Project Lore

Yogg-Saron, just another old god. The changes (or nerfs as some of us raiders like to describe them as) for Ulduar keep rolling in. All of the changes should be live, but some may require a realm restart. The first significant change comes to the "end boss" of Ulduar, Yogg-Saron (who's lovely face you can see to your right):

The Yogg-Saron encounter has received the following changes: Death Ray no longer hits players who are under the effect of Malady of the Mind, Guardians of Yogg-Saron no longer use Dominate Mind, the spawn rate of Guardians of Yogg-Saron is more forgiving, and these Guardians will no longer spawn if a player that is protected by Hodir’s Flash Freeze hits an Ominous Cloud.

Now, my guild is working on the fight currently and to really demonstrate the impact of these changes on our first pull of the night we managed to hit phase three of the fight (which we had never done before). If that doesn't really show how tuned down this fight has become, well I don't know what else will. The spawn rate is much slower in phase one, there are no more mind controls and basically there is zero reason for anyone to die in that phase anymore. The change to guardians spawning on a player protected by a Flash Freeze is a welcome change to say the least. There are a few other changes also (which can be read on the World of WarCraft Forums):

• In the opening sequence of Ulduar you can now see Liquid Pyrite from farther away.
• The Flame Leviathan encounter has received the following changes: the bonus health Flame Leviathan receives per tower has been reduced, the ejection height from Flame Leviathan has been reduced, the snare effect of the Tower of Frost has been removed, and the cannons on Demolishers and Siege Enginers should now break Flash Frozen vehicles in 1 shot.
• The XT-002 Deconstructor encounter has received the following changes: the health of the heart has been slightly reduced in heroic difficulty and the rate at which Gravity Bomb and Searing Light are cast has been reduced.

Being able to see the liquid pyrite at a greater distance is a welcome change. The whole Flame Leviathan encounter has gotten what seems to be a massive scaling back and I imagine we will see a lot more hard mode deaths for FL. XT-002 Deconstructor also got a nerf, mostly to the hard mode (which only 350 guilds have beat) because activating it should be slightly easier (although if you couldn't activate it before, should you even be doing it?). The gravity bombs and searing light also got their rate of cast reduced which should make the fight slightly easier or considerably easier depending on the severity of the rate change. While I appreciate the changes Blizzard has made in making raiding more accessible (as has been the philosophy of this entire expansion) it is a little annoying to be working on an encounter and making progress on it, only to see it changed and made much easier. My guild isn't a top guild but we progress fairly well on our 3-day schedule and it almost seems like at this point unless you're in a 5-day a week guild trying to clear as fast as possible you won't be experiencing these fights in their original form. While my guild will soon be one of the 3000 guilds having downed Yogg-Saron, it can't be argued that this is a much easier fight now. So raiders of Project Lore, are you a fan of these changes? Are you happy that the fights have been made easier? Do you think this is the right way for Blizzard to kind of "open up" raiding to everyone?

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While I've always considered myself a strong raider, I've always done my best to keep a handle on the amount of time I dedicate to the game. It is after all, just a game, and it is very important to not spend too much time playing. That being said I am a total completionist, and I'll admit, a bit of an addict when it comes to this game we all know and love. This is why I am beginning to struggle with the new content patch. I know in a matter of months I will likely be QQing about the lack of content available... but for right now, I am overwhelmed! A big part of my problem is I can't decide if I would rather do 10-man progression or 25-man progression. So I do what any good WoW fanatic would do, and try and do both, which in my guild equals out to about 6 nights a week of raiding. That is a pretty large jump up from what I am used to, and the first few weeks I tried to make that happen it started taking a toll on me. Now don't get me wrong, I am not some helpless junkie that can't get a grip on his time... I can quit anytime I want to :) ! But the fact is I want to see both versions of Yogg go down, and there are plenty of loot upgrades for me in both versions on the instance. Fact is I am just stuck in that rare window of new content where 10-mans are still important to farm, and 25-mans still need work to progress. Eventually I know that I will completely outgear 10-mans and have no reason to go back, but I fear the hard modes will extend that window further than it usually gets extended. At this point it is clear to me I am going to have to start making some choices. What is important now, and furthermore where am I having the most fun? 10s or 25s? I realize I can't do it all no matter how bad I want to! How are you other raiders doing in this department? Are you accomplishing everything you want to? Or do you find yourself in the same place where there are not enough hours in the day (or at least enough gaming hours)? I'd be curious to know your choice, because it is time for me to make mine!

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Now that 3.1 has been out for a while, and the dust is at least starting to settle, I think its time to take a step back and discuss how much impact the patch has really made on the game.

