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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!!
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
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?
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
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?
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
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
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
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.
This Week in WoW
Not much - Arena Skirmishes, then World Quest Event next Tuesday
On the horizon: Noblegarden (4/2 - 4/9)
(Mike - I HATE NOBLEGARDEN)
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
Ren
MAJOR life invasions, may be more interruptions in weeks ahead
Dinged 110 in Naked and Afraid challenge - final money total about 62,000 gold, time 4 days 22 hours 1 minute
BUT ... forgot to take a screenshot (took one later; time finished can be calculated from the played time minus the time played at level, which was about 14 hours at the time)
Also moved the toon to Whisperwind and did a race change to undead
BUT ... plans to run up a void elf warlock to fulfill promise to Silvermoon gang
Odds and ends - getting things tidied up in prep for expansion
Advancing neglected professions
Finished paladin mount quest and working on monk
Getting all the class hall followers - Maximilian of Northshire is totally worth it
Mike
Interviews all day, every day.
Wrath timewalking was fun. 700 badges from my next mount.
This Week in WoW
Legion Dungeon event until next Tuesday - additional loot
Lunar Festival ends 3/3
Darkmoon Faire starts 3/4
Trial of Style starts Monday 3/5 and runs to Friday 3/9
News
Warcraft III Invitational happened Feb 27/28, with old school tournaments and various matches - major patch coming out to Warcraft III in late March
Second Mythic Invitational, July 25-Aug 8th for auditions, dungeon invitational in early September
Seething Shore battleground now available - currently available as a brawl, will be available as a regular battleground next week
10vs10 BG set in Silithus, to battle over Azerite
"Dynamic control point gameplay similar to Arathi Basin" - new control points pop up as resources become depleted
Solo run of Court of Stars Mythic +22 by Mionee, a demon hunter (iLevel 973) - took nearly 4 hours
Battle of Azeroth
Even more class changes - random notes that show trend changes
DKs are getting an ability similar to Counterspell
Demon hunters will get an ability to increase overall party/raid magical damage to targets with Chaos Brand
Druids getting back Hibernate and Soothe (CC and anti-enrage)
Hunters: Tranq Shot for hunters is coming back (anti-enrage)
Mages:
Fire: Phoenix Flames, Felo’melorn’s artifact ability, is being turned into a basic spell
All: Return of Arcane Intellect (group buff)
Priests: Return of Power Word: Fortitude (group buff)
Rogue: Return of Expose Armor (vanilla spell)
Shaman: Return of Tremor Totem (AOE ability to remove fear, charm and sleep effects)
Warlock: Return of Shadow Bolt (vanilla spell)
Only Destro locks can summon infernals now (boo)
Warrior: Return of Battle Shout to increase STR and AGI of party or raid
PARROT MOUNTS!!! No source yet
There will be some kind of garrison or class hall or something similar, as there is a mission table with followers. Lot of forum hate for this.
Followers include Technicians, Infiltrators, Combat Specialist and Faction Troops
Zandalari Troll Druid Forms
"Pterrakkoa" - "moonkin" form
Armored bear form - looks like a cross between a spiky turtle and a bear
Pterrodax flight form
Ravasaur travel form
Mag'har Orcs
Ren: really like the hair styles on the females - might have to race flip one
Skin colors range from pale grey-beige to reddish brown
Heritage armor looks very much like Thrallmar stuff
Upright posture, esp on the females
No "unnatural" hair colors
A couple of the new races flagged in such a way that they may become allied races
Vulpera - fox people
Kul Tirans - stocky humanoids
From the Discord: left over from last episode:
Should all classes be unlocked on all races? Or should class-race assignments follow established lore?
Ren
Life invasions: thank you Cara - did not touch Love is in the Air
Naked & Afraid monk: level 95, 3 days 22 hours, 46k gold
Northrend: Leveling time slow, money amazing
Pandaria: Leveling time medium-fast, money good
Draenor: Leveling time medium-fast, money bad
Mike
Life invasion
This Week in WoW
Lunar Festival starts 2/17, runs to 3/3
Love is In the Air ends tomorrow
Battleground bonus event starts Tuesday
Ulduar Timewalking
News
Dungeon XP hotfix to bug introduced in 7.3.5 https://www.wowhead.com/news=281885/dungeon-experience-hotfixes
Side effect to creature scaling broke awarded XP in some situations
Significantly increased XP awarded for queuing for random Normal dungeons, Classic through Draenor
Mobile Auction House has been restored
New mount: Shu-zen, The Divine Sentinel - $25 in Blizz store (6 months game time for Chinese servers) - and fixed a scaling bug
http://www.wowhead.com/news=281915/upcoming-changes-to-the-na-wow-mvp-program
Battle for Azeroth: Alpha Build News
Tons of class changes but these tend to change a lot over alpha/beta
Allied races
New allied race? Orc based - either Mag’har or Frostwolf Orcs (brown orcs)
Datamined orc armor and a Mag’har Direwolf mount
Dark Iron Dwarf racials
Dungeon Delver: 4% increased indoor speed
Fireblood: Removes all poison, disease, curse, magic and bleed effects and increases primary stat by 100 for each removed. 2 min cooldown
Forged in Flames: 1% physical damage reduction
Mass Production: 2x speed creating blacksmithed items
Mole Machine: Summons a Mole Machine that tunnels through the earth (30 min cooldown)
Non-caster damage that used to be calculated on weapon damage is now based on a combo of weapon damage and attack power to help bring better balance between classes that rely heavily on weapons vs. those who do not
Return of Pepe: New Pepe costumes include a scuba costume and a Zandalari mask
Hunter pet specialization:
All pets will have equal damage, health and armor (all can tank or DPS equally well). Old designations Ferocity, Tenacity or Cunning will continue as categories, but as categories of pet families, not as descriptions of their utility
All pets will have Growl and Dash or Swoop
Pet families now each have a special ability - one active, one passive, depending on their category (examples: the passive for Ferocity is a 3% leech, for Tenacity, 10% max health, and for Cunning, 8% movement speed buff)
Each pet family will get one of six different abilities. Examples include a healing reduction debuff, reduced damage, increased dodge, etc.
Profession changes: (just noted things that are different or interesting) Major squish: Max profession skill cap going from 800 to 200
Alchemy preview:
Tinctures - trinkets with combat buffs based on the flask you’re currently using
Usual transmutes of changing one profession material to another. Also Fish to Gems and Meat to Pet.
Blacksmithing preview:
New stirrups for speed and interacting while mounted in the new zones
Khaz’gorian Hammer - blacksmithing hammer replacement that gives a chance to give crafted armor or weapons the Indestructible property
Cooking preview: Nothing special
Enchanting preview: Nothing special
Engineering:
Portable transmogger
Portable stable master
Herbalism: Nothing special
Inscription:
Contracts: Enter a contract with a faction that allows you to gain reputation with them every time you complete a world quest in the new zones
Jewelcrafting:
+5% experience gem
Leatherworking
Scuba gear
Mining: Nothing special
Skinning: Nothing special
Tailoring:
finally getting a bag upgrade - 1 30 slot bag (same as HW), 1 32 slot bag
Hot Air Baloon pet
First Aid getting at least a revamp - may be removed entirely and folded into Tailoring
First Aid achievements will become Legacy Feats of Strength
Now listed as “legacy”. https://www.wowhead.com/news=281844/first-aid-potential-revamp-or-removal-in-battle-for-azeroth
Episode 376, "She doesn't have the lobes for business"
Special guest host Cara(clysm) (@xandara) fills in for Ren.
Mike
Rep grinding is making me bored.
Even if I did this when it was new, I find it dull because it’s too repetitive.
50% boost in rep from Sign of the Emissary, so go do it!
I also haven’t upgraded yet. When I get to exalted in all 4, then I’ll do it. No rush now.
Farming for the Love Rocket. No drops.
Achievement runs
Cara
Heroic Antorus 2/11, first bosses aren’t too different
Haven’t upgraded to BfA yet because I still feel like I have plenty to do without it right now, curious to see how long that will last
But also I don’t really care about things as much as I used to? Like it’s still super fun! But I don’t feel like I NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED it. I.e. Love Rocket runs, I do them when I can but I don’t frustrate myself trying to fit them into my day
I did claim my character names I want for my BfA allied race alts though. Seems they freed up a lot of names recently so if you have a name you couldn’t get before, give it a shot now!
Me too! -MG (kek)
This week in WoW
Darkmoon Faire until the 11th
Lunar Festival starts a week from today
Ulduar
News:
BfA alpha is going out to some people. Not me :(
Watched a few streams. Some people need to learn how to stream (don’t be rude!)
I found the starting areas to be ok. Didn’t watch long. Wasn’t anything really impressive yet.
Hotfixes:
Nightborne faces should match what was selected
Fire mage damage increased by a whopping 3%
Hunter BM damage increased by 2.5%
From Discord:
BfA comes with a level 110 boost
Shout out to PurpleMoose in Discord who was struggling what to do and used it for a Nightborne rogue.
Utheron - bad experience with a GM. Was trying to make him switch specs.
Episode 276, "Remember when getting a gold was hard?"
