World of Warcast: A World of Warcraft Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

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Special guest Ali (@aliandrask) joins us to talk about the difficult subject of the Activision Blizzard lawsuit.
Mike announces that he's leaving the show, but fear not!…Renata will be taking it over!!

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Our week in WoW…well, Ren's because Mike was working on the house all week.
Could the game be even more alt-friendly?
Be nice when reporting issues to WoWhead!
The new job posting for an unannounced IP - what could it be?
Strategies for multiple alts

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More Shadowlands discussion with Mike and Renata.

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Ren:
Started an orc death knight - level 69 in Northrend
Fisherfriends of the Isles - all but Akule Riverhorn
Sort of in a holding pattern - finishing zones with paladin, rep, that sort of thing
Most “finished” characters are druid and rogue in terms, but not sure going to start with those in BfA

Mike:
Horde side scenario is epic. Alliance will have one later, I’m sure.
Alani
Underrot

This Week in WoW:
Lich King Timewalking
Glowcap Festival Mini-Event
Drugon the Frostblood
Mage Tower active on North American realms

News
Mythic +15 appearances obtainable in Battle for Azeroth
Can either complete it before August 13, or wait a few weeks for Mythic difficulty to open back up after BfA launch
Confirmed only artifact appearance that will be obtainable after BfA launches are the Mage Tower base appearance.
BfA will have 18 character slots per realm

News BfA BETA
Environmental changes after the battles:
Alliance: After Siege of Lordaeron, Darnassian refugees in Stormwind Harbor and you can no longer take the boat to Darnassus. There is now a portal.
You cannot travel to the zone because fatigue will kill you.
Talk to Zidormi in Darkshore to witness Darnassus before the siege.
Similar story for Horde: zep to UC no longer works, portal to Ruins of Lordaeron
Entering the zone will kill you
Talk to Zidormi in Tirisfal to witness Tirisfal before the Battle for Lordaeron

Reputation Rewards - list of all the goodies (what to focus on depending on your interests). If you’re into:

FROM THE DISCORD
Naked & Afraid Challenge officially ending June 1. This is as much to give people time to finish leveling up characters without the restrictions before the expansion hits.

3 new finishers! Please let me know if I missed anyone:
Boomstyx, orc Beastmaster hunter: 3 days 11 hours 47 minutes (current leader!)
Gautama, panda brewmaster monk: 5 days 8 hours 30 minutes
Zignea, human arms warrior: 7 days 7 hours 4 minutes (current winner of “Most Persistent”)

Lots of discussion generated by the question: who are you leveling first?

MOD OF THE CAST: ShutUpRhonin

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BfA Alpha

Dungeons
Waycrest Manor
Freehold
Temple of Sethraliss

Had to start over
Was able to go through the initial scenario, but the key cutscenes are placeholders.
“Cool cutscene”
Ali went through horde starting scenario, followed by amazing Escape from Stockades scenario.
Both Horde and Alliance zones are gorgeous!

Professions are sort of in
You can train, but no vendor for BfA tradeskill mats. Old school tradeskill mats vendor is there.
Fishing trainer added this week, only trains up to Pandaria fishing (Ali fished up Midnight Salmon)
Herbalism: herbs are not just in the ground. Star Moss grows on walls, Siren’s song grows out of trees...refreshing change

Mike
Making up the money I spent on the T3 chestpiece.
Problem - Vial of the Sands sells for garbage on my server (69,000g)
No mounts this week
Started going through ALL my screenshots. 103GB of them.
Sorted by expansion
May split them between characters.
Found out that I was leveling TWO mages at the same time on two servers.
Apparently I was on Aggramar and don’t remember why.
I also moved toons around a lot and don’t remember why.

Ali
Still trying for Invincible….Arthas is a bitch
Raid is working on trying to get Ahead of the Curve achievement together. Heroic Coven is a struggle. Going to get lockouts-Skipping it to work on Aggramar and Argus.
Halfway through Field Medic (got some repeat quest drops)
Really starting to focus on my N&A toon
Ren called for June 1st to official deadline. Can still work on it and complete it but after deadline, finishers won’t be announced on the show. Summer gets busy. Maybe a new challenge at some point? Never know with Ren!
My N&A toon is almost 65, determined to get it done in time
Ren spoke again about starting a Warcast guild on Silvermoon-US. Alliance side? We’ve been discussing different names on discord!

