This site makes extensive use of JavaScript.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser.
News
Live
Mists of Pandaria Spell Animations
Since we
last covered new spell animations
, there's been even more visual changes to class abilities! Minor glyphs on the beta have awesome cosmetic effects, new spells have distinctive looks, and classes like Monks and Warlocks continue to get a lot of flair.
We didn't want any class to feel left out, so we made sure to highlight cool visual effects for every class this time, as well as providing ability descriptions and level information so you'll know exactly how to spec to look good!
Big thanks to
Esoth
and
Binkenstein
for letting me take pictures of their beta characters.
Be sure to click the tabs to see your favorite classes' visual changes!
Death Knight
Charred Glyph
, minor glyph: When used outside of combat, your Horn of Winter ability causes a brief, localized snow flurry.
Glyph of the Geist
, minor glyph: Your Raise Dead spell summons a geist instead of a ghoul.
[screenshot id=294743 width=25
Live
News Round Up: Mistweaver Changes, New Beta Spellbook, and More
There's been many blue posts related to the Mists of Pandaria beta this weekend:
Blue feedback on Mistweaver
Monk
s,
for Feral
Druid
s,
for
Hunter
s, and Demonology
Warlock
s.
The ability to respec on beta will be available soon--in the next patch or so.
Ghostcrawler explains the pros and cons behind the new spellbook redesign.
The 2012 Arena Pass registration is now open.
Finally, Blizzard put together a mini-guide to Cataclysm for Scroll of Resurrection players.
Click the cut to see the full list of posts.
Monk: Mistweaver Feedback
We're thinking that
Tiger Palm
and
Expel Harm
saw a bit too much increase to mana last patch, and we’re going to reduce them somewhat.
We’ve increased the mana gain from
Mana Tea
. This spell will change whenever we tune mana and healing numbers, which has been happening a lot lately.
We've changed the number of serpent statues you can have out at once from 2 to 1. However, while in
, you now have
on yourself, causing half of yo
Live
Mists of Pandaria: Jade Forest Preview and News Round Up
We were lucky enough to preview the start of the Jade Forest questline in beta before the zone was later closed! Here's a peek at the cutscene for the Alliance--as covered in our
Press Event
coverage, it's quite different than the cutscene for the Horde with a very angry Garrosh.
We've also got screenshots of the initial Alliance and Horde questing hubs in The Jade Forest, as well as some of the Temple of the Jade Serpent!
Be sure to check out our recent Mists of Pandaria beta coverage--this weekend alone we
updated our talent calculator
to have talents and abilities for ALL classes, including monks, as well as footage of redone
Scholomance
,
Scarlet Monastery
, and
Ragefire Chasm
.
Alliance
Live
Mists of Pandaria 2012 Press Event: Full Monk Talents Revealed and More!
The NDA is lifted! We can now talk about the Mists of Pandaria press event we were invited to last week. From building your own farms to talents and specializations for Monks, we've got it all and we're ready to share.
Check out our exclusive interviews with Blizzard
and
the Mists of Pandaria official FAQ
for even
more
information.
Here's some of the bigger points of interest:
Garrosh will be this expansion's final boss
.
Female pandaren were revealed
.
Eleven character slots
will let everyone try out a monk.
A new faction lets player have their own farms in-game
. They will be able to manage livestock and more all the while gaining reputation. Other factions will offer other activities, from raising a serpent to become your mount to defending outposts for dailies.
Cooking will have four specializations
allowing for customized food.
Prime glyphs ha
Live
Free to Play: Getting the Most out of Starter Edition Accounts
Last month, Blizzard introduced free-to-play Starter Edition Accounts. With these accounts, players could level up to 20--of course with some restrictions--and play for free indefinitely. It's an easy way for new players to test out the game, but it's also gained popularity among twinks who are looking for even more of a challenge with in-game restrictions. We've covered all the things you can and can't do on a trial account below.
Activating an Account
Players can get a Starter Account edition by visiting
the home page
, receiving a Recruit-a-Friend invitation, or through a trial key obtained from other Blizzard products.
Once signed up, you will be prompted to download the game, which can be played as the streaming client downloads data in the background.
Previous trial accounts made before 4.2, which had expired, are permanently reactivated. Characters level 20 and below on these accounts can be played again.