Ren:
N/A monk now level 74 with 2 days 18 hours played and over 20k gold
Boosted my 62 paladin to 110
Mike:
Rep grinding
This Week in WoW
Kirin Tor Tavern Crawl yesterday and today
Arena Bonus Event til Tuesday
Love Is In the Air Feb 2-16 (see news)
Darkmoon Faire starts Sunday
Next Tuesday: World Quest Bonus Event and PvP Brawl: Southshore vs. Tarren Mill
News
Hofixes:
All accounts have 16 character slots per realm
Preorder for Battle of Azeroth
No official release date
Server issues
Perk: quests to unlock allied races
Nightborne: Exalted with the The Nightfallen and completion of Insurrection
Void Elf: Exalted with Argussian Reach and completion of You Are Now Prepared!
Lightforged Draenei: Exalted with Army of the Light and completion of You Are Now Prepared!
Highmountain Tauren: Exalted with Highmountain Tribe and completion of Ain't No Mountain High Enough
Remember: DMF hat/carousel give rep bonuses, and next week is the world quest event which gives rep bonuses as well.
Walking into Light’s Hope Cathedral with a void elf sparks some interesting conversation.
http://www.wowhead.com/attunement
The economic impact of allied races over the next few weeks
Void Elves Everywhere! “Void elves are alliance only because they were crying and wanted their own blood elves”. - from Joe on the forums via a YouTuber he was watching
Unlocking races on factions: you can do the requirements on either side but you need someone on that faction to do the unlock quests. (An Alliance member can have the achievements for Nightborne and Highmountain Tauren, but a 110 Horde must do the quests)
Collector’s Edition perks
Gilded Ravasaur (Horde) and Seabraid Stallion (Alliance) mounts
Tottle turtle (aquatic) pet
Overwatch voice lines, emotes, sprays and icons
Heroes of the Storm Primal Flamesaber mount
Starcraft II sprays
Hearthstone card pack, Azeroth is Burning
No Diablo perk
110 Boost details
Boosts any toon to 110
Hearthstone and Dalaran hearthstone; hearthstone reset to Dalaram inn
3 level 870 artifact relics
Level 35 artifact power and first artifact weapon (make sure you’re in the right spec!)
Flight Master’s Whistle
Kirin Tor supply bag, which contains basic food, water, starter ancient mana, ancient potions, mana diving stone, a tome of the tranquil mind
If you are 60 or over, boosts primary professions to 700 and first aid to 700
Suramar is open to the extent that Thalyrissa is there and will give you the first few quests -- no longer have to do the opening scenario of finding her and escorting her in
Does NOT come with a level 3 WOD garrison - reports if you boost a “Character Trial to 100” toon to permanent 110 that you will get the garrison
Battle for Azeroth System Requirements
Windows machines will need 64-bit systems
Minimum processor: Intel Core i5-760 or AMD FX 8100 or higher, recommended i7 4770 or AMD FX 8310 - basically need at least a quad core machine now
Video cards: 2GB minimum on video board, GeForce GT 560, AMD Radeon 7850 or Intel 530 - recommended GeForce GTX 960 or AMD Radeon R9 280 (up from 1GB cards)
Memory: Minimum 4GB, recommends 8 GB (up from 2)
Storage: 70 GB, recommends SSD, up from 45
No changes to minimum resolution/display
Love Is In The Air - Feb 2-16
Speculation that the new flower crowns datamined earlier will be perks for this year’s Love Is In the Air
Classic interview
Old code no longer compiles
Old database no longer works
New graphics are on the table, wants to hear from the community
My guess - not until 2019
Forum people are SO IMPATIENT.
Naked & Afraid
51 unique participants
Rule change: Allied Race Division
Current highest level: 74
Three characters at 60
Mod of the Cast: Memoria (Tororosso) - https://wow.curseforge.com/projects/memoria
Joe posted a screenshot macro on the Naked and Afraid discussion board that displays played time and takes a screenshot 0.2 seconds after
Tororosso posted about Memoria, an addon that takes a screenshot automatically for different milestones, such as leveling, achievements, reputation levels, or when a battleground or arena ends.
Only issue with Memoria is that it doesn’t put in the /played time, unless you’ve put it in right before you ding
Ren:
N&A monk now level 62 with 1 day 20 hours /played and almost 15k gold
Utilized the one-switch rule to respec from brewmaster to windwalker around level 45
Went “in order” until about level 40, and then went out of order doing zones where I had no transmogs (Burning Steppes, Stonetalon, and Southern Barrens) - thank you All The Things.
Finished to 60 in Winterspring to level up mining
Went straight to Northrend (Howling Fjord), skipped Outland entirely
Mike:
Working on rep and mounts.
Still working on that Nerf Scrapbots achievement. Is it bugged?
This Week in WoW
Burning Crusade Timewalking
Call of the Scarab ended Tuesday
Arena Skirmishes start Tuesday
Kirin Tor Tavern Crawl mini event Wednesday
News
Battle of Azeroth Collectors’ Edition perks datamined - https://www.wowhead.com/news=281070/battle-for-azeroth-collectors-edition-rewards-seabraid-stallion-gilded-ravasaur-?webhook/battle-for-azeroth-collectors-edition-rewards-seabraid-stallion-gilded-raptor-to - Seabraid Stallion (Alliance), Gilded Ravasaur (Horde) and Tottle (turtle pet)
Shu-zen, the Divine Sentinel flying dog mount datamined - probably part of Lunar Festival (Year of the Dog) starting Feb 16
Transmog bug - people reporting not being able to transmog while wearing some items from [Satchel of Helpful Goods]
Changes to Recruit a Friend:
Experience gains reduced from 200 to 50%.
Heirloom XP bonus no longer stacks with RAF XP bonuses
Patch 7.3.5 hotfixes this week
Lost Mail - now properly spawns at random Dalaran locations and Postmaster title is now account-wide.
Fixed the Normal/Heroic HP pool boss switch
Raiding fixes take boss HP levels BELOW previous levels
Fixed the bug that made pet names disappear
Boulder quest in Redridge has been fixed
Patch 7.3.5 - Leveling
Transitions between expansions
No big gear reset until level 61, when item levels jumped from 60 to 80
Professions do transfer but not smoothly
When you buy your skill for mining/herbs from 300, it now goes to 450 instead of 375 (both expansions)
Experience with mining: could gather and learn to smelt both Fel Iron (Outland) and Cobalt Ore (Northrend). Started with 252 mining; could only gather Cobalt Ore Nuggets
By level 325, still only collecting nuggets. Went to Outland and confirmed I could collect whole Fel Iron Ore. However, Fel Iron was gray (getting no skill). Cobalt Ore still orange (getting skill)
Last level to get Cobalt Nuggets: 340. Started getting whole cobalt at 341. Cobalt Ore gathers still orange and still getting orange skill from smelting. Turned Yellow at 350. Turned Green at 362.
Can get 80+ mining skill points off smelting alone (started slowing down at 355) - market has not caught up on all servers, but on Silvermoon ore is selling for 5x more than bars.
Filius reported re: manufacturing professions, also skipping to Northrend: There are recipes to make things at your level, but the results may not be usable. Was making potions that he could create in low 60s that were only usable by mid-70s.
Idea: how to find what’s good to sell?
Naked & Afraid 2018
Cattarina is new winner of the Shaman Challenge with 2 days 1 hour
Up to 41 participants, 28 of whom are now 20 or over
All classes represented, with most popular being druids (9) and monks (7); least represented, shaman (1) and priest (2)
8 participants currently have more than 1000 gold. Two have 3000 or more, and one has nearly 15,000
Minor rule clarifications:
Auction mules may not do anything but buy and sell -- no primary or secondary skill use (cooking, disenchanting, smelting).
Some confusion over mounts and which you can use
Some confusion over use of inherent class abilities such as hunter pet respeccing and use of monk daily
Filius is also live streaming
Lessons Learned: Lessons in the leveling experience from our Discord family
Restrictions: not as bad as Ironman Challenge
Ren -
Did transmog count, found out only had 17% of mail transmogs
Kind of Argussed out
Running WoW off new SSD .. makes an enormous difference
Mike -
Still having problems with XT achievement. One day we get to 18, the next, 0
I got a pony!
I lost 700 achievement points, probably due to rearranging the achivements.
Mournful Moan of Murmur is now up and running after TWO YEARS of being broken.
I have not yet tried to level a toon yet.
The price of Celendras dropped like a rock. From 750k to 50k.
When you go into Ulduar, it’s now 10-man no matter what you set raid to.
It took forever to kill Galleon and Sha of Anger.
Zone quests are now gauged by chapters, not numbers of quests completed.
I was mailed all the new mats.
This Week in WoW
Pet Battle Event
Call of the Scarab - Jan 21-23
Known issues:
Mobile/web AH disabled
Dungeon boss HP levels reversed Normal vs. Heroic
Raid boss difficulty - difficulty turned up for Warlords/Pandaria raids to put in line with leveling characters but overtuned them
Pet names disappearing
New backpack slots not showing up right away for new authenticators
Last wing of Argus LFR was bugged - if you wipe you can’t get back in
Redridge quest Saving Foreman Oslow not working
Patch 7.3.5: Leveling
The leveling experience: uneven reviews
Journey vs destination
Ren’s personal experiences doing N&A and feedback from the N&A participants
Professions: 1-60 profession progression still klunky
Still have old gathers (copper ore, thorium ore, peacebloom, goldthorn) tied to former zones
Level gains from herb/ore gathers still about the same as it was - about 1.7% of total level XP per gather for lower level gathers (reduces over time - was down slightly below 1% at level 63)
Leather/cloth gathers still tied to former zones (eg. leather experiment in Azeroth, cloth in BC/WOTLK)
Mobs and equipment scale to the toon, but profession drops still scale to the zone
Pro: You can still do predictable lower level farming
Con: Leveling might be a freedom of choice experience, but leveling professions is not -- still tied to old zone definitions
Solution: Flatten mats to three tiers -- levels 1-20, 20-40 and 40-60.