News:
Blizzcon tickets went on sale
Several people helping others to get tickets.
Both waves of tickets are over.
Don’t buy scalped tickets. Better to see if anyone has any extras.
GCD is a Big Thing™
Racials will be removed from the GCD
http://www.wowhead.com/news=283908/comprehensive-list-of-abilities-added-to-the-gcd-in-battle-for-azeroth#mage
Mage:
Time Warp
Charged Up (Arcane)
Arcane power (Arcane)
Spring Balloon Fest going on now until tomorrow
War Mode available.
Have not tested it yet
I might test it just to see how it goes, but will not be a permanent change for me.

Talking weapons transmog will still talk?

Don’t DDoS Blizzard
Romanian man extradited and sentenced to one year for DDoS in 2010
Also has to pay almost $30k

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Ren:
Success on BunofSteel and “the wolf in sheep’s clothing”
Fisherfriends fun - though if you have a choice, don’t do melee
Soloing normal dungeons

Mike:
T3 chest!
BfA beta walkthrough
Green proto-drake
Primal Fire
i1000 chest

This Week in WoW
Pet Battles
Children's Week starts Monday 30th - through Monday 7th
Volunteer Guard Day Mini-event Saturday the 28th
Next week: Burning Crusade Timewalking

Q&A
Ion spent a lot of time covering the change to GCD
They still want feedback wrt how the class feels
Some abilities such as Charge, Infernal Strike and Heroic Leap for warriors and DIsengage for hunters being taken off GCD
In Final Fantasy XIV, everything is on GCD, but the GCD is 2.5s, but can be reduced with gear.
They want people to make decisions - A or B instead of A and B.
Azerite Power being renamed Artifact Power
There will be a way to respec traits.
Talking about adding in that functionality later, and a return to the old respeccing a la vanilla (paying an increasing scale for respecs, with decay)
BfA should be more alt-friendly.
Heart of Azeroth -- universal for all specs instead of having to develop AP in multiple weapons
New BGs called Epic Battlegrounds
Large battlegrounds are being split off
Removing blacklisting from Battlegrounds
Strand of the Ancients is being removed in BfA (not sure if temporary or permanent)
Ashran is being temporarily retired.
No plans to deactivate racials in rated PvP
All loot will be personal loot
Will still be flagged going into an enemy major city, whether you are in War Mode or not

More BfA stuff
Battle Pets in beta:
Some nerfs incoming:
Bone Serpent: swapped positions of Call Darkness and Lift-Off
Practical upshot: This is a huge nerf. Call of Darkness now shares the slot with Nocturnal Strike. Call of Darkness blinds all pets, and Nocturnal Strike always hits if the target is Blinded. In combination, this is huge. Having to choose between them now significantly reduces its power. (Workaround: do the Frostfur Rat with Call Darkness and Sneak Attack)
Crow and Gilnean Raven: -200 power, +200 speed
Cyclone: Damage changed from 7 to 3-7
Haunt: returns the pet at 50% health instead of 100
Teroclaw Hatchling: Dodge and Nature's Ward will now occupy the same tier as will Hawk Eye and Ravage.
Practical upshot: Slot 2 will now put Dodge (4 round cooldown) and Nature's Ward (5 round heal) on same tier, basically making you choose between damage mitigation or pet heal.
Pet Battle World Quests incoming and will scale to the highest pet on your team (NOT apply to wild pets outside world quests)
New pet battle mechanics:
Random weather effects
More heals that have increased effects on pet's health
Aura effects that heal your pet or damages enemy pet based on the last hit dealt

From the Discord:
N&A finishers: Congrats to Buffysummers - Human Windwalker Monk for finishing N&A with 23,055 gold 4/1/43
Shoutout ot Dodoobrawn-Bladefist - nice fishing with you! Hello to Mrs. Dodoobrawn as well.
Question: Why do you still need a WoD garrison? Is it worth going back if you have a character who skipped it?

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Ren:
Not played much in past couple weeks
Next projects: mechanical pets for hunter, Field Medic, Fisherfriends

Mike:
Started working on Field Medic. No bueno
cjracer20 in Discord suggested premades. Will do that soon™
Did not get into alpha this week yet. Ali couldn’t Monday, and then Wednesday turned into hell.
Been doing follower missions.
Mount and mog runs. Tailoring/enchanting finally at 800.
Went through old pics.

