The new tier 10 armor sets. This might be enough to make me pass on any gear rolls in the new 3.3 raids (assuming I could actually get into them in the first place.)
So here they are, in all their, ahem, glory.
I think Bliz needs to look into Aion’s armor remodeling system.
Weool Ok… the servers aren’t up yet (as I write this) but the patch is finally here. Rumor has it that this is the biggest patch Bliz has ever provided.
Naturally there will be a few bugs coming along with the patch, and no, they’re not the ones you’ll kill to earn XP. As an aside, it’s be kinda interesting to be able to code a hack that fixes a game bug and get Bliz to pay you for it.
Anyway, the full patch notes are in the usual place so check them out. Here are my remarks on miscellaneous points:
Mounts can now swim.
Trainers, having decided that their trainees can’t read, have done away with the course requirements for books and will now teach those skills directly.
Dual Talents – Now you can have two builds to switch between. For example, one for raiding and one for PvP. The only downside is that it costs 1,000 gold to get the ability.
Glyphs – A bunch of new glyphs are being introduced and a bunch of old glyphs have been changed. You no longer need to be near a lexicon of power to install glyphs.
And the most important, game-changing, change of all: New music can be heard at the Argent Tournament grounds and in Ulduar.
All classes get a couple of pages of changes, except Warriors and Warlocks, who get a few lines each. Guess that means that Warriors and Rogues are nearly perfect. Looks like there are more than a few buffs in the list of changes. A few nerfs, too. I’m looking forward to Rogues now being in demand for raids. Oh, Ok, I’m awake now… what was I saying?
Enough changes have been made to talents and spells that everyone (except Rogues and Warriors?) will get a free respec and should visit the trainer the get new spells.
Armor Penetration has been buffed. All classes now get 25% more effect from it. The main visible change of this will be to drop PvP survivability in the BGs (at level 80) from 1 second to 0.9 seconds.
The Fear mongers on the house have had a bit of a nerf. The fear (and related abilities) break sooner now.
DKs, Pallies, and Droods, the classes most in need of a buff, now receive 30% more haste from Haste Rating.
Alchemy – Several Flask changes, introduction of Northrend Mixtures, and secret Alchemist loot caches (from the Bosses) in Uldar.
Blacksmithing – New recipes from Uldar and an upgrade to some recipes in the 1-300 range to make them useful.
Cooking – I’ll pass these on to my wife and she’ll update our cookbooks (Tauren Chef and Wrath of the Kitchen King) appropriately.
Enchanting and Engineering: have some updates and tweaks.
Fishing – You can now catch a mount! It’s pretty rare, though. Also, you can now fish anywhere.
Gathering skills – For some time low-level twinks have been able to get to 450 mining and skinning (for the crit and stam buffs.) No longer, there’s now a level requirement for those skills.
Inscription – More recipes and quite a number of Glyph changes.
Uldar bosses – will, rarely, be dropping recipes for several professions.
There’s a bunch of interface tweaks
Lots of little item changes, but if you use Glyphs (you are, aren’t you?) you will want to check it out. There have been some significant changes.
Lots of little bug fixes.
So all in all there’s a lot there. Something for everyone and all that.
The Patch has landed.
1.2 gigs of data, wow. Not so bad if you’ve been playing regularly, the background downloaded already has it. If you’ve taken a break for awhile, well… 🙂
From the new splash screen when you log in to the modified talents and trees to the new Inscription skill, there are a lot of changes here. Check out the Latest Patch Notes for details. Also keep in mind that the patch has probably broken at least some of your addons. I referred to that previously and linked to an addon update list.
So what I’ve put together here is a collection of posts regarding the new talents and builds. I did this previously (Level 80 WoW Talents And Builds) and this new post links to new and, hopefully, updated info.
Dual Talent Builds and What’s Not in This Patch:
Dual Talent Specs – At last — “…And my personal favorite: Dual Talent Specs. This new feature should be added to the game in one of the content patches following the release of Wotlk. Hopefully in Patch 3.1.” What does that mean? It means you’ll be able to save 2 different Talent Specs for your characters, and that you’ll be able to switch between the two as much as you want, any time you want, besides while in combat or in arenas.