Enchanting squish did not go far enough, may have skipped guild banks entirely
Naked & Afraid 2018
Ren is level 19 in N&A - not highest toon but has the most gold (Maxx, gnome outlaw rogue, is level 30 with 9 hours /played)
Started Wednesday, 1/17 - join in anytime
3 official servers but you don’t have to join
Lots of minor rule clarifications, one major change
Almost 30 official participants so far
Shout out to MythGamingMN for streaming his N&A.
Mod of the Cast: Pawn
Mod of the Cast (Mike): All The Things
Ren
Going for the drake achievement -- sort of
Got 3 fel eggs this week: 1 Felglow Mana Ray mount, 1 Fel-Afflicted Skyfin pet, and
Now “the Exalted” … “the Beloved” next??
Slowly getting everyone completed with the Argus campaign
New toon: male blood elf protection paladin (going to go brewmaster monk for N&A) - almost level 40
Discussion: What makes you keep an alt? (@Cattarina and the “nursery of alts”)
Mike
More Ulduar achievements
Still can’t do XT. Tried on alts. Just bad luck.
Going to finish up Argus because I’ve neglected it too long.
This Week in WoW
Third wing of Antorus is open
Battleground bonus event
Darkmoon Faire opens Sunday
Did we all watch Jeff Kaplan by the fire?
News
Legion Attunement Tracker on Wowhead now tracks Allied race unlock requirements
Nightborne unlocks with completing Suramar (Good Suramaritan)
Highmountain unlocks with completing High mountain (Aint No Mountain High Enough)
Void Elf and Lightforged Draenei open with completing the Argus campaign (You Are Now Prepared!)
Attunement tool at http://www.wowhead.com/attunement
New hunter pets on PTR for 7.3.5 - including ones obviously meant to be starter pets for new allied races
Nightborne: Manasaber
Highmountain Tauren: Great Eagle
Void Elf: Voidstalker
Lightforged Draenei: Lightforged Talbuk
Other hunter pets include beasts clearly from Argus, such as umbralfins, dustcloaks, and chitinbuks, and ones clearly associated with Silithus like silithids, flying hornets, scorpids, and spiders
Allied race racials: more complete data. (Speculate on best classes?)
Nightborne: Hunter, Mage, Monk, Priest, Rogue, Warlock, Warrior
+15 to inscription=, increased magical damage by 1, access maili for 1.5 minutes (cooldown 10 minutes), A Force Shield that deals arcane damage and snares them by 50%, lasts 20 seconds (no info on cooldown), 1% magic resistance
Highmountain Tauren: Druid, Hunter, Monk, Shaman, Warrior
charge that knocks down enemies for 1.5 seconds (2 minute cooldown), +15 to mining and faster mining, +1% to versatility, overall damage reduction by 330 (scale?) and increased chance to loot additional meat and fish.
Void Elf: Hunter, Mage, Monk, Priest, Rogue, Warlock, Warrior
1% reduction of shadow and arcane damage, “your abilities have a chance to empower you with the essence of the void” (?), reduces void storage and transmog costs by 50%, spell casts not delayed by taking damage, and a built-in rift teleportation similar to warlock gating (2 minute cooldown).
Lightforged Draenei: Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Warrior
20% extra xp for killing demons, +10 to blacksmithing plus summoning a Forge of Light on demand, reduce holy damage by 1%, call down a strike of holy energy damaging enemies within 5 yards after 3 sec, and “erupt with light upon death, dealing holy damage to enemies and healing allies).
Speculation: Allied races are not going to be introduced in 7.3.5, but there are plenty of files being pushed to the servers about four of the six races, which gives Bliz the option of releasing them before the expansion. Thoughts?
Original dry run of Leeeeroy Jenkins video
https://youtu.be/8hmgrHohDGM
From the Discord:
How to do less damage for raid achievements, without having to de-equip items or gear:
From @OPH on Discord: brought up there was a toy or shirt that used to exist that would reduce damage output by 90%. This is true. Whole Body Shrinka toy, which shrinks you down to a tiny size and does reduce your damage output to about 10% -- lasts for 3 minutes but has a 30 minute cooldown.
Soft Foam Sword also allows you to "mortally wound" a trivial enemy, but it isn't usable in dungeons or raids.
What else could be done? Came up with a cheap engineering solution even non-engineers can use.
Further discussion on queuing a Broken Shore class hall mission for Broken Shore Campaign -
@settlersrule said he was forced to take a 3 day elite mission because that was all that was available. Tips on how to manage this situation.
From Twitter: Going back to my report that the Murky world quest dismounts you when you fly over it, apparently it’s not just Murky, but any quest where you morph. @Frenzol informed me the wisp quest in Val’sharah does the same thing.
Ren:
Thanks to Cara for filling in for me last week - also thanks for the tips on how to speed up load screen times
Hit Revered with Argussian Reach, Exalted with Scryers and Shado-pan
Finished 6 out of 7 class mount quests for my 110s (druid, mage, rogue, hunter, warlock, and priest) - only warrior to go
thoughts on class mount quests and how class mounts are treated differently
Finished 150 mounts usable on 1 character for the Jade Pandaren Kite (currently at 164)
Got 3 Shado-pan mounts and a couple “unsolicited” mounts - Wild Dreamrunner and Crimson Slavermaw
Finished Argus campaign on 3 characters (druid, warlock, and rogue)
One stupid three star Crispy Bacon recipe short of finished with cooking with warrior
Mike:
Nothing this week. Too busy.
This Week in WoW
Continuation of Winter Veil
Mists of Pandaria Timewalking
Shaman Challenge: 2 new finishers = Rokica and Settlersrule
Mike:
Achievements continue
More from Ulduar
Still having problems with XT
May be my fault - timing of the bots/heart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX8JuIoOY30
Got “Maybe He’ll Get Dizzy”
Got my mount
Are we at that point in the game where we finally take our time and slack off a bit?
Cara: Warcraft news lately is all about the future: patch 7.3.5 datamining, Battle for Azeroth speculation… focus on the here and now? Lean in to your community for keeping the game fresh while waiting for new content
*Cara news*
Campfire Chronicles
@CampfireChronic on Twitter and CCOfficialStories@gmail.com
RCC at 7/11 Normal Antorus
SALE! ~ 50% off most pets, mounts, and transmog helms
https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/news/11944163
Seasonal Event! ~ Winter Veil is up til January 2nd
HazelNuttyGames’ video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wpk9FKQrSc
Globe Yeti wild battle pet spawns in the snow globes! Ironforge and Org, not Dalaran - one spawns every 30min
http://www.wowhead.com/news=278497/feast-of-winter-veil-2017-holiday-updates-and-guide
https://www.mmo-champion.com/content/7266-Feast-of-Winter-Veil-Live-Lightsabers-Return-WoW-Alpha-Update-WoW-History
Elixir of the Rapid Mind no longer drops from Savage Gift
Don't forget to do the followup to You're a Mean One..., as it rewards Smokywood Pastures Special Gift, which has a small chance to contain Winter's Grasp or Flames of Ragnaros. *weapon enchantment illusions for transmog*
New Winter's Veil music was added in Patch 7.1
Farm the mount from Hillsbrad Foothills with characters level 60+
Use the teleporter to Dalaran Crater in new Dalaran to get there quickly
From Discord: Ali - The year is winding down. Maybe talk about favorite moments of the year? Or favorite part of/memories of Winter Veil?
Raaaaaidinnnnng! ~ Antorus LFR Wing 2 opened this week. This includes the bosses Portal Keeper Hasabel, Eonar the Life-Binder, and Imonar the Soulhunter. Wing 3 opens January 2nd.
Overwatch winter wonderland loot boxes up until Jan. 2
Ren:
Life Invasion continuation - won’t be here next week
Yes, I was making a mountain out of a molehill, or YES DAMNIT I CAN FLY NOW
How the raid really works for getting Good Suramaritan
The overwhelmed WoW person’s quick and dirty guide to getting flying
Stupid flight bugs -- Murky, stop dismounting me!!
Working on getting my neglected toons un-neglected
Pro tip: If you’re two manning dungeons in WoW, pay attention to dungeon difficulty setting
Mike:
Yes, you can even screw up 25-man achievements.
Add-ons
Still no new mounts.
This Week in WoW:
Method has finished mythic Argus
320 pulls
Winter Veil starts this week (Dec 16-Jan 2)
New stuff
Hearthstation toy - sets out an “improved” Hearthstone table to play. No confirmation where this is from but possibly from Gently Shaken Gift
Winter Veil Gift is a Toy Weapon Set, which lets you spar with other players. Gives achievement Don’t Play Wi th That In The House
New pet: Globe Yeti. Probably wild, no data on where it is yet
And all the usual stuff -- garrison decorations, presents, the Greench dailies
Cara has a new podcast w/ Plaggy Boy called “Campfire Chronicles” - stories about WoW
News:
https://blizzardwatch.com/2017/12/12/get-vicious-war-fox-patch-7-3-5/
PTR
Trial of Style Season 2 is up.