While the introduction of the Ulduar raid was obviously a big deal, I want to take a moment to examine how dual-specs has changed the way that we play. This feature, after all, changes the basic mechanics of how we play and will affect the game well past Ulduar and into future expansions.

At this point, I feel many of us have seen both the advantages and the pitfalls of this is action.

First the good, the increase is raid utility is undeniable. Instead of needing to sub people out for encounters because we need more heals, DPS, tanks or whatever we now just need to ask people to switch specs. I have found this to be particularly useful in 10 mans, where we can balance for 2 or 3 healers depending on the encounter.

Beyond that there are some unexpected advantages. For example the shaman who dual spec’d enhancement/elemental. While initially I thought this was the worst idea ever (great you can be DPS or DPS), it has turned out to be incredibly useful on several occasions. Sometimes having DPS at range vs melee, or having an extra buff can make all the difference in a close encounter.

There have been drawbacks too. As I think we all expected loot has been an issue. There are some players that are legitimately splitting their time between two specs. But does that mean they have a right to accumulate two sets of tier pieces while everyone else is working on their first? I certainly don’t think so, but they can make some convincing arguments. Additionally this added flexibility leaves some of the “bubble” players out of raids. Players that are used to being number 1 on the standby list are getting used less and less, as more people can fill more roles.

Personally I find myself changing specs much less often than I expected. While I can now go ret at anytime, I still find I am a tank 99% of the time, and often forget I can switch if need be. Although, being able to PvP whenever I want is certainly nice.

What do you guys think? Have dual specs been working out they way you imagined? Or are you using them much less or more than you expected?

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The smoke is starting to clear from all the changes in patches 3.1 and 3.1.1, and players are figuring out how all the class changes have affected preferred talent specs and accompanying glyphs. Also, with the recent addition of dual spec, there are a lot of players out there who've recently been looking into the best builds for different aspects of gameplay. So there was plenty to consider with the patches, and thankfully we have a lot of tools out there for figuring out which builds we like best. When I was trying to figure out how to spec for my foray in the arena tournament, I used the WoWWiki page for rogue builds, found the PvP spec I liked best, then figured out how to gear up based on my new talents. But there are downsides to that route - posters don't always have the best insight into which builds are best, and there's a whole array to choose from, each with slightly different tweaks. Now I'm all for personalizing your character based on your own preferences and playing style. But when thinking about completely switching your specs (or adding a dual spec), sometimes it's good to go for the tried and true specs to start off with, then figure out what changes you want to make from there. I think the best tool out there for this is TalentChic.com, and the recently added sister site, GlyphChic. Here's how it works:

"To find the most popular talent builds, the system scans both the US and EU WoW armory sites to find the talent points chosen by characters. It then sorts those according class, spec and playstyle and collates the results... We continually scan the armory and update the popularity score of the most popular builds hourly. "

Just by looking at the TalentChic home page, we can see that the overall most popular builds among "the best players" who are included in the calculation are:

1. Elemental Shaman 57/14/0
2. Restoration Shaman 0/16/55
3. Fire Mage 0/53/18
4. Combat Rogue 15/51/5 (And coincidentally, also the spec I'm working my main toward)
5. Shadow Priest 13/0/58

But the interesting part is when you use the site's filters to break down the popularity of a build according to class and find out specifics. As of my writing this, the top 10 most popular Death Knight builds are either Frost or Unholy, with Blood only making the list at number 11. You also can sort the list according to specific talent trees. The top four builds for hunters, for example, are minor variations on a survival spec.  But you also can look specifically at the beast mastery tree to see that among those specs, several different versions of a 53/11/7 build are the most prominent. And if you want to watch and see how any patch changes affect the popularity of builds, you can sign up to get updates when a specific page on the site changes. Currently, the site is updated based on how players have rebuilt their specs that were reset with patch 3.1 and again with 3.1.1. The sister web site, GlyphChic, operates very similarly. You choose your specific considerations, and the site reguritates useful stats back at you. Among players who also use my favored combat spec, for example, the most popular major glyphs are of sinister strike, rupture and slice and dice, while the favored minor glyphs are of blurred speed, vanish and safe fall. The site's been around since the talent respec that came with 3.0.2, and the WoW community continues to be a little smarter because of it. So for anyone who hasn't checked it out yet or who hasn't been back since last Tuesday, definitely take a look. You may find yourself surprised, entertained or at least more informed.

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Despite the fact that Ulduar is much more difficult that the previous tier of content, there are many guilds that are tearing through it! I mentioned in my last post that Ensidia had downed Yogg-Saron and since then many more have followed. While Yogg is technically the last boss in Ulduar, there is one more challenge lying in there for the truly dedicated raider.

