PTR – Yes!

Yes! After days of trying to log in and copy a character over to the PTR, I have finally succeeded! My druid is being copied over as I type this to the PvE PTR realm “Broxigar”. I am downloading the client now, which is probably something I should have started a while ago.

A few tips if you too are trying to get a character copied onto the PTRs:

If you use an authenticator to log in to WoW, you need your authenticator to log into your online WoW Account. I didn’t know this until the other day when I heard copies were up and tried to log in at work.

Try to copy at night! I finally got lucky at a little before 2am. I figured one last shot after tonight’s raid couldn’t hurt, and it certainly paid off!

Good Luck with your character copies, and I hope to see you on the PTRs!

PTR Patch 3.1 Notes

As a blogger, there should be a rule against going to sleep early. Last night I decided to hit the hay a little earlier than normal, therefor missing the release of the Patch notes and all the hub-bub that went along with it. And now the PTRs are up! And, why of course, it has to be a hectic day for me otherwise, so I am just sitting down to digest all the patch notes and changes now.

Here is the PTR Patch 3.1 Notes Digest for Druids:

Druid Tier 8 !

Finally we get our first look at what our Tier 8 gear will look like for us. I was concerned after seeing what the Rogues had to work with, but am very pleasantly surprised that our T8 is quite Druidic indeed! Check it out here! I love all the paw prints, vines, and moons!!

Druid Glyph Changes

There are a few changes as well as a bunch of additions for all druids. No say on whether these will be Major or Minor glyphs, but it is nice to see a few additions that interest me. Feral Glyphs are bold.

• Glyph of Rebirth — Players resurrected by Rebirth are returned to life with 100% health. (Old: Increases the amount of health on a character brought back to life via Rebirth by 100%.)
• Glyph of Starfall  — Reduces the cooldown of Starfall by 90 sec. (Old: Increases the duration of Starfall by 2 sec.)
• Glyph of Berserk *new*  — Increases the duration of Berserk by 5 sec.
• Glyph of Wild Growth *new*  — Wild Growth now affects up to 6 targets.
• Glyph of Nourish *new*  — Your Nourish heals an additional 6% for each of your heal over time effects present on the target.
• Glyph of Savage Roar *new*  — Your Savage Roar ability grants an additional 6% bonus damage done.
• Glyph of Typhoon *new*  — Reduces the cooldown of your Typhoon spell by 3 sec.
• Glyph of Barkskin *new*  — Reduces the chance you’ll be critically hit by melee attacks by 1 to 0% while Barkskin is active.

Druid Class Changes

It’s nice to see changes across the board for all Druid Specs. Many changes for us Ferals. I will post more on what the changes will mean to me very soon.

Balance

• Faerie Fire now decreases armor by 5%. (Previously decreased armor by a set amount)
• Owlkin Frenzy (Tier 8 ) now procs off physical melee and ranged attacks. (Previously was triggered by all attacks)
• Owlkin Frenzy is now properly considered an Enrage effect.

Feral Combat

• Faerie Fire now decreases armor by 5%. (Previously decreased armor by a set amount)
• Savage Roar changed to increase physical damage done by 30%. (Previously increased attack power by 40%)
• Maim now stuns the target instead of incapacitate.
• *New Spell* Savage Defense, 1 rank, level 40 – Each time you deal a melee critical strike, you gain Savage Defense, reducing the damage taken from the next physical attack that strikes you by 25% of your attack power.
• Survival of the Fittest (Tier 6) now increases your armor contribution from cloth and leather items in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form by 11/22/33%. (Previously 22/44/66%)

• Predatory Strikes (Tier 4) now increases now includes Moonkin Form in its effect.
• *New Talent* Primal Gore, Tier 10, 1 point talent – Grants the periodic damage from your Rake, Lacerate and Rip abilities the ability to critically hit.
• Savage Roar is now considered an Enrage effect.