If you buy the trial, the game banks up your XP post-cap and then gives it to you when you buy it.
NOT SURE HOW I FEEL ABOUT THIS. What about all the stuff I have in my bank?
Several reagents no longer exist: Greater Astral Essence, Lesser Astral Essence, Greater Mystic Essence, Lesser Mystic Essence, Greater Nether Essence, Lesser Nether Essence, Nexus Crystal, Large Glimmering Shard, Small Glimmering Shard, Soul Dust, Vision Dust, Small Glowing Shard, Large Glowing Shard, Dream Dust, Small Radiant Shard, Large Radiant Shard
Illusion Dust is now Light Illusion Dust
Newbie zones are now 1-20.
Ren’s on the PTR on Renatta (two Ts) on Benedictus. I have a channel “worldofwarcast” if folks on Benedictus want to chat while online.
Discussion (@thecowking): What should you farm or bank to prepare for the upcoming expansion?
Discussions in Discord:
The Profession Manifesto for Battle for Azeroth - We want professions that aren’t gated. Also, spend more time focusing on usefulness than story
Cattarina’s idea of having a Discord channel for weekly achievements.
Ren:
McAdoo fired (and so was Jerry Reese) … Geno Smith didn’t win the day and Eli is back
Life invasions, but managed to do some gaming
Mod of the Cast: MaxDPS (for remembering how to play forgotten toons)
Mike:
More achievement hunting.
XT seems to be problematic.
Staying buffed all winter may be buggy
Forgot to do Algalon
Next week - all 25-man
Still need that 5-man Scholo one.
I started working on addons. Finally.
This Week in WoW
Darkmoon Faire ends Sunday
PvP week next week - Arena Skirmish and PvP brawl weekly events
Feast of Winter Veil starts on the 16th
Kobolds and Catacombs has an epic trailer. I still won’t play it.
https://youtu.be/Q0blneW2fTo
News
Shaman Challenge: No new finishers, but Rokica and Settlersrule both reached 100
From last week: Artifact Knowledge 55 cap reached
7.3.5 hit the PTR
Zone levels: While the continent zones all have the same upper limit, the lower limit varies, more or less matching the lowest level needed to enter the zones today (so no going from 10-60 in Silithus)
In the 1-60 Azeroth zones, once you hit 40 you can go anywhere
https://blizzardwatch.com/2017/12/06/level-scaling-testers-wanted-wow-7-3-5-ptr/
How will this affect storylines? You can’t jump from Redridge to Burning Steppes, can you?
Racial embassies
Horde embassy in Org, Alliance in SW
Seems to be where you will recruit unlocked races in the expansion
Racial abilities and racial mounts datamined by Wowhead, https://www.wowhead.com/news=277415/7-3-5-ptr-allied-races-mounts-and-racial-abilities
Dalaran Mailroom quest and minigame - pick up “Lost Mail” near a Dalaran mailbox to start (not sure about respawn time or frequency)
Rewards: the Mailemental pet
A toy to summon Katy Stampwhistle, a mail assistant who will “deliver and retrieve mail until she is called elsewhere”
Discussions from Discord: How to level fishing as fast as possible
Margoss + Ancient Vrykul Ring/Rusty Queenfish Brooch = Fast Leveling
How many vanilla players does it take to change a lightbulb?
Ren:
WHO BENCHES ELI?
Accidental discovery: how accidentally three-manning heroic Eye of Azshara turned into two-manning normal dungeons (EoA, Black Rook, Vault of the Wardens, Violet Hold, Darkheart Thicket, Maw of Souls), mage and warlock style
Epic troll druid progress: Resurrected October 26 -- in 30 days, leveled 101-110, finished 2 druid weapons, class hall, Broken Shore campaign, Argus campaign, iLevel 913
Worgen mage finished class hall, almost finished Argus, iLevel 911 - first level 1000 legendary
Mike:
Achievement hunting w/Ali
Mount farming - nothing this week dropped :(
This Week in WoW
Antorus opened
Antorus Mythic opens next week
End of Pilgrim’s Progress, 13th Anniversary
Pet XP event ends Tuesday
Cataclysm Timewalking next Tuesday
News and Discussion
Shaman Challenge - new finishers and a new record!
New secret mount discovered
http://www.wowhead.com/item=152814/maddened-chaosrunner#comments
New mount in Heroic Argus - Violet Spellwing
Spoilers from the cinematic!
Classic server discussion continued
What happened when? An overview of vanilla patches
Mod histories
When did mods become available?
First Mod of the Cast - SellValue, 26 March 2006
First 5 mods still available from Curse (but only one still works)
Ren -
Shaman now level 108
Now declaring new main: troll feral cat druid
Going to finish Suramar and get flying -- I swear it will be done
Jewelcrafting mounts
Mike -
Mount farming and a lot of toon cleanup.
Achievement farming w/Ali. I still one-shot things.
This week in WoW
WoW Anniversary - until November 30th
Mail goodies:
Celebration Package: 13% XP and rep bonus - 10 second cooldown, multiple uses throughout the next 2 weeks
Stupid tabard though
200 timewarped badges
A letter that starts Interesting Times, first quest to visit a historian in Stormwind or Orgrimmar
Daily quests:
Time to Reflect - 25 timewarped badges for answering a lore question
The Originals - 50 timewarped badges slay Lord Kazzak, Azuregos, and Dragon of Nightmare
Respawn timer 5 minutes
Lord Kazaak - Blasted Lands, north of the Tainted Forest
Azuregos - Azshara, southeast of the Secret Lab
Dragons of Nightmare - can be in Duskwood, Ashenvale, Hinterlands and Feralas
Druids: Dreamwalk can take you to some locations for Dragons of Nightmare (different Emerald Portals)
New badge loot
Bronze-Tinted Sunglasses - cosmetic transmog for 200 TW badges
Two celebration wands for 25 TW badges (5 charges) - Quillboar and Trogg
Tranquil Mechanical Yeti Costume (3 charges) - 50 timewarped badges
Can save TW badges for a variety of toys, mounts, and pets
Pilgrim’s Bounty - November 20 - 27
Do daily quests and earn achievements to earn pets, transmogs, and
Want to get Fine Pilgrim’s Hat, which adds the Pilgrim’s Hat transmog to all armor types - can be found in the daily quest reward Pilgrim’s Bounty
Good for leveling low level cooking & collecting new cooking recipes
The last (for now) thoughts on classic servers.
Battle For Azeroth Q&A
Heart of Azeroth will replace tier bonuses
The incentive will be Heart of Azeroth upgrades and other items.
7.3.5 - Antorus Epilogue quest content, Ulduar Timewalking, preview of Silithus BG, scaling world content.
Rep standing might affect allied race unlocking.
Yes, you can race change to an allied race
Troll posture will be covered in Zandalari allied race
Not as many legendaries in BfA
No plans for 10-man Mythic
Blizz thinks this is an “exciting time” for World PvP. I disagree. Once that hordie hovers over you for the third time, you just tick your flag off.
Ren -
Shaman: level 96
Shaman challenge spreadsheet (of course it’s a spreadsheet)
Resurrected old Legion baby troll druid
Remembered why auction mules need to be at least level 10
Looking forward to season 12 in Diablo 3
Mike -
Lots of mount runs on all toons. Only got the egg.
I figure out how to solo Deathwing.
Also, I tend to one-shot things.
This week in WoW
Darkmoon Faire ends Saturday
Lich King timewalking
Sunday - Moonkin Festival in Moonglade (1 day)
Observe baby moonkin dancing, napping and moonfiring and get your own temporary Moonkin Companion pet for 24 hours
Other quests let you increase up to 5 moonkin babies following you around for up to 5 days
World boss: Ana-Mouz in Suramar. Drops Skimpy Leather Tunic for transmog.
Our talk about WoW Classic will be on Thursday's episode.
Incoming for 7.3.5 - (no release date; not even up on PTR yet)
Timewalking Ulduar, new battleground
Event in Silithus to herald in the start of expansion
Leveling Improvements (yay!!!!!)
All content previous to Warlords will SCALE TO LEVEL - within ranges
Classic starting zones: 1-10
All old world vanilla zones: 10-60
Burning Crusade and Wrath zones: 60-80
Cataclysm and Pandaria zones: 80-90
What this means: You can actually complete zones without leveling out of them and feeling forced to move on and you can choose where you level up
Dungeons will also scale accordingly - so will loot drops (yes, run Wailing Caverns at 60 and you’ll get level 60 mobs and level 60 gear)
Incoming also - no release date
Accounts with an authenticator attached will get a “small increase” to the size of their standard 16 slot backpack - may be connected to WoW’s upcoming 13th anniversary event (Nov 16-30)
Expansion: Battle for Azeroth (not Tides of Vengeance) - also no release date
Basics:
Level to 120 (one instant boost to 110)
Return to faction based play areas
Bye-bye Teldrassil and Undercity (but not Silvermoon and Exodar) -- hello each faction controlling their own continent
Does the zone control mean no leveling zones for the opposite faction?
