Posts with tag featured

Work warning: Pretty violent video.

Well, if I didn't know that Diablo III released today, the empty halls of the WoW Insider headquarters would certainly tell me. It's like a ghost town around here. I've not been able to play yet, but that's OK. I've got this incredibly awesome animated short feature to get me by.

Diablo III: Wrath was revealed for the community about a week ago. If you're just now getting your hands on the Diablo universe for the first time, this video gives you a great sense of the mythos. The animation is fantastic and gorgeous. I could almost wish for this to be an ongoing series.

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Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.

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When one takes a two-week vacation, one generally looks forward to things having changed, even slightly, when one returns. This is especially sure when speaking of the Mists of Pandaria beta test. Strangely, that hasn't been exactly the case for death knights. There have been changes, certainly, but not as drastic as we might have hoped -- and not as well-explained, either.

Today, we'll take a look at a few of the more important changes and what they imply for our class. In addition, we'll see what Ghostcrawler did and didn't say about death knights in a recent post.

Plague Leech and disease issues

There've been a few changes to death knights, but the most interesting one comes with Plague Leech. This first-tier talent, which replaces Vile Spew, will allow you to generate a death rune by canceling the diseases from your target.

The nice thing about this skill is that it gives us another much-needed Blood Tap replacement now that Blood Tap itself has been turned into a somewhat more restricted talent. The bad thing about this skill is that it's probably going to become mandatory for min-maxing DPS death knights. If your diseases are about to expire anyway and you can eat them for an extra death rune, it's hard to see how that won't become a DPS increase. Once we all reach level 90 and the math has been sufficiently mathed, it seems relatively obvious that Plague Leech will be considered mandatory by the hardcore PvE community, for better or for worse.

In Two Bosses Enter, WoW Insider's series of fantasy death matches, bosses, leaders, and powerful figures of World of Warcraft face off in the squared circle. Your vote determines who wins and claims the season title.

Two Bosses Enter's season finale was a big win for dungeon boss design, with End Time's Murozond beating out the rest of the Hour of Twilight 5-man instance bosses and even some of the Dragon Soul raid bosses, thanks to the Raid Finder. The WoW Insider community connected with an all-around fun fight that wasn't as punishing as some of the other fights in the 5-man heroic tier but made for epic moments and an important climactic battle. Murozond and his unique mechanic will have a lot to say going forward with encounter design, I would imagine, as this whole set of 5-mans has been remarkably successful, for the most part. Sorry, Arcurion.

Now that we've got season 3 tucked away, it's time to ponder the future, looking forward toward a brighter and more peaceful tomorrow. Sadly, that tomorrow isn't looking so bright or peaceful, with the Horde and the Alliance preparing to descend upon the lost continent of Pandaria, bitter rivalries and hatreds newly reignited. With war comes heroes from every faction, giving us plenty of cannon fodder for Two Bosses Enter.

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky (@adamholisky) will be your host today.

I'm going to be raiding tonight, but during the rest of the day (after my work is done, of course), I'll finally be enjoying Diablo 3.

Pretty much AFK, evil.

And if you're looking for something not evil, go check out WoW Insider Editor-in-Chief Alex Ziebart's AMAA (Ask Me Almost Anything) on /r/wow today.

Kikiswingset asked:

My raid leader demands that if you want to raid, you must have played a healer up to lvl 60 and show him that you understand how tirage priority works, but also to foster an appreciation forthe difficulty of healing "fire squatters". If you had to pick, which role/class/spec should everyone play before they start raiding?

Welp, "fire squatter" is now my favorite term, ever.

Submitter Shamryu of I N F I N I T Y on Frostmourne (US-H) writes, "We were doing 25-man Dragon Soul, and while we were sitting on the boat waiting to fill a couple of spots, I noticed I could cast Far Sight of the side of the bow. This is what I saw. It's like a ship in a bottle, with a storm in it too ... and 22 very bored Hordies. I don't think Blizzard ever expected someone to try targeting this spell off the side of the ship."

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Want to see your own screenshot here? Send it to aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com. We strongly prefer full-sized pictures with no UI or names showing. Include "Azeroth" in the subject line to ensure your submission dodges email spam filters; if you'd like to be credited, also include your name, guild and realm.

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Many of you don't know about Windrider Traffic Commander Joruk Stonejaw, one of the vital members of the Orgrimmar Flight and Safety Administration. No, you can't look him up on Wowhead. I mean, you could try, but you won't find him. I made him up.

