So the Tournament Test Realm has been live for a bit, and I wanted to give anyone who hasn’t had a chance to hop on an idea of what it is looking like so far for us.

I kind of like that it is more or less a time capsule back to season 2 as far as gear is concerned, because I don’t think the S2 set is bad at all, as far as stats and looks.

It’s probably a given that you will be wearing at least 4/5 Season 2, and you can mix and match some PvE gear in depending on the comp you are running. Here are some of the more interesting PvE pieces you can bring in:

Belt - Cord of Screaming Terrors - 2 sockets, huge damage, and nearly all the hit you’ll need is there (if you get the spellblade)

Neck - Pendant of the Lost Ages - Reduction on silence, big damage, and OK stam/int

Trinket - Serpent-Coil Braid from SSC. For any mages looking to compete seriously here, I suggest you take a look at using this thing, rather than the Icon of the Silver Crescent for your 2nd trinket (it’s a given you will be using the PvP trinket as your first). You get +225 damage on use, in addition to 600 more mana from your mana gem (~3000 versus 2400) when you use a gem, also spell hit and a ton of crit rating. It also kinda gets you in the mindset that you will use your gem as soon as you drop as much mana as it will restore, which is a desirable characteristic of a PvP mage. You can’t get the damage until you use the gem though, so it’s not really something you can pop at the start, but you can still use icy veins.

You can also use the Nexus Key (staff with huge crit) but I honestly wouldn’t recommend it as you give up a 30+ resilience.

Some Good news:
Icy Veins change is pretty decent. I still feel like there needs to be more done for pushback for frost spells, but I mean I’ll take what I can get.

Blink mana is down to 470 static (from about ~670). Combine this with Serpent Coil trinket, buffed mana gems, nerfed mana drains/burns, and the result is a mage that can fight significantly a bit longer than on live.

Some Bad News:
Mystical Skyfire Diamond (MSD, the 1/2 cast one) is trash now. It gives you 320 spell haste for like 4 seconds, that feels more like 2. I’m using one that is +14 dmg, 5% stun resist. I don’t like it very much.

Chaotic Skyfire Diamond (CSD, +12 spell crit and +3% critical damage) is not appearing on the TTR. It seems like a lot of newer stuff is arbitrarily not included. Things like executioner are not available either though, so I won’t cry too much here.

All in all I put a mage together with 9.7K life, 410+ resilience, and 860 frost damage (9.3K mana, but it was a gnome). It is possible to push over 900 damage though (was up to 940 with balanced stats), using the Icon and different gemming. You can definitely put a character together to lay down some major hurt quickly, especially in the hands of an experienced player.

If you haven’t hopped on yet and are considering playing in the tournament, it is a little easier to get gear/gems now, as they added more vendors. It’s still pretty laggy though, but fun if you want to try out new classes. Anyway, hope you found this semi-informative, good luck.

Tags: Mage · Articles

PTR Patch notes from the official website has been updated again!
After Shaman and Warlock, Blizzard is now turning their attention towards Druids. But considering what had happened before, I wouldn’t worry about it until it’s *tested*, we all know Blizzard staff are tend to be indecisive when it comes to class balancing. =P
Those of you who count on running the druid OOM from casting Regrowth, well today’s notes definitely isn’t on your side =/
Anyways, so here are the notes:

General:
Non-self % base haste spells will no longer stack with each other.

Druid:
Lifebloom - The bonus coefficient on the final bloom effect has been reduced by 20%. This spell will no longer cause error messages when interacting with Spellsteal or while the druid is under the effects of Mind Control.
Regrowth - The mana cost of this spell has been reduced by approximately 20%.

Hunter:
Improved Mend Pet now has a 25/50 (was 50/100) chance to remove one Curse, Disease, Magic or Poison effect, up from 15/50%.

Paladin:
Illumination - The mana energize from this talent no longer has a chance to set off other triggered effects.

Also, Kalgan has revealed a little sneak peek on possible future warlock ability in the expansion. But like Kalgan said himself, until the ability is actually out, it has every possibility of being changed entirely. But anyways, here’s what he said:

“We definitely feel the need for warlocks to gain some sort of active defense so we don’t have to try to balance them around the assumption that they’re “tanking” melee classes. For example, an idea we’re running with internally is the concept of a warlock being able to cast a spell that places a circle of demonic power on the ground. The warlock would be able to teleport to this location from within a relatively short range (ie: 40 yards), and would also be able to summon demons more quickly if they’re standing within the circle.