New island zones Zandalar and Kul Tiras with three areas for each
Horde: Zandalar - obviously troll focused
Alliance: Kul Tiras - naval power (which we’ve never seen because apparently they’re so good they can hide the most powerful navy in the world from everyone until now)
New subraces: the four we mentioned on the last show plus two more (Horde: Highland Tauren, Nightborne and Zandalari Troll. Alliance: Void Elf, Lightforged Draenei and Dark Iron Dwarves).
Will get 6 new character slots on each server
You have to open these subraces via quests -- once opened it’s accountwide
Subraces start at level 20. You can race-switch into them using Blizzard game services, but if you run one from 20 to 120 you get an achievement plus special heritage armor transmog
3-person Island Cooperative challenge gameplay
Changing mini scenarios on islands
Would like to have seen this scalable to other size groups - 3 is awkward
20-person raids called Warfronts to claim strategic locations
this is a PvE system, not PvP, “inspired by classic Warcraft RTS battles”
(Ren: Damn good thing or the Horde on Whisperwind is screwed)
Artifact amulet (Heart of Azeroth) instead of an artifact weapon - a system with a sort of mini-talent tree used to select and empower abilities - replacements for the Artifact, Artifact Power and Netherlight Crucible systems from Legion
Powered by Azerite, will automatically absorb Azerite when it’s nearby
Helm, chest, and shoulders will be empowered through Heart of Azeroth
Probably will need an entire episode just on this - but practical upshot is the artifact weapons are going away and this is the replacement
PVP/PVE server distinction is going away - now it will be selectable
Internal sharding allows PVP-flagged players to see/group with only one another, and PVE-unflagged players to see/group only with one another
All servers will run under same rules of engagement
Only place you can flag PVP is in capital cities - can’t flag PVP on the fly
No randomly flagged people running around
PvP gives added bonuses in addition to added risk
Item level decrease incoming
Not exactly the warlords “stat squish” where numbers were reduced across the board
Numbers from the Dungeon Journal in the demo at Blizzcon - 880 items were showing up as 215, 900 as 235, 1000 as 335
Basically trying to make numbers a bit more meaningful
Presumably mobs and such will be scaled as well -- functionally should not change, just how it’s displayed
New model changes incoming for several character races - Orcs and Trolls were demoed to choose between a hunched or upright character). Mostly focused on original races, plus blood elf and draenei. Goblins and Worgen will get makeovers later.
Beta Opt-In for Expansion
https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/battle-for-azeroth - scroll to the bottom of the page if you want to get into the beta
Episode 264, "You have to take care of Pepe's bum"
Ren
LIfe invasions continue - but for good reasons
New microphone! (and why it’s a commitment stand-in)
Seeing if I can resurrect the original Renata (but not til 6 PM tonight)
Level 72 shaman
Diablo III
Contemplating a hardcore run for new Seasons (starts Nov 9)
New undead murloc necromancer pet rocks
Got Naxxy, and Pepe is uncomfortable on my Gilnean form witch hat
Mike
Horseman’s Reins
Steamwheedle rep does work in Badlands
And Tanaris
Can’t really find any other post-cata quests.
Is there something I’m missing because killing mobs for 2 rep each is not fun.
Timewalking - got a 905 chest, iLvl went down one point lol.
This Week in WoW
Hallows End ends (Wed Nov 1)
Day of the Dead starts (Nov 1 - Nov 3)
World Quest Bonus Event starts (Tues Oct 31)
News
Shaman Challenge
First two Finishers!
Filius, with troll shaman Shameena reached level 110 in 4d 5h 44m and 14s.
Jemela, Draenei shaman 2 days 10 hours 45 minutes, 41 seconds
Token prices on the rise again - noted by Discord user JSHMLR
190k on US servers average, 290k on European servers
Patch 7.3.2 - Documented changes
Includes additional tuning for Antorus, but the raid isn’t open yet
Balance druid and elemental shaman changes -
Shamanistic Healing trait redesigned - now heals for increasing amount per rank (was fixed) with a fixed cooldown for 30 seconds (was 30 seconds minus 2 seconds per rank)
Three new class hall missions giving follower armor rewards
Added a Primal Sargerite vendor to the Vindicaar
Can now sell a number of legacy class set items back to vendors
*SPOILERS about the next expansion?*
As of today, until Oct 31, Wowhead is giving away 15 Blizzcon Virtual Tickets. Visit Wowhead for entry details.
It’s next week!
Possible leak of the expansion title?
Episode 263, "You can run around as a horse's ass"
Ren
Too much adulting this week - only got to level 70 in shaman challenge
Update on the restore/switch faction bug
INCOMING: New mic
Mike
Shaman to 50.
200 mounts!
Hallow’s End
Got 150 treats in one night.
Naxxy!
The trick to doing the wickerman - invisibility items. Instant vs. casting time.
Trying to get the headless horseman mount - how many years has it been?
This week in WoW
Black Temple timewalking - dropping base i900 items, NOT i930
Hallow’s End
Tricky Treats - Headless Horseman, daily quests, candy buckets. Use to buy masks, costumes for you or for pets (there’s three pug costumes and one Pepe skin), consumables, pets (Naxx, Sinister Squashling, Cursed Birman, Feline Familiar or Widget the Departed), heirloom upgrades (armor casings), and toys (horse head and tail, Little Wickerman)
Wickerman (Grim Visage) buffs for baby shamans (10% exp and rep for 2 hours)!
XP bonus applies to mob kills only - doesn’t increase XP from quest turnins or pet battles (“Apply Aura: mod Experience Gained %(mob kills only)”).
Rep bonuses: does work with Legion tokens and other commendations in the game, and does stack with human’s 10% exp racial ability
New this year: Naxxy, undead companion pet (150 Tricky Treats)
New costume - Xavius (200 treats)
New front and back end of a horse
Headless Horseman drops 880 loot
Magic Broom - 25% drop rate out of Horseman’s stash
mount - 0.5%
880 gear includes a sword (kind of silly for anything other than transmog), helm, and rings
News
Elysium shuts down because someone was taking home 2000 euros/month and someone else was running a gold selling service.
Patch 8.0 made a (very) brief appearance on beta servers
Ren
Shaman challenge
Level 69 at 1d 6h - got through Outland, now in Northrend - 60-68 seemed very slow
A funny thing happened on the way to the Alliance: Restored a previously deleted 110 horde mage, took her to Alliance and weirdness happened
Mike
Shaman challenge
15 to 38 in one night.
Lots of dungeons and dungeon quests.
Could get 2-3 levels in a run
Rested XP was a waste because you blow right through it.
Problem - Maraudon puts you in the dungeon, but no quests for two more levels. So, either quest or repeat dungeons.
Problem with that is now you’re moving further and further away from Stormwind (Stranglethorn or Plaguelands)
Had to run to Wetlands between dungeon runs. Waste of time. Not sure what else to do.
Toy is 10k gold, and only gives faction flight points, not neutral.
BTW: I still love Maraudon
This Week in WoW
Pet Xp event - 200% not 300% as originally advertised
Hallow’s End starts Wednesday the 18th at 10:00 AM PST
Running of the Gnomes - Saturday October 14th, to benefit the Cleveland Clinic and the creators of the Tuohy Vaccine, a proposed vaccine against breast cancer that’s showing great promise
Run from Gnomer to Booty Bay - clear 34 gates
Starts at 7 PM EST, purchase a pink tabard in Ironforge
This started on Scarlet Crusade and there are raids on Scarlet Crusade
http://runningofthegnomes.tumblr.com/post/164609327832/gnome-run-2017-faqs
News
Blizzcon 2017
All virtual ticket rewards
Flying mounts in WoW - two seaters (we knew this)
Other games - Overwatch Winston skin, Starcraft III Junker SCV, Probe and Drone Skins; Heroes of the Storm Nexus Razorback mount, Diablo III Murkromancer Pet, and a “mystery goodie” for Hearthstone.
Blizzcon Merch
New plushes: Pirate Pepe Plush, Raptor Plushie, Elekk Plushie
Jaina Key Art Poster
Ugly Holiday Greench Sweater
Sylvanus Short Sleeved Hoodie
Sargeras Shirt
New pins and new patches for the goody bag - trying to encourage badge trading\
Shaman challenge
Proposed change to 2018 Naked & Afraid Challenge: any class, any spec (but choose once!) and on your honor to pick a class you’ve never successfully leveled to 110
Scryer/Aldor
Demon hunter speed runs
Shriekrunner - uses demon hunter’s mastery scaling at level 101 to get a minimum speed of 230% base speed - speed going up to 350-410%. Uses tricks, potions, and shortcuts - showed video of clearing old world dungeons in a total of 18 minutes, not counting travel time between dungeons (Gundrak clear took 13 seconds)
Posts build and tricks in a linked Reddit thread
Mike
Lots of mog stuff in AQ this week
Shaman challenge - got to 15 pretty fast. Was going to play more on Wed. but got sidetracked.
This Week -
Brewfest ends Friday - Harvest Festival mini holiday on Friday
Darkmoon Faire ends Friday
Next week: Pet Bonus Experience - 300% pet xp
News
Legion Q&A
No word on artifact appearances yet, but they’d like them to be mogs
Exception - the shit you gotta work for :D
Same with druid forms
You can upgrade to 1000 the same way you did with 970
No new legendaries being added to the loot table
More MDI in the future.
Wants to give more classes more utility
Maxed followers needed for Antorus raid missions
Argus whistle will be unlocked on all characters shortly
Krokurun and Mac’aree world quests will NOT be account wide - story dependent
AK goes up until 55
Spider boss will be back
Thinks that not everyone having everything is OK. But it’s not.
problem - in vanilla you can work for it.