Restoration

• Abolish Poison now ticks every 3 secs for 12 secs. (Previously ticked every 2 secs for 8 secs)
• Replenish (Tier 9) : This talent is now re-named “Revitalize” and now also works with Wild Growth.

• Improved Regrowth (Tier 6) renamed Nature’s Bounty. Increases the critical effect chance of your Regrowth and Nourish spells by 5/10/15/20/25%. (Previously increased just regrowth crit by 10/20/30/40/50%)
• Intensity (Tier 3) now allows 17/33/50% of mana regeneration to continue while casting. (Previously 10/20/30%)
• Improved Mark of the Wild (Tier 1) now also increases all of your total attributes by 1/2%.
• *New Talent* Improved Barkskin, Tier 10, 2 point talent – Increases the damage reduction granted by your Barkskin spell by 5/10%, and increases resistance to Dispel mechanics by 30/60% while under the effect of Barkskin.
• Living Seed: This talent now accounts for your ineffective healing, rather than effective.
• Replenish: This talent is now re-named “Revitalize” and now also works with Wild Growth.
• Tree of Life: You can now use Nature’s Grasp and Thorns while within this form.

There are many, many other changes that will have an affect on myself and many druids regarding dual specs, mounts, raids, gear, among other things, that I plan to discuss soon.

These changes will certainly be tweaked many times before they ever hit us on the live Realms. I am trying my best to get my Druid copied to the PTR so I can mess around will all the changes (and maybe get in Ulduar raiding) before it does go live. There is also no set date for when this will go live.

Want to stay up to date with all Patch 3.1 goodness? Check out MMO-Champion.com for their great coverage on all the changes coming to the game we love.

Sixth Screenshot

It’s been making its way around the WoW Blogosphere, and now it is my turn! The rules are simple; just post the sixth screenshot from your WoW screenshot folder.

As I have been playing WoW for years, I had hundreds, if not thousands, of screenshots. Unfortunately, at the end of last year my hard drive crashed and I lost all my data, including screenshots. So while this isn’t the sixth shot I’ve ever taken, it is what I’ve got.

And it is Leviathan’s First 10 man Sapphiron Kill! My, my, how things have changed since then!

I think I will also copy Shawndra’s idea over on wishfullthought.blogspot.com of showing the sixth image from other locations. This is the sixth image from my image folder here on my WordPress blog.

Me in my fabulous Tier 4 showing off my Hippogryph!

If you would also like to participate in this little WoW blog meme, just show off your sixth screenshot! It’s as easy as that!

Blizzcon 2009, here I come!

Today Blizzard announced plans for this year’s Blizzcon 2009 Convention in Anaheim, CA. The two day event will take place on Friday, August 21st and Saturday, August 22nd.

To read the entire press release, head to Blizzard’s site.

It is way too early for me to make any predicitons on what they will be showing off, or what new games they will be announcing, but with the fact that Blizzard will not be attending E3 this year, I’m sure much will be in store for all Blizzcon attendees.

They have not released any information about when tickets will be going on sale, but they have mentioned that the convention will be explanding from 3 halls to 4 in the Anaheim Convention Center, which leads me to conclude that they will have many more tickets available for sale this year that last year and hopefully can avoid a similar ticket fiasco which prevented me from going last year.

I am going this year though!, as long as I can save up for the airfare and the hotel. (Thanks to a very awesomely connected friend I will not have to worry about getting the tickets the normal way.) So anyone with any recomendations on hotels, please pass the information along.

I should start brainstorming costume ideas. I could reuse my NE Druid (caster form) costume from a few years ago, or wear my NE Druid Cat form hoodie-costume from this past Halloween, but I think I will think up something new. I think it may be hot in California in August. Just a hunch…

I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a Murloc pet.

Love is in the Air – Updates

Hope you are all well on your way to your Love Fool titles. On Saturday, Blizzard added a small Hotfix to the Love is in the Air event to “fix” a few things.