Breaking News: Patch 3.0.2 will not contain all major class changes – There were spells and abilities missing, talents not enumerated, and generally the notes looked as if they were lifted from a version of the game done a few weeks ago. Apparently this was intentional. Ghostcrawler made a post moments …
Class Talent Discussions:
Hunters: BigRedKitty: 3.0.2 Hunter talent trees – The major purpose of this column is to give you, the WoW Insider reader, a point of reference. You know our writing, you know our play-style. You should know our limitations and the areas at which we’re not too shabby. …
Warlocks: Patch 3.0.2 primer for Warlocks – In fact, out of all the 11-point talents, Soul Link is the only one that should give us any pause for thought. Considering that for about a month, we can only allocate up to 10 points in another tree if we choose to get a 51-point …
Mages: Mage WotLK Talents & Developer Q & A – She has done a great job already working with many of classes and now she’s finally making it to the mage class, particularly the information regarding the new spell frostfire bolt. Initially I really didn’t understand the purpose of …
Priests: Spiritual Guidance: Patch 3.0.2 – Holy and Disc Priest talent review – This post will cover all of the new Holy and Discipline talents that will be accessible when the patch becomes live. Not only that, I’ve offered up some suggestions on different builds to remain raid viable (at least to the rare few …
Shaman: Going Resto in Three-point-Oh – New Talent: Cleanse Spirit (Requires 5 points in purification and 30 points in Restoration) – 1 point – Cleanse the spirit of a friendly target, removing 1 poison effect, 1 disease effect, and 1 curse effect. Shaman get an all-in-one …
Warriors: The Care and Feeding of Warriors: The Door Swings Open Pt 1 – Honestly, the difficulty here is not in finding good protection talents you can spec into, it’s in picking which ones to talk to you about now. Some of these talents (like Gag Order) only get really good once you have abilities you …
Ferals: 3.0.2 for Feral Druids – In a few hours, when the servers come back up, patch 3.0.2 is going to hit, and WoW will change drastically. Every tree is get revamped to a greater or lesser extent, and extended up to 51-point talents. The Feral tree changes, …
Rogues: Four Seasons of TBC, Rogue 3.0 Specs – However, without prep which mutilate doesn’t get until WOTLK, the spec is severely lacking in outs and terrible at catching mages, one of the most dominant classes in 3.0. For offensive comps, perhaps a prep spec is still worth …
Paladin: Prot Paladin Talent Build – Block hurts them afterall. We’ll see. Lastly no Holy, nothing in the Ret tree beyond the above, and as the levels tick toward 80, they’ll all get spent in the Prot tree. Tagged: build, Paladin, pally, prot, talent.
Tankadin Preparing Your Tankadin for Patch 3.0: Part 3: Changed Tools – 10/8 – Part 3: Changes to Existing Talents and Spells 10/9 – Part 4: New Talents, and suggested Trees 10/10 – Part 5: The New Threat Rotation or 96969 10/11 – Part 6: Threat Stats for Protection Paladins and Tank Gear Reitemization …
That should be enough to chew on for now. Feel free to comment or, if you like the post, use the share buttons below.
PS: Wrath is bringing a lot of changes and Northrend is a pretty good sized place with a lot going on. Take a good look at the Killer Guides’ Wrath of the Lich King guide – It will make your trek to 80 much easier and much more lucrative.
The Wrath is coming. Time to hide.
Of course, one of the big changes in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion is the changes to all the various talent trees. As you probably know, Blizzard isn’t just adding a few new talents or increasing the level cap to 80. No no no, there’s a little more to it than that – they’re making large changes to existing talents and shuffling around their exact position in the talent trees.
So what I’ve put together here is a collection of posts, from various places, that discuss the level 80 talents and changes. Some of these also offer build suggestions, both from raiding and PvP points of view. In addition, If you want to play around with talent builds for your own characters you’ll find the level 80 WoW talent calculator here.
Of course, the changes aren’t 100% finished, all of this is still in beta test, and Blizzard has been known to make big last minute changes. We can count on more changes along with the usual collection of nerfs and maybe some buffs. Still, it’s a place to start thinking about how you might spec your characters when you upgrade to Wrath.
Update 10/14: The 3.0 patch has arrived and here’s an update post on what’s happening with the WoW Talents and Builds.
’nuff said, here ya go!
WotLK: Build 8962 – 4 Extra Points for Frost – When the WotLK expansion hits, as I level up, I will start filling in the Arcane tree until I get Focus Magic. When I hit 80 and start raiding again, the talent build that I will most likely be using is this: 80 PvE/PvP Frost.
WotLK Paladins May Have “Shocking†Potential – All of the above said, the following, were I to PvP as a Shockadin at level 80, would be my talent build without question:. Allow me a couple caveats with the above build: …
Tanked! Revaluing Feral Combat Talents in Beta Build 8926 – The pictured talent build is essentially what I’d like to be using at 80. All PH NYI (place holder, not yet implemented) talents are now “live†on beta, and it’s pertinent to note that the talent “Mother Bear†has been renamed to the …
Want to hit level 80 fast? Looking for ways to familiarize yourself with Northrend without wasting valuable playtime running around in circles? Check out the Killer Guides’ Wrath guide and get ready to go before the expansion hits.
