippi, two mississippi, three mississippi…” from releasing the mouse’s left button on the Join Group option and the queue popping. However, I am likely to discontinue the practice, as my brain is having increasing difficulty remembering what comes directly after
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Posted on January 7th, 2010 by admin
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com’s daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky be your host today.
The above picture continues my obsession with Dr. Who, thanks to Liz. I’m not saying there’s a space time disturbance here, or that something bad is about to happen. But it might, because there is a blue police box outside of my apartment.
Johnthediver asked…
“Dance studios? Still coming? I am sick and tired of doing the “Hammer” or head banging.”
We haven’t heard anything about it, so I’d imagine Blizzard is keeping news of it very close to their chest. We’ll know if it’s coming out in the next expansion when Cataclysm’s features become more apparent.
Fallen asked…
“Was just wondering if there was an age limit on the applications for the columnist positions?”
You have to be legally employable in your place of residence. WoW.com right now has staff from their mid-20s through 40s. If your city/county/state/country/planet says you can be employed at 3 years old, then you can work here. If it says you have to be 16, then you
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Posted on January 4th, 2010 by admin
Zach is a Battlegrounds junkie. Even when he’s hocking up asthma-generated globules of radioactive phlegm, he still manages to squeeze in a little slaughtering time.
Happy New Year, folks. I hope all of you had a good 2009 and are reading this without a lingering hangover or, like me, some form of bronchial complication stemming from the smog generated by all the festivities’ firecrackers. We’re kicking off 2010 with a quick look at the year that just passed, and boy, was it ever a good one.
More than any other year in the World of Warcraft, 2009 was a fantastic year for the Battlegrounds. Some very significant changes implemented that year renewed their relevance; furthermore, Battleground enthusiasts also received a verbal commitment from Blizzard developers that that aspect of the game would receive more focus and attention. The year began with the effects of Wrath spilling over from 2008, with the new and exciting Wintergrasp giving new life (and lag) to the world PvP experience. The first important change, however, was to come later with patch 3.1 in April 2009.
Queue anywhere, anytime
Patch 3.1 introduced the ability to queue from anywhere in the world,
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Posted on January 2nd, 2010 by admin
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com’s daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Michael Sacco will be your host today.
That’s influenza A virus subtype H1N1 up there, but I’m pretty sure you thought it was just a really blurry map of Northrend at first glance. I’m not wrong. You thought it.
Mr. Shinra asked…
Why exactly are there places where we suddenly and magically cannot mount up (I mean *aside* from combat which is obvious), such as getting killed by the trash after Ionar in Halls of Lightning and having to run all the way back. You’ve seen how big and expansive those halls are, I don’t see a major reason why we cannot mount up to get back a bit quicker. At least in Culling of Stratholme we can ride from that house to the city proper– so its not a consistent rule entirely either.
I’m not suggesting there aren’t places where it makes a bit more sense; I can understand small areas such as the various vendors in Orgimmar and their tiny huts, where there just isn’t enough room, but a lot of the times, it seems like we have to dismount because… the game
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Posted on December 29th, 2009 by admin
Karen sent in this murloc-tastic screenshot with this description: I grabbed this while doing some tribal outreach/assassination work for D. E. H. T. A.. I call it “I come in peace! Pay no attention to the felguard behind the axe.” Keywords: Azeroth, felguard action shot, this costume makes me look fat.” Not that fat, Karen, just big-boned.
Do you have any unusual, beautiful or interesting World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We’d love to see them on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!
Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word “Azeroth” in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing — use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, Val’kyr on mounts, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran. Older screenshots can be found here.
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Posted on December 24th, 2009 by admin
Usually, I am the ‘perfectionist tank’ in a run. I want things to go perfectly: I want to never lose aggro, I want the DPS to all attack the proper target, I want the healer to, well, okay, I mostly just want the healer to heal us, I’m not looking for anything fancy there. As long as a healer seems to be casting healing spells I’m willing to cut her or him a lot of slack, especially in dungeons like Halls of Reflection where people often die through not moving out of giant, inky pools of blackness on the floor that they stand in as if they were instead duck ponds full of adorable baby ducklings. There are no ducklings in the fetid wells of corruption, guys.
Last night, however, I had a sort of small revelation. First and foremost, I was stressing myself way the heck out over a pick up group with four folks I was likely never to see again. Secondly, the faster you go in a PuG, the less likely perfection is to be attainable, and if four people want speed and one guy wants flawless, you’ll get very fast flaws. So that meant I’ve come up with an entirely new tanking philosophy for the new five mans, and an entirely new way to gear for them.
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Posted on December 21st, 2009 by admin
Zach is a Battlegrounds freak. Even if he doesn’t raid or quest or sell things at the auction house, he’ll make sure to get a small dose of Battlegrounds PvP to brighten up his day. You should, too. They’re like vitamins. Bloody, face-melting, honor-gaining, sword-clashing vitamins.
This little thing called patch 3.3 came out some time back, maybe you’d heard. I had planned it to be my return from an unintentionally self-imposed hiatus from hardcore play, considering that all the tools would now be in place to allow all players of all gear levels to catch up the the penultimate level of content. It was a good plan, except that a few things here and there kept me from jumping right into it when the Fall of the Lich King went live.
The new Dungeon Finder system is getting rave reviews from everyone who’s tried it. I think it’s an awesome tool — quite possibly one of the best things to happen to the game. The coolest thing about it for me is that the concept stemmed from the Battlegrounds! That’s right… the Battlegroup-wide grouping system is inspired by the way Battlegrounds get players from various realms from way back since
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Posted on December 17th, 2009 by admin
Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we discuss some of the tips and tricks to remember when raiding Icecrown Citadel.
With patch 3.3’s release last week, we saw a brand new tier of raid content released. Our mission to assassinate Arthas while he sits upon his throne has reached its conclusion. After dealing with the immediate threat of Yogg-saron’s corruption and proving ourselves in the Argent Tournament, we’ve been selected as the agents of the Lich King’s demise. We haven’t come this far to fail now!
Before we can walk in and show Frostmourne and company what’s up, we have to cut our teeth on Arthas’ doorkeepers first. The first four bosses of Icecrown Citadel are now available to tackle, and provide some of the most interesting and innovative mechanics that we’ve seen in a boss fight yet. Considering that you’ll be facing these same 4 bosses for the new few weeks, it provides a great opportunity to really learn the fights and capitalize on any tricks that will keep you alive. Read on for my
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Posted on December 14th, 2009 by admin
It was a dark and stormy night. It all started with a one drink. Isn’t that how it always goes? One tough raid is followed up with some drinks to calm the nerves. One drink leads to another and you start thinking about doing crazy things.
Crazy things like jumping into pugs using the new random dungeon finder tool.
I hadn’t done it yet myself and I know the people I’ve spoken with said they’ve had nothing but good things to say about it. But I’m a skeptic. What’s the worst thing that could possibly happen? Maybe I’ll get stuck with a party that has never done Oculus before with a tank that’s no where near defense capped. But what are the odds of that happening, right?
I’m not much of a talker when it comes to dungeon running. My job is there to heal and ensure a stable run. I enjoy the silence and the peace. One of the things I like to do is inspect people just to check them out, you know? I like to see what kind of gear players are packing. It’s not indicative of their skill, but it kind of represents the time investment they’ve spent on their character (usually, anyway).
The tank? He was sporting a nice shield
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