Note: this idea is intended as a sneak peek, it’s not something that we’re planning for 2.4, it would be more likely as an expansion ability, and may change entirely before said time.”

Blizzard has finally decided to do something regarding the biggest issue on TTR (Test Tournament Realm), which is clicking non stop for nearly an hour to get ONE bandage. They announced earlier that they will be pushing new data to the TTR sometime today and after that, players will now be randomly spawn into:

Northshire
Stormwind
Coldridge Valley
Ironforge
Shadowglen
Crash Site
Valley of Trials
Razor Hill
Sen’jin Village
Orgrimmar
Camp Narache
Deathknell
Sunstrider Isle

And eventually more spawn locatons will be added, and capitol cities spawn points will be removed.

Finally, they will be having 3 of every vendor available except armor vendor. So maybe it’s time for me to get my old laptops out of the closet, I will be expecting 3 bandage out of one hour of clicking instead of 1 now!

Today’s push will make capitol cities only have vendors outside the city limits, and only battlemasters within the city. (Except Exodar). They will be adding a fight promoter at every spawn location where players can:

- Bind to the location
- Teleport to another city (Again, Exodar is the exception)

Blizzard states that their ultimate goal is to have vendors in every immediate town surrounding a capital city.
They said: ” using Stormwind as an example, Northshire, Goldshire, and Sentinel Hill in Westfall will eventually all be filled with vendors.”
I guess that’s why you get a epic mount to start with, so you can run around and pray the next location won’t be as crowded as the previous one.
And last but not least, all existing characters will be wiped with the coming of the next build.
Blizzard explained that there are 3 reasons for this:

1) There is a new character template and it needs testing.
2) We want to continue to test random spawning.
3) We want to test spawn locations.

So everyone be ready for more clicking!

Tags: PvP · News

Looks like Blizzard is going to give the tournament a practice run! PTR tournament server will be given a real run through on Sunday, 12-3pm PST.

Originally Posted by Blizzard
Are you ready to take on the world in the arenas? The World of Warcraft team will be testing the WoW Arena Tournament on the Tournament Test Realm, and you are invited to be a part of the action. Players in all regions will access the same realm, so the call is going out to all PvPers in North America, Europe, and Korea to log into the Arena Tournament Test Realm and participate in all-out PvP action!

The Worldwide Arena Battle will take place this Sunday between 12PM to 3PM PST, and members of the Community and Development teams will join in the fray, including a head to head match between community managers from around the world for world dominance. The results will also be posted on the Tournament forum!

No character copies will be needed for this unique event as you will get access to the character and gear of your choice just by logging in. The 2.4 PTR patch will provide access to the Tournament realm so download it soon and we’ll see you on the battlefield!”

Source

Tags: PvP · News

New class changes came in earlier today, and it seems Blizzard has changed their minds on Lifetap and Flametongue again. As of now, all previous changes on Lifetap and Flameongue have been reverted back to the way it was.

As Kalgan said: “Yes the flametongue revert was intentional. After putting it through its paces we felt like we’d gone too far on that one.”

Another change that’s been noticed on the PTR is, AoE effect spells like, Cleave, Multi-Shot, Swipe, Chain Lightning will no longer hit targets that are under CC, like Polymorph. (Finally!)

Here are the notes -

Priest:

Mass Dispell now affects a maximum of 10 friendly targets and 10 enemy targets.

Shaman:

Changes to Flametongue (both weapon and totem) have been reverted. The healing reduction debuff has been removed.

Warlock:

Lifetap changes have been reverted back to 2.3 values.
( Converts 20/65/130/210/300/420/580 health into 20/65/130/210/300/420/580 mana)

As most of you have already noticed, some of the season 4 items and item models have been released.

We will have a full update on it once we get a full list.

Rogues! Those of you who has been devastated by the new looks for season 3 maces, it’s been reverted back. I guess after all, Blizzard can identify the difference between ugly and extremely ugly.

BT gems will soon be purchasable with heroic badges as well, which makes me wonder, just exactly how many heroic badges are we going to need for everything? o_O

One last interesting point, Kalgan posted a chart on the WoW forums regarding class representation in arenas.

Here’s what he said:

“No other warlock nerfs are planned for 2.4. One of the things we look at is class representation in arenas (although normalized for class popularity). In this particular chart, a value of 100% means the class is represented as we’d expect, a value over 100% means the class is represented that much more often than we’d expect, a value below 100% means they’re represented less than we’d want (obviously this chart doesn’t include a spec breakdown in any way).