RED ROSES – A Bouquet of Red Roses now has a chance to drop off of any boss that also drops the Bouquet of Ebon Roses. I am not sure if these Red Roses will work with the Achievements “Fistful of Love” and “Flirt with Disaster”. (If anyone can confirm or deny, please let me know. ^^ )

BAG OF CANDIES – The drop rate of Bag of Candies was upped, and I would say by quite a bit. I was fortunately able to get my bags of candies, and title, prior to the hotfix. Since then I have gotten four bags of candy in my quest to get Peddlefeet. (Alas, still no luck on that little bugger…)

SILVER SHAFTED ARROWS – This is an undocumented change, because, well, it probably wasn’t something Blizzard wanted to mention was wrong in the first place. My secret “exploit” of how to use them without using them is no longer worked because all the arrows are now insta-cast, removing any chance from get the achievement on easy mode. Don’t fret, these things still drop a ton for me so it shouldn’t set you back too much.

Love is in the Air ends on Monday, February the 16th, so get out there and share you love if you still want a chance at the title!

Love is in the Air!

And so we are are, in the midst of the very short “Love is in the Air” Holiday. The Event runs from February 11th to February 16th.

The majority of the Achievements for this event deal with the various items which you receive from the residents of Darnassus, Stormwind, and Ironforge in exchange for a “Love Token”. In order for them to have any interest in you, however, you have to be wearing their favorite perfume or cologne. The men, of course, are interested in perfumed people, and the ladies the cologned. There are a variety of presents you can get, ranging from Friendship Bracelets to a Bag of Candies. A useful tip regarding collecting presents is to make sure that you always have bag space! If you do not have empty space and try to do your big hourly present, you will not receive it, but will still get the hour Adored debuff. This Holiday has a ton of items, so if you can, dump a bunch of unneeded stuff in your bank before you embark.

There are fourteen Achievements for the event altogether, but luckily only twelve of them are required for the Meta Achievement “Fool For Love” which awards the title: “The Love Fool”. None of the achievements are exceptionally hard to complete, but you do have to hope that the RNGs of  WoW are on your side. You will have to be level 80, though, in order to complete the Meta Achieve as you will have to enter into Naxxramas.

Let’s get it on!:

Achievements from items:

HEARTMENDER – Unbreak my hearrrttttt, say you love me AGAAAIIINNN!!! Unbreak 20 other player’s hearts by giving them a friendship bracelet.

SHAFTED! – Shoot 10 players with a Silver Shafted Arrow. Bonus Tip! This is an exploit, so I’m not sure if this is something you can get banned for, but it will cut down your need for 10 arrows down to 1. Throwing the arrow has a cast bar, but the tally for the achievement goes up instantly. If you jump, move, or otherwise cancel the casting, you will not use your arrow, but will get it counted.

FLIRT WITH DISASTER – Step 1: Buy Booze. Lots of it. Step 2. Find Sraaz in IF. He pats around the inner circle of the city, near the flightmaster. Step 3: Put on some perfume. Step 4: Get “completely smashed”. Step 5: Throw rose petals on him. (They have to be petals, and not the petals from the off-hander.) Step 6: /Kiss him. Step 7: Wake up the next morning hung over and confused with many regrets.

THE ROCKET’S PINK GLARE – Shoot 10 rockets in 20 seconds or less. Make sure you have all 10 rockets before you begin and place the item on your action bar. When you use the item you will get a special cursor to place the item where you want, similarly to placing a Great Feast down. Hit the corresponding key and then click the ground repeatingly until you have fired all 10.

NATION OF ADORATION – Get a Gift of Adoration from Darnassus, Ironforge, and Stormwind. Note that this has to be a GIFT not a PLEDGE. Gifts of Adoration come from the civilians, not the guards, of the cities.