Born in Orgrimmar and working in his father's salvage shop, Joruk dreamed of the sky every spare moment he had. When the Horde went to Northrend, Joruk went with it. When he returned from battle, Garrosh Hellscream commanded Horde soldiers from the front to transition back into a state of readiness. Joruk, proven on the battlefield, was tasked with overseeing the wyvern operations and highway high above The Drag.

Eventually, Joruk made himself indispensible. Soon, every wyvern and windrider schedule was passing past his desk. Five headaches and three delegations later, Joruk's new position of Windrider Traffic Commander was instated. If you've ever flown out of Orgrimmar, be it by airship, zeppelin, windrider, or flying machine, Joruk Stonejaw has seen your name on paperwork.

Make up your own WoW character. Go.

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All podcasts and content belong to their owners. WoW Insider is not responsible for what you hear, and some of the content may not be safe for work.

• All Things Azeroth Viewing Vanilla through Rose Colored lenses
• BlizzPlanet The Week of Warcraft Episode 4
• Hunting Party Podcast Episode 127
• The Instance 10.2 and Stable
• Legendary Serverless Warcraft

As we all sit around our Basic Campfires, caught rapt by breathless anticipation, let's take a moment and celebrate the upcoming release of Diablo III with a funny machinima.

Olibith created the Gigolo Witch Test using the the first custom machinima tool made for the game. While that might not sound like a big deal, that makes this Gigolo Witch Test the first full-blown, tooled machinima for Diablo III. (That's why we featured it on WoW Moviewatch back in the day.)

So here's hoping we won't be so sad and lonely for much longer, and we all get to enjoy the silky-smooth launch of Diablo III.

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Evil has returned! 1.2 million WoW players are getting Diablo 3 for free thanks to the Annual Pass. You can get prepared for the evil with WoW Insider's launch coverage. From the lore of Diablo, to the important blue posts and the basics of Diablo gameplay, we'll get you on the inside track for the return of evil.

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Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available from No Starch Press.

No community wants to be known as a feeder guild. No raid team wants to see its best members leave for more progressed guilds when they have the opportunity. No guild leader wants to fall victim to poaching over and over again. It's an embarrassing place to be. How can you stop the bleeding and shake the label? Read on to find out! But first, this week's email:

Hi Scott.

I'm GM of a guild that is not a hard core raiding guild. We have been around since Ulduar and were founded at the break up of a guild that existed since vanilla. ... The founding principle of the guild was no drama and keep it casual. This has crystallised into my own rule as GM: advice for other players is fine if you ask if they want it first. Unsolicited "you are rubbish" comments are not allowed.

... One advantage of the guild is that the atmosphere of advice and support over criticism means that "OMG you Noob" players either change their tune or leave. This mean the relations between guild members generally remain good even after people move on. So on to the issue.

Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm.

Dig those groovy threads, man. Being caught in the middle of a feud between the raid leader and guild leader does not require you to wear baby blue bell bottoms, but it may help.

Dear Drama Mamas,

I find myself at a loss for words about recent events in the guild I belong to. Since I can not figure out if I am being unreasonable I've decided to seek outside help.

Recently a Raid Leader and our Guild Master had a fight. The Raid Leader and his Raid Team quit the guild we belong to and settled into a level 1 guild together. They were the only people raiding in our guild and the raid leader was instrumental in helping each of them gear and I understand why they followed them. They did not have an issue with the fight between the GM and RL, they just followed the person who had helped them the most and who would see them through their raids. Our guild has a lot of followers and very few leaders so I am not surprised. This was a loss for our guild, but since drama always seemed to follow that Raid Leader its probably for the best.

Ascendance is a new ability coming to level 87 shaman of all specs in Mists of Pandaria. For 15 seconds every 3 minutes, you'll transform yourself into an Ascended elemental form that looks very much like the trash mobs in Grim Batol or Bastion of Twilight. The actual Ascendant's appearance and the function of the form vary based on your current specialization.

For enhancement, you take on the form of an air Ascendant, making your melee auto-attacks and Stormstrike become ranged attacks that are able to be used at up to 30 yards away. They also deal pure nature damage, which means they're benefited by Enhanced Elements and ignore armor. From a PvP standpoint, melee attacks from a 30-yard range that ignore armor will be frustrating for escaping clothies and plate-wearers that you're trying to keep your distance from.