There will be Sylvanas/Greymane story progression
People still bitch about RNG (news at 11) - GATING OVER WAITING
There will be better server connections
No flying in Argus. Ever.
PvP more character-specific.
Shaman Challenge
New names proposed (Xandara): Transcendental Elementals, Developmental Elementals, Nonjudgmental Elementals
Naked & Afraid - “No Guild. No Gear. No Gold.”
Will run a Naked & Afraid Challenge after the holidays
Several Naked & Afraid Rules clarifications (posted on Discord #shamanchallenge channel)
Tips from Ren and members of the Discord channel
And Ren’s “do as I say not as I do” tips (how not to f**k up)
Prize for completing the Shaman Challenge!
Ren:
No, the Starlight Beacon does not work in Argus, but decent for Magic of Flight
Mike:
Siege of Orgrimmar is eternally long (w/Ali)
Mount farming
This week - 0
Trying to finish up achievements in old raids…..for mounts :D
Did ⅘ of the MoP dungeons - forgot to do the fifth.
This week in WoW
Brewfest continues
Tomorrow starts Harvest Festival - honor a fallen hero (NOT the Pilgrim festival)
News:
New Battle.net app on the Apple/Android stores.
Chat with your friends!
Argus unlocks on your alts!!
“Appear Offline” coming “soon”
Audio dramas - “1000 Years of War”
Will be an expansion announcement at Blizzcon
New project for Blizzard -- announcement of a job opening for Senior Client Engineer for a MMO real time strategy game on the Unity engine -- probably an iOS/Android game from the job description
Mike:
Finished Argus storyline
Completely forgot about the new dungeon, will have to do that tonight.
Yaaarrrr! Talk like a pirate day.
New item - insult book
If you’re wondering how to get Steamwheedle rep back - Silk cloth turn-ins
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/6994-Celebrate-Pirate-s-Day-September-19
Spent some time this week playing Fortnite
Cara:
OOPS I wiped my addons
map error caused by Mappy “Large gathering nodes” checkbox
lost my weakauras. mogit outfits. pet battle teams. adibags custom filters 😩
remember to save your Interface and WTF folders every so often
Raiding - the balance between casual and progression between beating normals and new raids coming out; hadn't had to do that yet in Legion but we did in Warlords
My team got 3 heroics down! Woot! Goroth, Demonic Inquisition, and Harjatan
Worked on Misstress Sass’zine for an hour, oy
I'm trying to enjoy the new stuff and not rush through it, but I find myself having to be in the right mindset to focus and get really sucked in... vs just playing with audio/video on 2nd monitor - I want to learn the lore and pay attention to details but my perfectionism is sneaking up and keeping me from doing it because if it's not perfect why bother
How's your digital declutter going with old bank mats?
News:
Mists of Pandaria timewalking is out
Brewfest is out - til October 6th
i880 gear from Coren Direbrew
Stout Alemental
Brewfest Keg Pony! (I still don’t have it….or the Headless Horseman)
And who doesn’t want a sausage hat?
2hr exp buff! Level your alts!
Holiday mogs
http://www.wowhead.com/news=272222/brewfest-2017-holiday-updates-and-guide
Hearthstone innkeeper’s tavern cookbook out Nov. 7
Massive spoilers in 7.3.2. Why isn’t it 7.3.5?
PTR Datamined ilevel 1000 legendary upgrade tokens
http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=154879/awoken-titan-essence
CHRISTIE GOLDEN IS WRITING A NEW WOW NOVEL OMG
“Book #54, a World of Warcraft novel, has been sent to the editor!”
https://twitter.com/christiegolden/status/910630264606302208
Junkertown is out in Overwatch, along with the changes to heroes.
Eric is excited to take out Pharah with Mercy
Volskaya on the Heroes PTR
Blizzcon Virtual Ticket videos before Blizzcon!
Ren:
Back to Bagnon
Cheatin’ in archaeology (more on this later)
Mike:
Altoholic rewrite
H Throne of Thunder with Ali
This week in WoW
World Quest Bonus Event
Pick up The World Awaits for 5k bonus resources
Argus Week 3:
Finish Argus Campaign on Mac’Aree
Unlock Netherlight Crucible and Seat of the Triumverate
New Mac’Aree world quests
Archaeology quest - A Beacon of Hope
Starlight Beacon - draw a box around yourself and fly inside, even when you don’t have flying
Apparently you can use this with a Goblin Glider Kit or Rocfeather Skyhorn Kite to do Magic of Flight if you don’t have regular flying. May also be usable in Argus??
Another reason why rogue = cheat mode
Upcoming Holidays:
Tuesday 19th - 20th - Pirate’s Day
Corresponds with International Talk Like a Pirate Day
1 hour pirate disguise in faction cities
Mostly occurs in Booty Bay
Get a 12 hour pirate costume that persists through death and gives an achievement
Complete quest “You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat” for 5 Emergency Pirate Outfits
Purchase Petey for 10g from Dread Captain DeMeza, a 5-stack item that allows you to have a green woodpecker on your shoulder (I looked at it. THIS IS NOT A PARROT). You can have it sit on your shoulder AND have Pepe on your head at the same time
Kill Ol’Eary, a rare elite shark off Booty Bay, get a Slightly Chewed Insult Book toy.
Wednesday 20th - October 6th - Brewfest
Some new things as of last year: Brewfest Prize Token items Gravel Goldbraid’s Famous Sausage Hat toy and the Synthebrew Goggles XL head item
News:
Blizzcon virtual ticket
More coverage! That means the panels we never got to see
ALL stages will be covered through Blizzcon All Access Channel
Can watch on demand replays for more than a month afterward
Cool mounts!
Multi passenger faction flying mounts - Stormwind Skychaser and Orgrimmar Interceptor
$39.99 US. Opening ceremony and all esports streams will be free to all but no convention coverage
More items for other games will be coming
There will be videos posted between now and Nov. on the web site.
Goody bag
It’s a backpack (useless to me)
Velcro area for little patches - one for each Bliz game
Overwatch figurine
Shadow: New Charity Pet
Fennec fox - color changing
All proceeds are being split between American Red Cross DIsaster Relief and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) Disaster Relief Fund to assist with relief efforts around the world
Mike:
Farmed for the recipe. Took about 20m.
I had 72 Shadow Silk in my inventory (ha! pack rat!)
Make 8 Shadoweave Masks. Farmed more silk. Total at the end of the day, over 80k gold.
Finished chapter 2 of Argus
Bug in a invasion point Naigtal - Spores give 1M damage/tick, kept getting it on rez.
Problem - skull mobs walk around, can really hurt you.
Spore bug
Not a lot of room to move
Very hard to do solo unless you know how to maneuver
Got my Sulfuras - Hand of Ragnaros Legendary on my DK
Ren:
Arena Skirmish Bonus Event
Darkmoon Faire r
Stupid dirgible is 1000 tickets
News:
Argus won’t have flying (but we knew that)
The Flying on Argus debate: the tl;dr version
Argussian Emissary Quests should now require 3 WQs
Fel lava on Argus no longer damages pets
http://www.wowhead.com/news=271115/lucid-nightmare-mount-discovered-by-secret-finding-discord
Invasion points
Available after finishing the second chapter of Argus in Mac’aree
Starts with a quest from Ilidan, “Where They Least Expect It” to enter an invasion point to kill the legion commander
Followup quest: recover 15 Argus Waystones to unlock Greater Invasion Points
Invasion Points repeatable - you don’t need to be in a party to enter it. Will get credit just from zoning in. Finishing grants Artifact Power tokens, Argus Waystones and Veiled Aranite.
Each lasts 6 hours
Include Environmental hazards (watch your feet) and one unique objective
Three stages: fill a bar by killing trash, more mobs spawn, LEgion Commander spawns
If you wipe on Legion Commander, health will not reset
Greater Invasion Points - can do once per week - Argus world bosses drop 930 loot
Bring a Seal of Broken Fate for bonus rolls
EMAIL
Episode 256, "Not compatible with cats"
31 Aug 2017
00:56:47
Ren:
Started on Argus campaign with rogue (as predicted)
Still playing Diablo 3 but having some repetitive motion injury issues with right hand
Ditched Bagnon for ArkInventory
Pleased with TV appearance on THE DEAD FILES - and cancelled Sling (HDTV antenna works great - between that and Amazon Prime’s Thursday Night Football, Giants season is saved!)
Caught 3rd eagle this week
Mike:
Argus! Wait, it’s only one chapter?
Can’t do the dungeon yet
What’s this cloth?
Spoilers!
Chests everywhere
Couldn’t get enough items for the i880 gear (not that I need it)
Mobs aren’t that hard to kill.
What’s with the eye quest?
20% more damage in/out?
Some guy’s been buying my stuff on the AH and not making a profit
Uldaman
Tomb of Sargeras w/Ali
This Week in Wow
One word: Argus
Next week: Mac’Aree zone opens, unlock Invasion Points, and a questline to open Greater Invasion Points that can drop 930 gear.
For those who aren’t into Argus, it’s Cataclysm Timewalking.