FISTFUL OF LOVE - Sprinkle a Handful of Roses on each of 10 unique race/class combinations. Fairly simple to do, until you realize that Troll Rogues and Undead Warriors don’t really exist (at least not often). I was able to get these two hard to find guys by going into the Horde Inn in Dalaran. (Don’t know how to get into the opposing factions Inn? I will discuss it in a future post.)

SWEET TOOTH – Eat four different tasty chocolates. They are contained within the boxes of chocolates that you receive from Gifts or Pledges of Adoration, or from handing in an Alliance Gift Collection to Peddlefeet. Most boxes I got contained all four flavors needed, but these boxes are not rare at all so this should not be very hard to get.

BE MINE! – Use a Bag of Candies to create each of the eight special candy hearts. Each bag will create ten candies, but it is random which one you will get, resulting in many repeats. This one is causing troubles for many people, but I managed to get five from my first bag, and the remaining three from my second bag. (My favorite is “Hot Lips”!)

I PITIED THE FOOL – Use the item “Love Fool” to summon one, and then /pity him. Pity the Love fool in five specific locations:

• Wintergrasp: Can be anywhere in WG, whether a battle is taking place or not.
• Battle Ring of Gurubashi Arena: This is the arena in STV. You have to be on the floor of the arena, but it does not have to be during the fight for the chest.
• Arathi Basin Blacksmith: You have join an AB BG for this, but nothing says you have to stay. If you rush right over to the Blacksmith, which is on the central island, you can complete this part of the achievement before you even need to look at a Horde.
• The Culling of Stratholme: You can complete this on normal, but you do have to enter the instance. You can drop your Love Fool right inside the instance, no need to start it up. It is a level 75 instance.
• Naxxramas: You need to be inside the Raid instance in order for this to work, even though the summoning area says it is part of Naxx. It is a level 80 Raid instance.

Achievements from special items:

LONELY? – When getting a Pledge or Gift of Adoration, there is a chance that it will drop a Romantic Picnic Basket. However you do not need to get a basket to complete this achievement. You have to be in Dalaran for this to count. If you see anyone set out a picnic in Dalaran, why not join them by clicking on the picnic basket? This will get you and them their achievement. If you set down your own basket, you will have to wait until someone comes and joins you for it to be counted.

MY LOVE IS LIKE A RED, RED ROSE – Obtain a Bouquet of Red or Ebon Roses. The Red Roses are from previous years’ LiitA Holidays. To get a Bouquet of Ebon Roses, get a small group together and head over to Normal Utgarde Keep. The bouquet drops off of the first boss in there. He only drops one, so you will have to run out and reset it each time until everyone gets their Roses. They also drop in Normal HoS and Ahn’Kahet, but I like UK because you don’t need to kill too many mobs before you get to the boss.

LOVELY LUCK IS ON YOUR SIDE -  (Not needed for Meta) There is a chance that you will receive a Lovely Black Dress from a Gift or Pledge of Adoration. The fact that it is not part of the Meta makes me think it is a rare drop, but several people I know have gotten this item.

PERMA-PEDDLE – (Not needed for Meta) There is a chance that you will receive a Truesilver Shafted Arrow from a Gift or Pledge of Adoration, which will teach you how to summon Peddlefeet, some sort of creepy goblin cupid dude. This is also not part of the Meta, but rightfully so, as it is the last thing I have yet to complete for the Holiday.

Other Achievements:

NEAREST AND DEAREST - Complete the entire Love is in the Air questline. The quests start in SW and ends in the Hillsbrad Foothills neat Ravenholdt Manor. It is tough to explain how to get exactly to him, so check WoWHead for a useful map. Completing this will also let you pick a fancy outfit: a Blue, Purple, or Red Dinner Suit or a Lovely Blue, Purple, or Red Dress.

Love me, Love me… say that you Love me!

I have done it yet again; in less than 24 Hours from the time an Event has started I have completed the Meta achievement and earned the accompanying Title: “Kathoid the Love Fool”!

More information to come tomorrow, once I am fully rested. FYI – took about 8 hours total of game time dedicated towards it.