This Week in WoW
Mage Tower currently active on North American realms
Legion Timewalking this week. Pet Battle event next week

General News
Blizzard Balance can now be gifted - send a friend an electronic gift card with a personalized message
Remote Auction House: Blizzard confirmed in a blue message that the reason they closed the RAH is that a "tiny fraction of one percent" of their user base was actually using the RAH and it was not worth their time and effort anymore to keep it updated

Battle for Azeroth
In-Game Communities:
Quoting Wowhead: “This system will allow you to have broader communication options with fellow community members, including multiple text channels, text channel history, simple role management, quick join, voice integration, roster listing and calendar invites. You will be able to be part of multiple communities at the same time, in addition to your current guild.”
Interview at Pax East with lead designer Daniel Stahl and lead encounter designer Morgan Dey about Island Expeditions:
More intelligent AI in NPC encounters
Some AI groups may be aggressive - others may be passive and require you to chase them down
Weather improved and may be a factor
Different mobs may appear at different times of the day
"Fog of War"
Blizzard has confirmed people will still be able to get class mounts after BfA has launched
Tribute to last year’s BlizzCon Costume Contest winner Kazplay - when Horde invades the Stockades, they encounter a human female in a cage with a crumpled costume next to her: Text: “Look, it's just a costume! See? Feel it! Now will you tell them to let me out of here? It was just a joke! Hogger wasn't really terrorizing Stormwind!”

Alpha News:
Battle for Lordaeron scenario now playable on Alpha
Heart of Azeroth item levels show ranges with iLevel starting at 265 and going up one point per level from there. Highest they show is at level 300 with an iLevel of 564
Mag'har and Dark Iron Dwarves now playable in Alpha.
Maghar racials:
Ancestral Call - Invoke the spirits of your ancestors granting you their power. Increases a random secondary stat by 102 for 12 seconds.
Open Skies - Increases mounted speed by 10%.
Savage Blood - Reduces the duration of Poisons, Diseases, and Curses by 10%.
Sympathetic Vigor - Increases pet health by 10%.
Dark Iron Dwarves: still no reports on what the Mole Machine racial does
Blood Elf and Human racials seriously nerfed.

From the Discord: Bucket Lists
Expansion Countdown: 116 days to Expansion (3 months, 25 days / 16 weeks and 4 days / 2784 hours)
Congrats to
Alberthe for getting the Forgotten Hippogryph mount
Mightymurloc for the new Kara mount
Txcoolkid for finishing FIeld Medic
Suggests joining a Field Medic premade group, as did Cjracer20
It’s not a shared drop (personal loot) but since there is a lot of competition and in some areas the respawn is fast, you have a greater chance of being able to loot more mobs

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Ren:
Have a new Highmountain Tauren - enhancement shaman
Got the noblegarden bunny
Working on the four hatchling pet quests -- haven’t finished any of them

Mike
Exalted with Army of the Light.
8000 from exalted with Argussian Reach
Tol Dagar BfA dungeon
Odd thing about BfA - some people have quests, I don’t.
Finally finishing up getting followers to 950
Noblegarden fun
Field Medic

This Week in WoW
Pandaria Timewalking this week, Battleground Bonus event next week
Darkmoon Faire
Noblegarden (ends Monday)
March of the Tadpoles (Borean Tundra - ends tonight at midnight)

News: General and Current
April Fool’s patch notes
Remote Auction House is retiring on April 18th.
Realm connections
New round of realm connections is “on the way” to help with low pop servers.
Family Guy: a 30 second Leeroy Jenkins reference.

News: Battle for Azeroth
8 - 14 - 18
Ren’s Ridiculous Fun Facts about the History of Blizzcon Expansions
Collector’s Edition - box set
Limited edition hardcover edition - 2 new WoW novellas by Christie Golden and Robert Brooks
Horde & Alliance Double Sided Mark of Allegiance with stand
Digital soundtrack
Collector’s Edition box set owners will be able to unlock and create unreleased Allied Races in advance
If you bought Digital Deluxe and want Collector’s Edition box, you can get a refund on Digital Deluxe to Battle.net balance
Digital Deluxe edition - mounts, pet