The Archaeology reward for next 2 weeks is a toy called the Crystalline Eye of Undravius, which lets you look around and see invisible NPCs as demons or changes existing NPCs into demons for 15 seconds (apparently Khadgar is a succubus). If you’re a toy collector or are after your 8 archaeology quests for a new artifact tint, go for it. Collecting 300 toys will get you a mount, the Mechanized Lumber Extractor.
7.3 News
Nightfallen reputation requirements removed from several Suramar quests, making it possible to complete the Suramar campaign without reputation gates.
Undocumented changes
Artifact catch-up for alts:
Artifact Knowledge now starts at 41 regardless of book
Removes Class Hall Campaign for third relic slot
Removes Broken Shore campaign to unlock Empowered Traits
Higher drop rate for artifact appearances, and you can get them for artifacts you own that you aren’t currently using (off spec)
I880 Relinquished Gear no longer available to purchase with Nethershards.
Completing opening Broken Shore scenario on one character is required to unlock Argus
Reduced requirements for Breaching the Tomb - example, you only need 50 Mark of Sentinax instead of 100
Timewalking dungeon loot starts at 880, and Black Temple timewalking loot starts at 930.
Lots of Tomb of Sargeras changes - mostly nerfs
Nomi Work Orders can now yield Broken Islands Recipe Scrap (drop rate lower than Nomi Snacks). 10 scraps = one undiscovered recipe
Fishing Round the Isles achievement now requires 20 world fishing quests, not all of them
Levitating players can now jump
Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning updated animations were not implemented. Apparently they got bad reviews on the PTR.
Two new class hall follower catch-up items added to Warmage Kathleen at Deliverance Point: Grimoire of Lost Knowledge (adds 6000 XP to follower for 2500 nethershards) and Relinquished Armor Set (sets champion iLevel to 880 for 400 nethershards)
New missions for followers may be related to a new side quest, available to players after completing the An Offering of Light main quest series. These side quests unlock a new type of troop or missions that offer new follower equipment
Helpful toy: Sightless Eye (not to be confused with the Sightless Eye currency) - makes you much less detectable to mobs on Argus or Broken Shore for 10 minutes, with a 5 minute cooldown. Any damage, including falling damage, breaks this. (Or just make a rogue)
Diablification #1: Antaen Light-Bringer in the first part of Argus -- after the first few quests, you join Kil’jaeden and Prophet Velen to destroy a siege weapon that looks like a large green portal of some type
Spoiler: it pops up and it’s a big mob
Ren: Recognized this IMMEDIATELY because it looks almost exactly like a mob called the Realmwalker in the Battlefields of Eternity level in Act IV of D3, who is a giant mob who hides in the ground with a big portal eye on his head. Knew what was going to happen
Episode 255, "Banned From Argo"
24 Aug 2017
01:00:10
Ren:
Cable cutting: Sling TV, HDTV antennas, solutions for watching football
Played opening scenario for Argus
What is it with night elves and bottled water?
Don’t see myself going through this with more than one character
Mike:
Another legendary (waist)
Got it from the world boss on the Isle
i909
Working on getting the tokens for the next legendary upgrade.
No new mounts.
Forgot about Trial of Style
News
Patch 7.3 NEXT WEEK
https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/32790-patch-73-official-patch-notes/
Other worlds??
Seat of the Triumverate - new dungeon
4 bosses
Argus WQs (no surprise)
Artifact customization
New combat animations
New items for mining, herbalism, skinning, tailoring, and shoulder enchants
Achievements for the number of tabards you have.
Class changes
Broken Shore now has an emissary quest
New factions: Army of Light and Argussian Reach - both advance with world quests, emissary quests, order hall missions and weekly quests
Army of Light - Exalted reward: Lightforged Warframe mount for the low low price of 500k gold - looks like a gold mechanical golem
Argussian Reach
Exalted reputation paragon caches can include one of three Elekk mounts
Other rewards
Not a fan of the Hearthstone musical
Not understanding the marketing behind it.
Kel’Thuzad is the new hero in Heroes of the Storm
What was with Jaina? lol
Ali-Yesterday at 11:34 PM
Oh hey everyone @here ....make sure to turn in your Legionfall Supplies before the patch. Once it drops, you'll no longer get the chests from that and the ap reward is also reduced.(edited)
Email from Zak
We fall down a rabbit hole about rare items from Uldaman.
Ren:
Still feel like I’m waiting around for 7.3 - marking time
Love the lighting effects in Dalaran
Update on The Dead Files
RL achievement: Banded first bald eagle of the year, posted picture on Twitter.
Mike:
Yes, there’s a level 1 mount
SPriest is terrible at leveling, not bad in dungeons (but could be better)
Leveled up my DH and *love it*
Trial of Style!
This week:
Legion Dungeon event
Spirit of Ech’ero mount for weekly archaeology
Trial of Style mini-event starts today and goes til Tuesday
5 players given 2 minutes to create a transmog based on a theme - some PTR themes have included Summer Styles, Winter Wear, Mismatched Mayhem, Fun and Flirty, Tabard Time, Faction Pride, Epic Purple, and of course, the ever popular Freestyle
You can’t see what your competitors are doing as they appear to be wearing smocks to cover their transmogs until the unveiling
Contestants are pulled onto a stage where people can vote on two at a time - strike a pose such as /wave, /cheer, or /dance
After several rounds of voting, prizes are awarded, 1st through 3rd and Consolation. Contains Trial of Style tokens that can be traded for transmog gear in Dalaran
Some complaints on forums of people getting kicked from scenario groups and getting a 30 minute deserter debuff
http://www.wowhead.com/news=269877/trial-of-style-transmog-holiday-august-17th-22nd
News:
7.3 - details will be announced at Gamescon via the Blizzard Reveal Ceremony on Wed 23rd
Also at Gamescon - WoW European Championship Finals, and two top Euro guilds (Nova and Set Sail for Fail) will race each other in a live mythic showdown
Whispers of a Frightened World scenario live as of Tuesday http://www.wowhead.com/news=268553/whispers-of-a-frightened-world-scenario-now-live
Without spoilers: get a quest to go to Sholazar Basin and meet with Magni, to enter the Hall of Communion at Maker’s Overlook. Starts a scenario.
Getting high reviews from people who have completed it
New combat and casting animations shown
Resto Druid
Blood Elf Female Ranged Attack
All Mage Specs
Holy Priest
Shadow Priest
Elemental Shaman
Item level changes in 7.3
Dungeon item level drops will be each going up one rung. Normal will move from 825 to 845; heroic from 845 to 865; mythic from 865 to 885.
The Name Change that Didn’t
Blizzard announced almost a year ago it was going to shift from “Battle.net” to “Blizzard” for its online services
Branding change fail: they decided they will become “Blizzard Battle.net”
Activision Blizzard Investor call - 2nd Q 2017 (April through June)
Blizzard reported: All time record monthly active users, up 38% from last year
All time record daily active users and Q2 record time spent
Legion continues to outperform Warlords
Overwatch monthly active users have increased each quarter since launch, rose to a new all time high in Q2
Net revenues of over $3.3 billion (just Blizzard)
Blizaard outperforming the other divisions (Activision and King). Activision has titles such as Call of Duty, Destiny and SKylanders, and King brings you Candy Crush, Pet Rescue, Farm Heroes and Bubble Witch
News:
What’s that thing in the sky?
All of ToS is available in Raid Finder.
Summer Games are out on Overwatch!
Sharding?
Plea to Blizz to remove sharding on NA RP servers temporarily. Approved in two hours?
Yes, true - because RP peeps wanted no sharding.
Still no release date for 7.3 - unlikely to happen before Gamescon in Germany (August 22)
Speculation it may not release until as late as October
A few more bans for selling raids/progression for RL money - Blizzard clear selling them for in-game gold is absolutely not a violation
Mythic Dungeon Invitational:
Clears done; 7 of top 10 clears completed by Europe teams. 2 Americas and 1 APAC (and 6 out of 10 were Horde ppbbbbttt :D )
Most popular dungeons: Vault of the Wardens (8/10), Halls of Valor (7/10), Neltharion’s lair (7/10), Black Rook Hold (6/10) Court of Stars (6/10 teams) and Eye of Aszhara (6/10)
Rules deliberately vague on criteria for getting in - timing is just one factor
Mike:
Lunch with Thorn and Thyst
Lots of thoughts on playing the priest (Disc, Shadow)
Ren:
Switched mains in Diablo 3
Necro: lot of fun, tired of getting killed a lot
Crusader: “good enough” DPS and don’t have to worry about getting blown up so much - running Blessed Hammer build with the Seeker of Light set
Rep-a-palooza didn’t happen, but at least finished exalted with Darkmoon Faire
Episode 252, "Rainbringer"
03 Aug 2017
00:50:47
Ren:
Still experiencing life invasions, still playing Diablo III (up to T11, level 50 GRifts)
Haven’t had much time to do anything else
Mike:
Hit the 500k mark
Started playing the warrior again - up to 17, but too early to tell if it’s a good fit because I can one-shot everything.
Wanted to play the priest. No time.
Timewalking mount
This week in WoW
Northrend Timewalking Dungeon Event
Darkmoon Faire this weekend (8/6-13)
New Darkmoon Dirigible mount coming in 7.3 for 180 tickets -- start saving now!
New cat mount/pet
We talk about today's Twitch Q&A session w/Ion.