So long Elders, there is a new Love in my life…

Say goodbye to the many Elders scattered across Azeroth; the Lunar Festival ends on Thursday, February 12th. The good news is if you are still interested in getting your Meta Achievement and your “Elder” title, you still have time if you get started with it right now (if you are already level 80). It took me about 14 hours from start to finish to get to all the Elders.

However, the even better news is that a new event starts tomorrow: Love is in the Air! Just with any other WoW Event, this one has plenty of Achievements that go along with. While this event doesn’t require you to traverse the globe, you will have to talk to the Innkeepers of Major cities every hour to get different items you will need to complete the various Achievements. One big downfall to this event is that it only last for six days, meaning that you better hope your Valentine decides to give you ample time to play WoW this weekend instead of a box of chocolates or a dozen red roses.

I will, as usual, have plenty of posts to come once I can dig my claws into this event. I am not overwhelmed with the desire to get the title “Kathoid, the Love Fool”, I still will head into this event full speed ahead so I can write up a helpful guide or two and spend some time on Valentine’s Day with my most favorite Rogue.

WoW Insider already has up a pretty in-depth article on the event, so if you plan on getting started right away I would read up now.

Patch 3.0.9

We can expect to see patch 3.0.9 this week; a minor patch to tweak a few things here and fix a few bugs there. A few things interest me in the notes for this patch.

DRUID

• Ferocious Bite: This ability now only uses up to 30 energy in addition to its base cost.

THE OBSIDIAN SANCTUM

• Changed the color of the fissure in the Obsidian Sanctum to be more visually distinct.

As for the FB change, I don’t see this as having a huge effect in PvE/Raids since I don’t use FB in my rotations, unless I have extra energy to burn before I need to re-up Savage Roar or Rip, and when I do use it I don’t wait to fill up to 100 energy before using it. However, I can see this having a big affect in PvP as it will reduce the amount of burst damage that we can do. Blizzard has mentioned in the past that they don’t like how bursty FB can be in PvP, so this is one way they are going to fix that. I don’t see this so much as a nerf, but more of a way to try to balance PvP a little more. I really can’t say I PvP much though, so if I should be QQing, let me know.

I welcome the change to OS fissures with open arms (paws?) as I can see this being very helpful while attempting OS with any drakes up. My guild recently downed our first OS+1, and one of the things I was having a hard time was seeing the fissures, since they tend to blend in with everything going on around us. Changing it to a more obvious color will mean I will have to spend less precious nano-seconds frantically searching for them. If you haven’t tried OS+drakes, it is probably the most hectic, insane thing out there.

The other thing I find exciting about this patch is the number: 3.0.9. Sure they could throw us a 3.0.9A or a 3.0.95, but numerically speaking the next patch we should get should be 3.1. Let’s just hope they don’t mess up something huge like Wintergrasp and crash our servers on raid night.

Upcoming Patch 3.1 Changes

Now that Patch 3.0.8 is here, and has been fixed from all the bugs it brought along with it, it is time to start all the speculation that comes along with the next incoming patch. With last week’s fake patch note release a lot of people have begun to dream of what could be headed their way, along with Ulduar, once the patch hits us. Ghostcrawler, over on the WoW Forums, has stepped up to the plate and released some of the planned class changes. Yesterday Priests, Rogues, and Shamans got their fix, today Warlocks, Warriors, and Druids get theirs. Keep in mind that this is probably not all the changes we will see, and chances are that some of these will be tweaked from how they are written now.

Ghostcrawler writes:

DRUID

• Savage Defense – this is a new passive ability. When a druid in Dire Bear form deals a melee critical strike, the druid gains a damage shield equal to 25% of their attack power. The next hit completely removes the shield regardless of how much damage was done.
• Survival of the Fittest has had its bonus armor reduced to compensate for the above increase in damage mitigation.
• Faerie Fire (and similar debuffs) now reduces armor by 5%. See Sunder Armor in the warrior update below for additional details.
• Thorns and Nature’s Grasp can be cast in Tree of Life form.
• Survival Instincts now works in Moonkin form.
• Replenish – to avoid confusion, this talent has been renamed “Revitalize.” It now also works with Wild Growth.
• We are also looking at increasing the sustained (not burst) damage of feral druids in cat form.

