Project Lore

Oh, one of the joys of being a girl. I know it's a stereotype, but I can't help it. I love pretty clothes. And shoes. Bring that to the World of Warcraft, and I am quickly becoming a whore to collecting gear that serves little purpose other than looking good. Combine that with Equipment Manager, and you've got your own little closet of premade WoW outfits at your disposal.

I just recently discovered the joys of Equipment Manager. It's been out for a while now, since Patch 3.1.2. But since I was not duel specced, I thought I had no use for managing different gear sets. Oh man, was I wrong.

As bloggers have lamented in the past, gear in WoW isn't always the most fashion-forward. So if you're concerned about looking cool while hanging around Dalaran, why not change that? As long as you're not in a situation that you need your stats, I'd say vanity gear is the way to go.

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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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So in case you have been living under a rock, Ulduar is here! It is finally time to do and experience everything we have been reading about and looking forward to for the last several months! It is an exciting time to say the least.

I know I had developed quite a shopping list of things to do. So many, in fact, I am having a hard time deciding what my first stop will be when I can finally log on!

The Ulduar instance is obviously my number one priority, but I have a few stops I am going to make before I hit the zone it. I logged out at the trainer so I could pick up my dual-spec right away, after that I’m sure I will head to the AH and see how bad I am going to get gouged for new the glyphs.

Of course I will have to take some time to set up toolbars, gear, and glyphs for my new spec. Then I’m sure I will have to fight with some newly out-of-date add-ons.

Once I get all that house keeping squared away, I am heading straight into Ulduar-10! The idea is to see if I can get some boss tries in before our schedule Ulduar-25 run later tonight. I’m not going to lie, my guild is planning on hitting Ulduar 25 hard, so I imagine I won’t find much time for anything else once we get in there.

That being said, I definitely see the appeal of looking at some other stuff before charging right in. After all The Argent Tournament sounds like great fun, and of course doing some heroics with dual specs in place could present an interesting challenge.

There are lots of new directions to go! So what are you guys going to be up to the moment you log on?

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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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No one will deny that the impending release of dual specs in patch 3.1 will be a game changer, particularly for the hybrid classes out there. The ability to easily change specs based on an encounter (we need more healers!) or for an activity (no more tank farming!) will make many people's lives much easier, not to mention save some cash at the trainer. As someone who respecs once a week to do PvP, I was very excited about this announcement. Now I'll be able to PvP whenever I want to! Not only that, but I get to save the 100g I spend a week on respecs. It did get me thinking, why is Blizzard stopping there? They have made it clear they don't mind people changing spec mid raid, and they do not plan on balancing encounters around this new dynamic, so why not let us have more than 2 specs? On my Paladin I could easily have 5 specs, and I wouldn't mind one bit paying 1000g a piece for them! I can see it now, with the push of a button I could be a tank, a healer, DPS, or even a PvP healer, or PvP Ret Pally. It would be great! Maybe I'm going a little overboard here, but you see my point. While this benefits hybrid classes over the pure ones, if Blizzard is going to take away limitations, why not take them away completely? What do you guys think? Would you use tri specs, quad spec, or even the dreaded quintuple spec? I know I would.

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Dual Spec is one of the most highly anticipated features of patch 3.1, and that's what we'll be hilighting in this video. There are currently a couple of bugs involving hunter pets as they relate to Dual Spec, but keep in mind that this is the PTR, so things will likely change before they go live.

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A few weeks ago I dished out some controversial viewpoints on the upcoming Dual Spec.  In no way shape or form was I saying that the ability to easily swap specs wasn't a useful feature.  Hell, I know I could get some use out of it, especially when I decide to PvP again.  The reason for the post was to express my concerns for what the feature could mean for the future of certain classes in raiding, namely Mages, Warlocks, Rogues and Hunters - the non-hybrid classes.   Some agreed, a handful took offense, but everyone formed their own opinion, which we are entitled to. Many other bloggers out there brought up an entirely different point.  Would the additional of Dual Spec change the way that Blizzard designs Talent trees or encounters?  In short, these players were worried that Blizzard may do some funky things in the WoW's future.  Such as having one spec be the PvE spec and another dedicated as the PvP spec.  On the PvE side of things, the designers could envision a fight requiring the use of 10 tanks while every other encounter remains at the two or three mark.  The thinking behind such madness is simple, you can always just respec right after. Thankfully, Ghostcrawler put this one to bed.  In a post on the forums he flat out stated that "we are going to design instances and talent trees while pretending this feature does not exist."  Greg Street for President! Blizzard will be ignoring the feature because they do not want to assume that everyone will purchase it.  In fact, they expect that only the more "high level" players will bother dropping the 1000 gold.  Instead of treating the mechanic as something the design team can play with, they are viewing it as yet another quality of life feature.  After all, it only stops players from hearthing back, dropping 50 gold and distributing their talent points after they are summoned back. Blizzard could have used the feature as a way to extend their options for encounter design, but have decided - at least for now - to stick with their current toolbox.  What do you think, should the company keep the extra hammer in there, or did the correct call get made?  Normally I would be all for new encounter mechanics, but I think such a radical shift would upset the majority of the populace.  Before you scream that they are placating the casuals, the decision is also sound from a design standpoint.  You shouldn't design something based on a feature that isn't available by default.