Island Expansions
Expedition table in Boralus Harbor (Alliance) or Zuldazar Harbor (Horde)
3 man - Normal, Heroic, Mythic or PvP - reward of 6,000 Azurite
Azurite: killing mobs, finding treasure, defeating the opposing team, or mining nodes
Drawn on “lessons learned” from past content like scenarios and keystone dungeons. Replayable content.
WoWhead interview with Jeremy “Muffinus” Feasel, Senior Game Designer for WoW
No death knights for allied races - tied to Lich King
Other possible rewards for Island Expeditions, like in the Timeless Isle
When asked whether quest and profession progression will be gated behind dungeons and raids: No real discussion yet on profession progression, although he did say he thought ending final part of certain questlines end in a dungeon was “super cool, as it is the best way to tell the end of the story”.
Felt that artifact weapon system was interesting in the beginning of the expansion but not at the end of it. Lots of choices in the beginning and none in the end.
Discussion about making certain things accountwide -- seemed to think things were pretty OK the way they were. Too much accountwide stuff and characters lose identity, but opening areas, flying, etc., seem to be good kept accountwide.
Battle for Azeroth
Mag’har Orcs and Iron Dwarf allied races will be available after completing the Battle for Azeroth war campaign. Zandalari and Kul’Tiras will be unlocked later in the expansion.
BFA alpha lasting longer than in the past. Beta polishes features and features are still being added to alpha.
Six emissaries for each faction - 3 home continent, two neutral (Tortollan and Voice of Azeroth) and a War Faction with quests on the enemy continent.
8.0 prepatch
Likely a few weeks before the expansion
Will introduce the Burning of Teldrassil and Battle for Lordaeron. May be new mounts themed around Night Elves and Forsaken in conjunction with this event.
New details on PvP
New world PvP system called War Mode: players toggle PvP in a capitol city on any server. This will put them in a separate server shard, away from the PvE characters.
War Mode gives extra rewards and Azerite, and also allows access to special world PvP events.
PvP gear system revamp: conquest point system returning in the form of a bar you fill up to earn new gear each week. When you’re finished with a set, you can move up. There will be ways to skip ahead.
Changes to Honor and Prestige: honor levels will be account wide.
Naked and Afraid FInisher: Alcina, night elf mage -- 110

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Ren:
Finishing zones, changing to Beastmaster on hunter
The handy parts about thinking about alt priority

Mike:
Island Expeditions
Antorus
Rep

This Week in WoW
World Quest Event - bonus reputation
Darkmoon Faire starts on April 1 - rep bonuses from carousel and top hat stack with World Quest Event
Noblegarden - April 2
Reminders: 2 pets and 1 mount - spring rabbit, noblegarden bunny (added 2017), springstrider mount

News:
New Naked & Afraid Finisher: Settlersrule, Alliance panda windwalker monk, with 5 days 23 hours and 28 minutes, and 24,483 gold.
Next highest in progress: Norgreyclub, dwarf retribution paladin, level 92, closely followed by Alcina, a night elf arcane mage at 91 and Buffysummers, a human windwalker monk at level 90
Pax East - Apr 5-8 at Boston Convention Center - Demo stations for new Island Expedition feature
Family Guy episode April 1 - Warcraft references
Player gets every achievement in game (3,314) - Xirev, a blood elf fire mage
Need to do things like reach prestige 25, collect 300 toys and mounts, and win 5000 pvp pet battles
One achievement ahead of Metatrosha, a human shadow priest (same number of points; Alliance have one extra 10 pointer)
Wowhead interview with Xirev
Single hardest achievement: high rated PvP ones - most others simply “tedious”
Single hardest non-PvP achievement - “Going to Need a Bigger Bag” - obtain all the rare items from Timeless Isle. Involved a lot of realm hopping (56 items)
Time /played: Estimated 850-900 days /played. 434 days /played on mage alone.
20,400 to 21,600 hours
8,760 hours in 1 year (not counting leap years)
Done over 6 years - 6 years has about 122,400 hours (without leap years)
Average of 5.5-6 hours per day, every day, or 38.5 - 42 hours per week
Ren: Did my own /played calculation on all active toons - came out to 6554 hours or 273 days /played. Sounds like a lot, but when averaged over 10 years (didn’t play for 4 years out of the past 14) it comes out to less than 1 hour per day /played
Alpha News
Changes to quest log - looked at first like the quest log limit was going up to 50. Not true - but it seems like some quests no longer count toward the 25 limit - including account wide quests such as many battle pet quests
New Alpha build includes several class talent changes