Other news
7.3's Blood of Sargeras: Primal Sargerite
new crafting reagent
Transmute: Primal Sargerite (1 Primal Sargerite from 25 Blood of Sargeras)
recipe comes from Alchemist Funen in a new zone, Krokuun
Argus world quest rewqrds
If you are revered with Armies of Legion, can purchase a shoulder enchant that will increase drop of Light's Fortune, which contains Primal Sargerite
What requires Primal Sargerite:
all kinds of new recipes for armor, jewelcrafting, engineering, alchemy
example: Tears of the Naaru (shows all demons on minimap for 30 minutes)
Primal Obliterum: needed to advance crafted armor to 935
Why Icy Veins says to dump Defiled Augment Runes before patch 7.3
"Patch 7.3 comes adds a new faction called Army of the Light and at Exalted you can buy a new BoP rune that has the exact same stats as the old one (Lightforged Augment Rune). It seems it won't get consumed on use, so Defiled Augment Rune will be relevant only by the time players reach Exalted with the new faction. "
Episode 251, "Stop draggin' my Ashbringer around"
27 Jul 2017
00:52:19
Ren:
Life invasions > demon invasions
WoW - still plugging away at exalted
- finished Armies of Legionfall
Diablo III -- Season 11 started 8 PM EST on July 20, running a necro
- When I checked at 20 hours in, the highest season necro was level 70 and running level 86 greater rifts (GR 60= T13). I was level 8 and grateful for pants.
- Necro is level 70 running T4 (GR 17)
Mike:
How to report a bot
Related: Vial of the Sands no longer crowded on the AH
This Week:
- World Quest Bonus Event - rep gained with all Legion factions increased by 50%
- World Awaits quest - 5k order resources for completing 20 world quests
- Kirin Tor Tavern Crawl (July 31st)
- find Tipsi Wobblerune outside your faction's inn in Dalaran - she will go to diffferent inns every few minutes (pay attention to chat)
- each tavern will have Tavern Enthusiasts, new drinks and food
- some short term items such as Tavern Finery (a hat), food or drink that changes your appearance
- Hozen Pool Party on the Veiled Stair
NEWS
Changes to world bosses
- bosses like Withered Jim
- rotation is currently random but will be changed to a fixed rotation
Raiding with Leashes V - The Cuteaclysm
- Collect in Bastion of Twilight (3 pets), Blackwing Descent (3 pets), Throne of the Four Winds (2 pets), Firelands (4 pets), and Dragon Soul (3 pets).
- 8 of the 15 pets are elemental pets. There are also 2 magic, 2 dragonkin, and 1 each of mechanical, undead, and beast.
- Achievement reward is the Amalgam of Destruction, an elemental pet.
- Christie Golden writing another novel. No idea what it’s about yet.
- ToS Wing 3 on the PTR
- No more XP or Vista support come October, except Overwatch
- Russell Brower leaving Blizzard after 12 years.
Aker sends us a lot of information about what it's like to be in Method.
Episode 250, "Wrestle with Thyst, prepare for the fist"
20 Jul 2017
01:11:41
Special guest host Thyst (@thyst03) from Lagging Balls fills in for Ren this week!
Thyst:
5/9 Heroic ToS
Friend’s Heroic Lockout before KJ BoE farming (10 man group can expect 5-7 drops, 25% warforge rate. i.e, 4 915s, 1-2 920s)
Doing Deep Six Brawls
Normal Four Piece
Mike:
Timewalking BT and dungeons done
Timewalking Black Temple with Ali’s guild - so much fun!
Key for Mana Tombs works in Timewalking
Got people some xmog doing Mana Tombs twice
Tried to fix sRaidFrame, but it's too far gone. Replacement - grid2? Z Perl?
Did the quests for the legendary cloths.
Finally i907!
WoW:
Method gets first Mythic Kil’Jaden kill (of course). Longest progression race since Al’Akir.
https://twitter.com/Justw8/status/886725643672711168
654 wipes!!!
HotS:
What will be the new HotS hero? Tease from the Dark Portal.
It’s Gary Hellscream!
Overwatch:
Doomfist will be available July 27
Win/Lose rates for OW:
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20757706588?page=2#post-24
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20757527371#post-2
Episode 249, "Rainstorm Renata"
13 Jul 2017
00:54:55
Support the show!
http://www.patreon.com/starmike
Mike:
Windchanneller’s Raiment - an old secret?
Tried working on ToS - long story.
Got in two BT raids that fell apart before the first boss.
Ren:
Still mostly playing Diablo III - keeping up with Exalted, sort of
Season 11 starts July 20 . deciding what my toon will be (necro or witch doctor)
News:
Black Temple timewalking is out!
Make sure to talk to the NPC in Shatt first.
You queue by having the raid leader talk to the NPC, and then you’re all ported there.
“This is harder than timewalking”. No, it IS timewalking. It’s a raid, fool.
Lockout has been hotfixed.
Don’t forget to xmog before you go! :D
“Appear Offline” coming to battle.net?
http://www.wowhead.com/news=267447/appear-offline-mode-teased-in-hearthstone-update
New caster animations
Overwatch League is officially starting
Blizz pulling back from SDCC-exclusive items - merch will premiere at SDCC and then will be sold online.
It’s official as of 10:45 AM today: Kil’jaeden the longest lived mythic mob since Cataclysm - beats Archimonde (16 days). Current recordholder: Al’Akir (42 days)
Mythic Invitational
- PVE esports tournament
- How it works:
- July 25-August 8: group runs mythics and submits their 5 highest Mythic Keystone runs to Blizzard.
- Blizzard chooses top 8 teams from each of the 4 regions (Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific and China)
- September Regional Playoffs - single elimination until 2 teams remain - each region gets one streaming day. Blizzard chooses the dungeon (presumably different each time so no one can prepare?)
September 16: China
September 17: Asia-Pacific
September 23: Europe
September 24: Americas
The woes of trying to get rep with factions that come and go.
Dealing with Dubenko the Turtle.
Don't forget farm rep if you're working on Pandaria rep.
Vial of the Sands is returning 30k gold in a matter of hours. Is that good?
This week in WoW:
Pet event: 200% xp
Darkmoon Faire ends Sunday am
Tuesday July 11 - Tomb of Sargeras - second wing opens to raid finder July 11, Burning Crusade timewalking
**BREAKING** Doomfist is up on the Overwatch PTR
Ren talks at length about the Diablo III Necromancer
Mike, Renata, and Ali talk about our first impressions of Shadowlands!
Episode 247, "That's a wanker"
29 Jun 2017
01:00:54
Warcast turns 12 on Sunday! Thanks to everyone who has listened to and supported the show all these years.
Mike and Ren go off on an unexpected tangent about games and age - have you changed your gaming habits as you got older?
Dinner with Thorn and Thyst in meatspace!
How to NOT recruit for your guild.
Mike finally gets Vial of the Sands after a week of farming.
- Was it worth it?
- Can you undercut the competition?
- How much are the mats and how much profit would you make?
Authentication issues with the Legion app (Mike had login issues with the game as well).
This week:
Darkmoon Faire! With the start of Blight Boar?
Fireworks on the 4th.
Fire Festival ends the 5th.
News
Patch 7.3 hitting PTR https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20757296503
First wing of ToS LFR opened up.
Blizz taking action against accounts that advertize raid clears for money.
It’s summer! http://blizzardwatch.com/2017/06/27/qiraji-guardling-summer-pet-wow/
The Necromancer arrives in D3 $15
Overwatch hoodies from Jinx
Mention of class development Reddit AMA that happened last Friday - https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/6j2wwk/wow_class_design_ama_june_2017/?st=j4inb11y&sh=c7617731
Discord! https://discord.gg/0igWZxupFC0N8mH4
Episode 246, "900 or higher"
22 Jun 2017
00:55:41
News:
Tomb of Sargeras is open.
Midsummer Fire Festival
Book of Matches - 500 blossoms
Sets you on fire, and running screaming!!
Gathered all 500 in maybe 2 hours or less
Other new pets
There’s a new(?) helm for 350 blossoms
Candy Buckets addon helps a lot
Blizzard signs two-year exclusive deal with Twitch to stream eSports
More Blizzcon tickets go on sale July 5
Great, but what will that do for an already-full hotel scene?
Overwatch: new map - Lunar Colony
Overwatch: get a golden crate with a Twitch Prime account
http://blizzardwatch.com/2017/06/16/wow-secret-finding-discord-uncovers-secret-behind-sun-darter-hatchling/
https://www.scribd.com/document/351437491/Sun-Darter-Hatchling?irgwc=1&content=27795&campaign=VigLink&ad_group=2332445&keyword=ft500noi&source=impactradius&medium=affiliate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mrb02monDMg
Mike:
All you need to know about how to farm the damn Vial of the Sands recipe.
Why did the price of Blood of the Mountain skyrocket last week?
Patch 7.2.5 is out!
We take a look at the documented and UNdocumented changes, including a compilation of undocumented changes found around the interwebz.
Midsummer Fire Festival next week, with new items.
Black Temple Timewalking is next week.
Work on that Shaohao rep this week!
Overwatch - Lunar Colony map June 20.
Mike:
Mount count is up to 189. Getting there.
The Sunwell transmog set achivement is now fixed.
Using a bank toon to auction things.
Mike tried the Chromie scenario (tried...).
Ren:
The Wowhead premium subscription is worth it.
The new flightpath toy for alts.
Time to get the Bloodsail Admiral title?