So let’s break down all these changes, shall we? And yes, I would like to look at all the changes, including our cousins the Bear, Moonkin, and Tree. Remember that 3.1 brings the promise of Dual-Specs, and now is as good a time as any to think about what your alternate spec will be, if you haven’t already decided. I personally am leaning strongly towards Bear; not that my guild is lacking tanks, just that all I did in BC Raids was Tank, and I miss it at times.

• Savage Defense – This one is for our Bear buddies. Of course they don’t specify if this is an ability that you will have to put points into, or just purchase from the Druid Trainer. As I haven’t tanked in what feels like eons, I’m not really sure how needed this ability is. I’m not sure what most Bear’s crit is, but the Bear Tank in my guild is sitting at 21% to crit with a mix of Epics from Heroics, Naxx 10 and Naxx 25. That means that he would get that shield 21% of the time, or 1 out of every 5 melee attacks. I know this is good, but not sure how big the effect will be in the long run.
• Survival of the Fittest – Again, for our Bears. Because of the above change they will be reworking this ability and reducing its bonus armor. “Reducing” isn’t a word we like to hear, but remember that there isn’t an amount or percentage mentioned here, so save the QQs until we know if it is going to be a big reduction or not.
• Faerie Fire – Currently, FF decreases armor by 1260. Changing it to 5% will mean that it scales based on your target. Improved FF should not be affected by this, as Imp has nothing to do with Armor. The “see warrior update below…” says this:
  • Sunder Armor (and similar debuffs) now reduces armor by 4% per application, and is now a single rank. Creature armor has been globally reduced so that debuffed targets should take about the same damage from physical attacks that they did before this change. The net effect should be that this debuff is slightly less mandatory in PvE and is not disproportionately more powerful against cloth targets in PvP.
• Thorns and Nature’s Grasp – I see these as being more useful in PvP, but may also see some use in PvE. As these are both defensive spells, I don’t see this really affecting the balance in PvP at all, since it does minimal damage, and gives Trees a little bit extra time to escape an oncoming attack.
• Survival Instincts – One for our Boomkins! I think this is a nice little addition for them, although I know they would like to hear more than just one minor change. SI gives them 30% if their maximum health for 20 seconds. I use this ability if I am ever OTing and get a bit low, or if I pull aggro accidentally, so I see that Boomkins would be using this in the same manner.
• Replenish – Replenish is a talent in the Resto tree that causes people being healed by Rejuvenation to have a chance to gain back their energy, rage, mana, or runic power. Renaming it “Revitalize” with clear up any confusion between it and Replenishment. Having it work with Wild Growth now will mean that when being healed by Wild Growth, the people being healed will get a chance to regain energy, etc. from that healing spell as well.
• Sustained Damage of Feral Druids in Cat Form – While I do not see a huge need for this for me personally, I will welcome the change as it means I will probably be able to out DPS a mage or a DPS warrior. And I am sure that many Feral DPS Druids who are new to the class/spec will welcome this change. Note this will not affect Burst damage, so Swipes won’t be getting any extra damage.

Overall, way more changes for Ferals, both Cat and Bear alike. I am sure our fine feathered and barked friends will see changes more than just this teaser when 3.1 goes live. To me it makes sense that Cats and Bears would get a bunch of changes, because there have been so many changes since 3.0 and the introduction of Wrath to the Feral talent tree and how we play. I hope that the Feral DPS changes bring more people into the class and spec, as it still seems that Kitties are still few and far between.

Still no set date for 3.1 yet, but this sure gives me a lot to look forward to!