Algalon is the special hard mode only boss that you can only face after defeating the he Assembly of Iron, Hodir, Thorim, Freya, and Mimiron hard modes.

With the news that guilds have started to actually see this fight, and then the following blue post that you can only attempt this boss for one hour PER WEEK, it begs the question. How long until we see this guy go down?

While I was fairly sure we would see him downed by one of the “professional” raiding guilds this week, now I am not so sure. Remember after all, this guy “feeds on your tears” and is not supposed to be easy by any stretch of the imagination. Additionally one hour seems like a ridiculously short window, I imagine it will take some top guilds weeks to learn the fight alone.

Part of me always figured that part of the reason the top guilds could down bosses so fast is because the sheer number of hours they are able to put into an encounter. Now there is a limitation.

Furthermore, what does this mean for the rest of us?? I know my guild spent over 10 hours on Mimiron alone this week (phase 4 is absolutely insane). I am really having a hard time imagining us downing this guy who, presumably is harder, in that short of a window.

I really cannot wait to see how this all shakes out, and will be incredibly impressed with whoever manages world first. This is an interesting move for Blizzard, can’t say I’m sure how I feel about it yet.

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Dungeon maps? Yes, please!

While my game was patching this afternoon, I took a look through WoW's official Patch Notes on 3.1. We've already been talking a lot about some of the larger ticket items including Ulduar and related achievements, dual spec, armor upgrades, profession changes and the unfortunate delay of Equipment Manager. Now, there's a WHOLE lot more that we'll undoubtedly be combing over in the coming days and weeks, but until then let's take a look at some of the other random details from the Secrets of Ulduar page and the patch notes that jumped out at me. My aim for this first round up is to detail what will affect all of us, as opposed to the specific. The convenience factor:

• All Ground Mounts may now swim without dismounting the rider. Flying Mounts still may NOT, and will dismount the rider upon entering water.
• Players will now be able to queue for battlegrounds from any location. Leaving a battleground will return you to the location from which you entered.
• Applying a glyph no longer requires a Lexicon of Power. The same rules for switching between dual talent specializations now apply to switching glyphs and cannot be performed while in combat, Battlegrounds (except when Preparation is up), or Arenas (no exceptions).

Class changes:

• Death Knights have a TON of changes that will take some time to readjust. Some spells got buffed, some got nerfed. With time, we'll see what the overall affect is. If I had to guess, it may be an overall nerf.
• Druids, hunters, paladins, priests, shamans and warlocks also are seeing substantial class changes.
• Mages and warriors will see some changes but not as many.
• Rogues, my specialty, may possibly be getting an overall buff. A couple of skills got debuffed, but not by a ton. /hopeful! What I'm looking forward to most -- Killing Spree: Now also increases all damage done by the rogue while active by 20%.

Professions: cooking:

• A new recipe has been added to cooking trainers for making Black Jelly, using several Borean Man 'O War as ingredients. While it looks disgusting, it restores more health and mana than the highest level food.
• Flint and Tinder is no longer necessary for creating a campfire. You're just that resourceful!
• Ingredients such as Spices, Apples, and the like have been removed from most cooking recipes.
• Several Northrend recipes were given greater skill up ranges to make it easier to reach 450 cooking skill.
• You no longer need to learn cooking from books. The trainers have finally done their reading and are able to teach you the same thing.

And for the all-important First Aid:

• You no longer need to complete the “Triage” quest to attain Artisan First Aid. Instead you can learn the Artisan skill from the trainers in the capital cities.
• You no longer need to learn First Aid from books. The trainers have finally done their reading and are able to teach you the same thing.

And Fishing:

• A new (and very rare) special mount can now be caught from Northrend fishing pools (hmmm, what could it be?).
• The time needed to catch fish has been reduced.
• You can now fish anywhere, regardless of skill. Every catch has the potential for fishing skill gains, but you are likely to catch worthless junk in areas that are too difficult for your skill.
• You no longer need to learn fishing from books. The trainers have finally done their reading and are able to teach you the same thing.

The only bummer for me on professions, and this is of my own doing, comes from Leatherworking:

• Added a recipe for combining Borean Leather Scraps into Borean Leather. You can still use Borean Scraps from your inventory to combine them. (I JUST combined a TON of these without the recipe, and hence got no levels for it. Sadness!)

Dungeons:

• New dungeon maps have been added for all Wrath of the Lich King dungeons. (YAAAAAAAY!!)