This chart is set at 2200+ rating.

                 2v2     3v3     5v5

     Druid	276.0%	184.0%	80.5%

     Hunter	43.0%	50.2%	43.0%

     Mage	8.7%	96.0%	96.0%

     Paladin	19.7%	29.5%	147.4%

     Priest	113.3%	164.8%	185.4%

     Shaman	37.8%	50.4%	138.6%

     Rogue	144.2%	175.1%	61.8%

     Warlock	149.2%	93.2%	111.9%

     Warrior	130.4%	90.7%	79.3%

Here’s 1850…

     Druid	184.0%	138.0%	92.0%

     Hunter	50.2%	50.2%	50.2%

     Mage	61.1%	87.3%	87.3%

     Paladin	68.8%	88.4%	137.6%

     Priest	133.9%	133.9%	154.5%

     Shaman	75.6%	88.2%	138.6%

     Rogue	154.5%	154.5%	82.4%

     Warlock	121.2%	102.5%	102.5%

     Warrior	90.7%	85.0%	85.0%

Locks are doing pretty well overall, but what had us worried was that it appeared to us a month ago or so as though warlocks were on an uptrend. However, the evidence is strong that that trend is reversing, which means significant nerfs aren’t really what we want right now. (we really don’t know where those numbers will settle down)”

Tags: PvP · News

I should state first and foremost that I run Mage/Druid/Warlock in 3v3, and focus on this bracket in my gear and specs much more than I do in the other brackets. However, I respec about once a day, so armorying me is worthless, and I should also say that I have multiple gear sets and a very odd idea about how to gear myself anyway - if you’re not familiar with exactly why I do this, please don’t take these to heart as HOW YOU SHOULD GEAR YOURSELF if you’re new to the arena, or whatever.

That said, I currently hold 2100, 2221, and 2159 rated arena teams in the respective brackets (impressive(?) given how little we care about rating =/), and have been gladiator both seasons (not that that means anything); but at least I can say it ~ (Ziss: I would think Agnos is more known for his achievements at WSVG…)

Below are my two not-run-of-the-mill specs to try out and discuss, specifically designed with a caster heavy makeup in mind, in 3v3.

17/33/11 - Nightfall, Soullink, Shadowburn. Aka the Agnos spec (by at least one or two fairly well known warlocks).

Disadvantages: While this is a jack of all trades spec, or something like that, this spec specializes in nothing. It grants a decent amount of survivability with Soul Link, but loses CoEx and Siphon from the popular SL/SL build. It has a good amount of burst between shadowburn and nightfall, although lacks the punch of SL/Ruin, and loses a point in Demonic Knowledge in order to get 2/2 nightfall for the uncontrolled but efficient burst power that the talent grants. While you have amp curse, it’s pretty much only going to be used on an agony - so i’d recommend stacking hit on your gear (i recommend this regardless of your spec) and putting points in CoA, rather than suppression or fel conc - you should be chaining shadowbolts with this, not drain life’ing.

Advantages: This spec is the ultimate shadowbolt spec. You have a good amount of instant (dot) damage for kiting and draining teams, but 17/33/11 focuses on putting out a lot of quick shadow burst with little to no warning or setup. Eventually, during a cast you’re going to get a nightfall, and that’s 4k damage to drop on someone (plus crits): excellent time to drop a kidney shot or shatter, depending on your team makeup.

Personal Experience: Speaking of crits, shatters, and kidney shots, my personal experience is that 17/33/11 works in 3v3, where its utility outshines sl/sl, as opposed to 2v2, when playing with a mage. A 5v5 team is usually less fluid, so it may be better to pick a more specialized soullink (or non SL for the VERY specialized teams) build. But in 3v3, a lot of things can go back or forth, especially when running druids (specifically, and from what I’ve tested, this works with mage/warlock/druid and rogue/warlock/druid). Crits are something most warlocks won’t ever expect to see, and the word being present in a strategy must make me seem like a retard. However, I’ve worn upwards of 21% crit on gear (plus talents) all of season 3, and have held high ratings doing so (even going from 2250 to 2300 in 3s as a full conflag spec, but that’s another story). When you play with a mage, the concept of BURST is important, and you never know when a well-timed 3k shadowbolt crit can tip the scales … or catch someone off guard and kill between cooldowns. (I’ve had marginal success in 2v2 as this playing with a rogue, but with a mage, sl/sl is still loads better).

On the topic of crits, I lead you into my next spec:
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Tags: Warlock · Articles