Alpha Profession changes:
Enchanting: many new ring and weapon enchants, glove enchants for gathering professions
RETURN OF Wands (Scepters). Last available: VANILLA
Engineering: some of the usuals like glasses, explosives, and scopes
RETURN OF Engineered belts. Last available: WRATH OF THE LICH KING
More weapons (guns, maces)
Interesting bits: Slumber Bombs, Electroshock Mount Motivator (+10% mount speed for 10 seconds, stacks up to 5x, “increased motivation may cause your mount to become disoriented”), Deployable Attire Rearranger, Interdemensional Companion Repository (portable stablemaster), and an XA-100 Surface Skimmer (25 sec duration)
Inscription: new codex
New Darkmoon cards, Vantus runes
RETURN OF
Offhand tomes and stat buff scrolls.. LAST AVAILABLE: CATACLYSM
New: Contracts: allows you to choose a faction with which you will gain reputation when you do world quests - requires Friendly rep with target reputation
Scroll of Unlocking - unlock anything that requires 550 lockpicking skill
Jewelcrafting - usual rings and stones
NEW: two staffs - both listed were listed as Mage but the second one (Laribole Staff) also listed Agility as a stat
Leatherworking - usual armor bits and drums
NEW: create fist weapons and bows (bow/crossbow was available in Engineering, 490/525, Cataclysm)

From the Discord:
Seems there is a fashion in listening to our oldest episodes

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Ren
- Life invasions of all life invasions
- Had to update laptop to make WoW run
- Game goals:
- get Field Medic done
- get toons left behind caught up on Argus and professions
- running up a void elf warlock for the hell of it
- Question to self: do I have too many alts?
- 12 110s with two duplicates (rogue and mage on Alli/Horde)
- no DK or DH
- Question: Is Blizzard both encouraging more alts AND not paying enough attention to making game alt-friendly?
- If I had to pare down my alts, who would make the cut?

Mike
So close to finishing up this rep from Hell.
Thanks to Ali for filling in last week about alpha
Infinite Timereaver mount dropped while doing timewalking. That was fun.
Alpha is still fun, but obviously limited in scope at the moment. There was a 1GB patch.
Maybe I’ll try tanking again.
I have a ton of quests I need to finish up.
The Argus version of the flight whistle should have been available at honored, not revered.

News

Hotfixes:
Mythic Antorus now available for cross-realm groups, though not through LFR. “To join a public group for Mythic Antorus, just open Group Finder (hotkey: i), select 'Premade Groups', then 'Raids-Legion', then click on "Find A Group". That returns a list of many public groups that are available to you. Start typing 'Antorus' into the search bar at the top, and you'll be prompted to select a difficulty.”

Battle for Azeroth
New Alpha Build changes:
Achievements to unlock Dark Iron Dwarves and Mag’har Orcs added
Dark Iron racial mount: core hound
Latest build tagged “beta” instead of “alpha” and new invitations out
New “boop” emote
Some new enchanting stuff:
Swift Hearthing: bracer enchant to speed cast time of hearthstone
Gale-Force Striking: weapon enchant to increase weapon attack speed
First Aid confirmed going away - bandages will be under Tailoring and antivenoms/pots will be under Alchemy
New customization options for Blood Elves - three new faces and glowing gold eyes
Azerite bonuses datamined: Set bonuses also going away, being replaced by Azurite empowerment on armor
Several class specific traits, but also several that appear to be multi-class
Traits that increase primary and secondary stats by a set amount
Absorption traits - traits that shield or absorb a set amount of damage
DPS,heal, and tanking traits. DPS obviously increases your DPS, healing traits are self-heals, and tanking traits are damage mitigation:
Examples:
(DPS) Gutripper - Your damaging abilities have a chance to deal 347 Physical damage to the target. Gutripper occurs much more often against targets below 30% health. (Approximately 5 procs per minute).
(DPS) Heed My Call - Your damaging abilities have a chance to deal 154 to your target, and 15 to enemies within 3 yards of that target.
(HEAL) Savior - Your heals on targets below 35% health have a chance to heal for an additional 208. (Approximately 5 procs per minute).
(HEAL) Self Reliance - While no enemies are within 20 yds, you heal for 70 every 3 sec.
(TANK) Gemhide - When dealt damage greater than 10% of your maximum health, gain 31 Avoidance and 138 Dodge for 10 sec.
(TANK) Winds of War - Taking damage grants you 14 Dodge for 3 sec, stacking up to 10 times.
New detail on parrot mount: drops from Skycap'n Kragg, boss in the Freehold dungeon

From the Discord
Naked & Afraid Challenge has its second finisher - TheCowKing (EU) with a feral druid - 4 days 1 hour 1 minute
Current highest still in progress - Settlersrule (101) windwalker monk