User Interface:

• New Advanced features for quest tracking are now available. Players will need to activate this option within the Interface panel.
• Several new options for increased graphics such as Video Mode Ultra, higher Shadow Quality detail and new high-resolution player textures for Northrend armor sets.
• Players can now return items purchased with an alternate currency back to the original vendor within 2 hours of the purchase time for the original cost of the item. Stackable items (such as Frozen Orbs and gems) and charged items that can be purchased with an alternate currency are not eligible.
• Confirmation boxes have been added to purchases over 150 gold.
• The calendar now supports a guild-wide sign-up sheet, allowing the event organizer to invite his or her entire guild.
• Class roles (i.e. damage, tanking, healing) have been added to the Looking For Group feature. Class roles will be displayed when sorting through the Looking For More section.
• Quest and Achievement tracking are now combined in a new Objectives Tracking window. Advanced features can be activated from the Objectives Options panel.
• On-Use items will display in the Objectives Tracking when tracking a quest that uses them. No more searching through your bags for that on-use quest item!
• Health and Fuel/Ammo bars have been added to the vehicle interface whenever operating a vehicle.
• The mini-map has been optimized for better performance. Displays for vehicles, class colors, and off-map pings have been added as well.

Items:

• Loot from clams now stacks correctly! (Thank the Azeroth heavens)
• Changed the icon for Succulent Clam Meat so it doesn't look quite as disgusting. Now 100% more succulent!
• A whole ton of glyph changes.
• Three new mounts are available from Horde mount vendors, equalizing the number of purchasable normal and epic mounts: the Black Wolf, the White Kodo, and the Black Skeletal Horse (in Orgrimmar, Bloodhoof Village, and Brill respectively).
• Hearthstone: Cooldown has been reduced to 30 minutes down from 60 minutes. (!!)Bug Fixes - there's a bunch for all the classes, some items and some race-related. Good stuff to make your game play a more enjoyable experience.

For the full notes, check WoW's patch notes page, and keep checking back with Project Lore as we wrap our heads around all these changes!

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Earlier we took a look at some the gear design philosophy of Blizzard and saw some armor that was introduced in 3.0 and that will be added in 3.1. We looked at the "Lost Vanquishers" (sans Druid): Rogue, Death Knight, and Mage. Today we are going to check out what the "Lost Protectors" have: Hunter, Shaman, and Warrior. Thanks to MMO-Champion for the screenshots of Ulduar gear and Season 6. More consistent and high resolution imagery will be added once patch 3.1 hits the live realms. Scroll down to see the sets and click the images for larger views. The first three Gladiator's sets of Wrath seem to be just recolorings, but they do seem to be getting more fancy with season 6's Furious Gladiator's sets. Of these three classes, I think hunters have the best looking PvP gear. The green scales on the Furious Gladiator's set look pretty cool. Shaman's shoulders in PvE have always been cool. Some people despised the dungeon set 1 shaman shoulders, but I loved them. When Blizzard had finally added skins in for the end game items so that they looked cooler than twill, it became a great symbol of progress for me. Now, the shaman shoulders are just ridiculously cool. The glowing orbs and meteorites chained to the armor are far more epic than any other shoulders. Hunter and warrior armor is honestly boring to me. It doesn't have as much flair as it should. What do you guys think? Are shaman's shoulders over the top or just epic and which class looks best? Hunter PvP PvE Shaman PvP PvE Warrior PvP PvE

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I always wondered about how Blizzard would handle armor designs as new content as released. As players are able to get more and more powerful and fight progressively nefarious enemies, how could armor sets get progressively more epic to reflect the power of the wielders? Thrall is beginning to look less and less cool comparatively. I thought tier 2's Bloodfang was far cooler than anything until tier 5 for rogues. The Burning Crusade armor sets had quite a few very bizarre armor sets as Blizzard designer's were reaching to try to make things as epic as possible. They definitely had the theme of Burning Crusade, drawing on the ideas of "lasers! pew pew" used in the nether-themed places and Draenei. The mighty morphing pally rangers will never be forgotten! The Wrath sets definitely have a distinctive look as well. The tier 7 sets are nigh direct copies of tier 3 since tier 3 was obtained in Naxxramas, which was revamped and moved to Northrend, but the non-tier pieces have had a very satisfying Nordic look that was a little shocking coming from the highly colored and crazy Burning Crusade world. Tier 8 continues this trend, with the items being highly influenced by the Titan architecture and carrying a very "new" look. Some players complained that the new PvP sets were too bland. Blue poster Zarhym told players:

The look of the sets will improve as the seasons continue. If we started the first sets of PvP gear with asteroids orbiting the shoulders, in a couple seasons you'd be wearing Thrall on your head... Under the current design philosophy, the idea is that in PvE you're killing very rare and challenging creatures of Azeroth, while in PvP you're receiving gear from the crafters (so to speak) of your faction to get you battle-ready. Chances are you're going to be given the gear that'll get the job done rather than the gear that has to be constructed entirely out of the nipples of a 7,000 year-old dragon.