Shock and Awe: The Art of Dual Shockadins in WotLK – Both of these assumptions are based off of items I found in the WotLK database at WoWhead situated around an item level of 200 (the item level which seems to be the base for epics at level 80). In addition to these two assumptions, …
Why 3.0 will change Arena entirely – Much like when Blizzard imeplemented the WoW 2.0 41-point talent trees into the game shortly before TBC, and much of the dissaray it caused, the WoW 3.0 talents are almost entirely based around players being level 80 and consequently …
Truckload ‘o Changes – At level 80, this 80 spellpower. Much higher than it was before. I believe it is still weaker than Flametongue Totem and doesn’t stack with it. Twin Disciplines – The tooltip was fixed to read: Increases your spell power on instant …
8926 DK changes, Blue Posts, and Site News – They may be fun in that you get a lot for your money, but they work against the design goal of being able to build a customized talent tree for your character. They also make spec parity or class balance a lot harder when there are …
A look at our Bear Tanking future in Wrath – Clearly (I hope) a class that could do rogue-level dps and warrior-level tanking with the same talent build is the kind of thing that makes other players a little miffed. But we’re reevaluating a lot of old (and some admittedly tired) …
[Druid] The 3.0 patch – cat build edition – That’s about .66% dps per talent point, which just isn’t that good. This may not make the cut at level 80; it’s still lower per point than master shapeshifter. Rend and Tear barely makes the cut. Assuming that you’re only hitting …
WotLK Hunter Pets – Major Changes – Pets will still have to level to some degree, but it will be a lot more transparent than it is now. A level 1 beast trained by a level 80 hunter will hop to level 70 instantly. That way the pet isn’t completely useless while you try
Edit: Big Red Kitty says – Beta Talent Builds, Just Say No – “OK, see? The hunter class is going to be totally mixed up. Anything and everything people have said, including us, is kaput and moot.”
Edit: By the way, don’t forget to grab your free Death Knight Starter Area Leveling Guide.
Agility is the most wanted stat for [tag-tec]Rogues[/tag-tec] and [tag-tec]Hunters[/tag-tec], but a few other classes have some degree of use for agility as well. So what does a point of Agility get you, if you’re Rogue? Here are some numbers, taken from WoWwiki.
At all levels, 1pt of Agility (for Rogues, [tag-tec]Warriors[/tag-tec], and Hunters) = 1 Ranged Attack Power (AP)
At all levels, 1pt of Agility (for Rogues, Cat Druids, and Hunters (not Warriors)) = 1 Melee Attack Power (AP)
Other classes get no benefit to their Attack Power from Agility.
At all levels, for anyone, 1 point of Agility = 2 armor points
It also adds to crit rating and defense, but in a variable amount.
At level 70, Rogues and Hunters need 40 agility to gain 1% crit chance, Warriors need 33, and everyone else needs 25.
For their Dodge chance, druids need 14.7, rogues need 20, most everyone else needs 25, and hunters need 26.5.
Gear and Agility
For comparing different items of gear there is the Agility Equivalent Points (AEP) system. This attempts to take any of the value any particular piece of gear might have and give it a value in AEP. As I understand this, you can now campare item A (with X Ag and whatever other goodies) with item B (having Y agility and whatever bonuses.) So each point of Agility, Stamina, Armor, Hit Rating, Attack Power, etc. will all have AEPs.
Of course, how many AEP each item is worth will vary depending on whether you’re leveling, grinding, PvPing, or Raiding. For example, Resiliance gets a fairly high rating in PvP, but very little for raiding.
Talent builds will change the values as will exactly how you play your characters.
Here’s an example set of values, for PvE (Raids,) from the Pawn Addon Forum where it’s discussed in more detail:
Agility 1
Stamina 0.5
CritRating 1
HitRating 1
Ap 0.5
Strength 0.5
RedSocket 8
YellowSocket 8
BlueSocket 8
For PvP one might use these values:
Agility 1
Stamina 1
Resilience 1
CritRating 1
HitRating 1
Ap 0.5
Strength 0.5
RedSocket 8
YellowSocket 8
BlueSocket 8
Note the increase in the value of Stam for PvP and the addition of resiliance.
Here’s an example: If we take the Gladiator’s Leather Helm, one the the PvP items, we can take it’s numbers and get an AEP value: 34 (Ag) + 53 (Stm) + 8 (Red Socket) + 13 (Crit) + 23 (res) + 18 (1/2 AP) = 149.
You’ll have to come up with a value for armor, the meta socket, and the set bonuses, but it’s a start.
The Elitist Jerks forum has a long discussion on how it all works, oriented towards Hunters, but generally useful for those of you who are more into the exact calculations.
So if you’re looking at nice items from raiding, PvP, or crafting you can use this system to compare them and make a reasonable estimate of which is best.
More on AEP:
Rogues: AEP (MAEP) and you! – Around May of 2005, Ming started a thread on the Rogue forums where he was devising an Agility comparison system for comparing gear using the formula 10 Agility = 10 Stamina = 20 Strength = 20 Attack Power = 1% Crit. …