Elemental morphs into a fire Ascendant. In this form, your Chain Lightning morphs into Lava Beam. Lava Beam is similar to Chain Lightning but hits a total of five targets and doesn't reduce its damage when it jumps, which is potent AoE. For single targets, your fire Ascendancy makes your Lava Burst have no cooldown during its duration, which means back to back critical hits for 15 seconds.

The last Ascendant form is restoration's water form, which functions very similarly to the Essence of Dreams in Ultraxion. For 15 seconds, every heal you cast duplicates its healing done and splits that secondary healing amount among all nearby targets. If you cast a 100k Greater Healing Wave on your tank, she'll be healed for 100,000 and another 100,000 healing will be split among allies near her. It's very potent.

If you want more in depth views of Ascendance and the benefits and cons, Joe Perez and I recently wrote Totem Talks covering Ascendance for DPS and resto shaman.

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It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!

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This special edition of Know Your Lore presents an overview of the lore of the Diablo games and their setting, the world of Sanctuary. Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Enjoy this week's diversion into the world of Diablo III.

The Diablo games are very different from anything in the Warcraft setting, a far more black-and-white morality played out in endless cosmic war between absolute forces of order and righteousness opposing evil and chaos. This war, the Great or Eternal Conflict, is so massive in scale and scope that it can almost be said to be endless. The war predates the world of Sanctuary, the realm where mortal men and women are born and live out their lives. Indeed, Sanctuary itself was created by a rogue angel and his demonic lover and ally as a place to find an end to the war.

But before the conflict, before the universe itself existed, there was only Anu. Anu existed as a pearl, a central point which contained all evil and all good, all possibilities and all dualities contained within its mirrored surface. Yet Anu felt imperfect in its duality and sought purity in the rejection of its negative aspects, casting them aside to become a being of glittering diamond -- a perfected warrior. Yet what Anu rejected, his cast-off impurities themselves became perfection of a dark bent, forming the monstrous Tathamet. This seven-headed dragon declared war on the glittering Anu, who in turn sought to destroy that which he had cast out of himself.

"Wholesale Brutality on Misha (US-H) knows what it takes to build a bear!" writes today's submitter. "Pictured is Celorim, a savage feral druid, being rebuilt for duty and Alliance killing after several rounds of PvP. Not pictured is his PvP partner Sanura, discipline priest and mistress of bubbles, who sends in this picture for your viewing pleasure."

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Want to see your own screenshot here? Send it to aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com. We strongly prefer full-sized pictures with no UI or names showing. Include "Azeroth" in the subject line to ensure your submission dodges email spam filters; if you'd like to be credited, also include your name, guild and realm.

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Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

Today's another short one. You have only yourselves to blame! Ask more questions!

@ravingsockmonky asked:

Do you think hunters will ever get more stable slots, or will we start having to release pets? :(

I think I might be a bad person to answer this question. The whole hoarding hunter pets thing is totally bizarre to me. Aren't you guys supposed to be bonding with your closest companion, not piling a thousand wild animals in a barn? That can't be healthy. Those animals are probably forced to stand in their own filth all day long while you're out having adventures. Do you ever stop and clean them? Do you take them all out for exercise? Do you even feed them? I don't think so. You hunters are all terrible. I'm pretty sure you can get arrested for that sort of thing.

That being said ... Blizzard might do it one day, I guess? The devs haven't said anything about it, but I think they grasp that WoW players have a weird pet/mount obsession going on and have been willing to cater to it so far.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill continues to pinch herself, hoping to wake up from the nightmare of dying to a training dummy in Stormwind.

I admit, destruction in Mists of Pandaria looks very cool. I've been leveling with it, and although a handful of buttons can get boring, I like the back-and-forth rhythm of Incinerates and Conflagrates. To top it off, Chaos Bolt looks totally badass, even if it still casts like slow fire.

But as I hit the level cap once more, I decided it was time to return to my roots: affliction. I've always loved the flow of affliction -- health is mana is health is mana is health.

To scare an affliction warlock, a master of fears, you can do something sneaky like spell reflect or spell stealing. Or you can just drain me of all my self-healing and expect me to continue tapping as normal -- that horrifies me just the same. I find myself fervently hoping that dried-up self-healing streams as affliction are just bugged.