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I didn't have the heart to crop out the skull.

Blizzard Entertainment seems to be on a warpath with Wrath of the Lich King's first content patch.  The developer has promised players an insane amount of content including the addition of the largest instance to date, Ulduar, the Dual Spec mechanic, a built-in Gear Manager, and the Argent Tournament, just to name a few.  Not everything coming in v3.1 has been given the bullet point treatment however. The bloggers on Project Lore have found a few under-the-radar type of additions that we have clung to like a dork to his unopened figures.  Heartbourne gave us the Hearthstone cooldown reduction and Dual Spec price.  The first change was likely made to stop "ghetto hearthing" - the art of abusing an instance for a free hearth.  Juggynaut got hooked on his Legendary mace and the modifications to the Dual Spec feature before hitting us with the removal of the Black and Plagued Proto-Drake meta-achievement rewards.  Myself, well, I covered the Argent Tournament and the patches upcoming gear additions.  Which no one cared about apparently, or just didn't want to spoil themselves. Following in the footsteps of the Hearthstone's nerf and the additional of the Gear Manager, comes another quality of life change to World of Warcraft, the modification to the RaidID system. Blizzard announced their intentions to overhaul the archaic system a few weeks ago, but I don't think anyone, including Blizzard, expected it to be done for Patch 3.1's testing on the PTR. The RaidID system is Blizzard's internal way of tracking which instance a toon should be connected to.  The main problem that arose with the system was the lockout period.  Should a player that has cleared a raid or heroic enter into the instance first, followed by the other members of the party or raid, the unsaved players can get linked to the cleared instance.  This would then blow their lockout period.  Needless to say, this small issue pissed people off. A lot.  Zarhym's promise of "a better interface to warn players" has come to light on the PTR, but not as elegant as he hoped. BigRedKitty's screenshot shows us a dialogue box with a warning on it.  Basically, we have 15 seconds to get out of dodge if the instance is not what we expected, that is it.  The box does not appear to give you any details on the instance itself, so the "better interface" has yet to come to fruition by my standards.  Hopefully further upgrades to the system will be coming in the near future. Many of you probably never experienced this issue, or don't even care about the "fix", but you should.  In my opinion, it is Blizzard's application of these little tweaks that helps make them one of the premiere developers in the industry.  The company should be applauded for their attention to detail and willingness to correct their mistakes, especially when the issue only effects a small amount of the populace under certain circumstances.  Even if Blizzard does it in an iterative fashion when a more drastic change is called for, at least the ball is rolling.  Right?

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I'd like to talk about the Paladin class, but more specifically about the idea of dual speccing. I started WoW on the day it was released, and up until about six months ago, I was a retribution pally. I stuck to my guns and took all the punishment Blizzard gave us, but when they supposedly fixed us and gave us amazing DPS only to take it away a month later I finally had enough. It was then I decided to read up on tanking. I spent weeks researching the spec and trying out different talent specs to get the most out of my paladin. Currently I've become the Main Tank for my guild on Kargath, and we are kicking Naxx’s butt right now. A few weeks ago I got to a point where I was stuck, though. I've obtained every upgrade I possibly can for my tank spec outside of Naxx. So I asked myself, what do I do now? I'm still running heroics and collecting badges for more gear, and during recent Naxx trips plate healing gear has been dropping left and right. Since nobody else wants it, I've started collecting it all. Now I'm spending those badges from heroics on healing gear. So aside from my tank gear I now have an epic healing set that's got my skills as follows: 2005 Bonus Healing, 26% Crit rating, 388 mana regen and a 17K+ mana pool, all unbuffed. Now that I have the gear, I've changed specs many times to work on my healing skills simply because I find it fun. The problem is I've done it so many times I'm capped at 50g per talent point reset. Personally I find this to be stupid and annoying. I know there are several things in the game that act as money sinks (Haris Pilton's bag for instance) but respeccing? Come 3.1, Blizzard is going to give us "Dual Specs" that will be 1000g and it will even change our glyphs and action bars. Great, but without an ETA on the horizon why don't they just remove the fee to reset for now? Why are players penalized for wanting to try something new? I've even had to pay twice simply because I've put a talent point in the wrong spot once and had to reset (which they addressed finally). What's worse is if I'm specced as a tank and my guild needs a healer, it costs me 100g to go holy and then back to protection. Anyway, I'm curious to see how many more people are out there that play an active role in two specs in their guild and if they are tired of the fees. Do you think that while we wait for the dual spec feature, we should get the option to change for free or are you ok with paying 50g per switch till 3.1 and then paying another 1000g to have the option?

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