Upgrading an Account
Upgrade Online: Use [url=
https://us.battle.net/login/en/?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fus.battle.net
Live
Leveling 201: A Guide to More Enjoyable Leveling
Leveling in Cataclysm is easy; but with all the additions, there's bound to be something surprising, whether you're a veteran or on your first alt. For better or for worse, Cataclysm has streamlined questing--but has also featured alternative ways to gain experience if questing becomes tedious on your 5th alt. Personally, I've leveled toons numerous ways: a rogue to 85 through questing on the first day of the xpac, a warlock in legacy epics through mining, a priest in full BoAs primarily through instances, a rogue strictly through herbalism, and a DK questing in half-BoAs. I've got a mage at 62 that's currently done a lot of LFD, but outpacing the quests for particular zones drives her crazy with the lore and consistent plot lines. I have friends that wait for Alterac Valley weekend for leveling, another that leveled a toon through LFD with 0 quests completed on purpose, and some insane guildmates that have leveled multiple toons through Archaeology in the hopes of getting an elusive epic (cough,
Zin'rokh, Destroyer of Worlds
) for their mains. Big thanks to Psynister for his expert leveling advice!
Once you hit 85, all the new Justice Point gear, Molten Front dailies, and Firelands rep farming await, so let's highlight all the ways you can get th
Live
New Ghostcrawler Blog: Cataclysm Talent Tree Post-Mortem
Ghostcrawler's back after a hiatus from posting his developer blogs and this time he wants to talk talent trees. A lot of us aren't a big fan of the new trees, especially because it feels foreign to take an entire tree without looking up; frequently a good spec boils down to a cookie cutter spec with 1-2 points in a different ability or two.
Then again, cookie cutters
were
always popular--even in vanilla. Cataclysm just
streamlined
them. All in all, this is an excellent post-mortem into why Blizzard changed talents and how they feel about it currently, even if the system has its detractors. It's also a good examination into mastery and early leveling as well as endgame goals.
You may have noticed we changed class talent trees for Cataclysm. We changed not just the trees themselves, as you might expect for an expansion, but the entire structure of the trees and the way you choose talents. Now that the Cataclysm model has been in play for several months, the team has been discussing what we like and don’t like about it, and I thought that might be of interest to some of you. As always with this series, this is design rumination,
Live
Bind to Battle.net Account Heirloom Items Coming in 4.1?
We were taking a peek at some of the
awesome Heirloom items
we discovered in today's PTR patch and noticed a majorly interesting detail: heirlooms will now
Bind to Battle.net account
! It seems that this feature has been added not only to the newly added heirlooms but to all previously implemented heirloom items as well! We have absolutely no idea how transferring these items between characters on different servers and whatnot will work, but we'll definitely update with any details we're able to find! Maybe we'll see a detailed Blizzard post on this real soon™!
We'll (of course) have our
PTR database
updated as soon as possible to support this change. :)
Live
News Roundup: Blizzard Posts on New Ink Traders, LFD, Tol Barad and more!
Yay for Blue posts finally starting up again! Unfortunately, it seems that most of the threads addressed today involve topics which have already been commented on in the past. However, further clarification from Blizzard on
anything
is always appreciated!
Today's topics include:
Ink Traders Coming to Stormwind and Orgrimmar
Improving Looking For Dungeon Queues
"Linear" Cataclysm Leveling Content
Potential Tol Barad Changes
Improving Outland Leveling
Check out the full Blizzard posts after the break!
Live
News Roundup: Blue Posts, World of StarCraft, WoW in the Classroom
Not a whole lot of
new
info being provided by Blizzard, but still some interesting Blue posts today and over the weekend! Today's topics include:
Providing Detailed Raid & Dungeon Information In-Game
Using PVP Gear In PVE
Healing Being Hard
Leveling Fast in Outland
In addition, I've found some interesting World of Warcraft-related articles for you guys - one involving the creator of the now-infamous World of StarCraft mod that you guys
may have heard about
and another about a revolutionary "
WoW in School
" program shared between two middle schools! I wish I could have been playing WoW when I was in class... oh well, at least we had
SimCity 2000
!
Be sure to check out the full posts and article links after the break!
1
2