I personally like this idea. It used to be that my PvP sets would be a mish-mash of pieces from various sets and didn't look very cool. Now, it blends together much more nicely. You can check out all the new armor sets for both PvP and PvE gear on MMO champion. Additionally, you can read more about the Frost Wyrm mount reward in season 5 and more discussion on PvP rewards. Check out the first part of our gallery comparing the tier 8 and tier 7 sets along with all the Wrath Gladiator sets. Today, we feature the classes of the "Lost Vanquisher": Rogue, Death Knight, and Mage. Druid's sets are not done yet, so they will be featured later. Thanks to MMO Champion for the renderings of the sets from the PTR. Note that the unreleased armor sets are still subject to change. Rogue Mage Death Knight The Death Knight's "Valorous Darkruned Battlegear" appears to be the same as Darion Mograine's armor. Very cool! Rogue's PvP sets are boring. They look like a themed grey set. I've got to say, the tier pieces look great though. Mage's tier 7 looks more like druid gear with the moose horns, but the tier 8 looks decent. What do you guys think? Is the current philosophy of PvP gear's look good, and are the PvE tier sets maintaining a good look?

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Wrath of the Lich King sought to even out the playing field of PvE and PvP benefits that players receive from knowing a profession. It was nigh required to have a leatherworker's drums in the endgame of Burning Crusade, and Engineers found many a trick to "exploit" in battlegrounds. Many professions, like Blacksmithing, Engineering, and Tailoring, had several BoP items that were some of the best gear you could get, making these professions a huge boon to some classes that put them way ahead of characters that didn't pick the "right" profession. Blizzard evened this out with a whole host of abilities for the professions. They made sure every profession provided a benefit to both PvE and PvP gameplay in a way that was useful to every class. These changes were applied in patch 3.0.2, and many of these benefits are available to both low-level characters and high-level ones. If you are a little rusty on who gets what, take a moment to review:

Profession	Main Gameplay Benefits
Alchemy	Mixology (PvE), Endless Healing Potion (PvP)
Blacksmithing	Socket Bracer, Socket Gloves
Enchanting	Enchant Rings (Stamina, Spellpower, AP)
Engineering	Hand enhancements (Rockets, Haste)
Leatherworking	Leg Enchancements (Resists, AP, Stam)
Tailoring	Leg and Cloak Enchancements (Spellpower, Holy Damage, Melee Haste)
Jewelcrafting	Special Gems, Trinkets (Resilience, Strength, MP5)
Inscription	Shoulder Enchants (AP, Spell Power, Dodge)
Herbalism	Lifeblood
Mining	Toughness
Skinning	Master of Anatomy

Engineering didn't get as much love in terms of PvE/PvP viability. The engineering benefit was the ability to add "gadgets" to your gear that essentially enchant your gear with different abilities. Most of these did not positively effect endgame PvE or PvP gameplay. For example, you couldn't get your cloak enchanted if you wanted Flexweave Underlay. And forget about your Icewalker enchant if you plan on using Nitro Boosts. In 3.1, Engineers get a little bonus that provides them with a comparable bonus to other professions. Blue poster Zarhym recently rounded up the changes in 3.1 for engineers:

• Added a new Reticulated Armor Webbing engineering enchant that increases the armor on plate gloves.
• Added a new Springy Arachnoweave engineering enchant that grants passive spell power in addition to turning your cloak into a parachute.
• Flexweave Underlay now grants passive agility in addition to its normal effect.
• Nitro Boosts now grant passive critical strike rating in addition to their speed boost.

The list may not be conclusive and is subject to change over the course of the public testing process. Its still not enough to sell me. I'm eyeing replacing herbalism with something a little more effective (maybe skinning?) for that extra boost for my rogue DPS.

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If you've spent any significant time in a crowded area lately - the Auction House, the Wintergrasp portal just before it opens, even a raid's summoning stone - you've probably experienced one of the more annoying cosmetic toys in the game - the Toy Train Set. In case you don't know, it makes everyone in the general area start making train noises for a minute and a half. Currently the only ways to save one's ears is to turn off game sound or to leave the area. But in 3.1, you'll be able to get a little guy to destroy those annoyances with a Wind Up Train Wrecker. How do you like it?

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