Project Lore

Patch 3.1 was replete with major changes from small class mechanics to large scale raids. I have found myself appreciating the smaller changes of patch 3.1 as much as the game changing things like dual specs and Ulduar. A change that was very timely for me was the ability to take flight paths over Wintergrasp. Originally you could not fly to your faction's Wintergrasp flight point, only out of it, and thus you could not fly "through" the flight point, making flights from Dalaran to River's Heart a real pain, as you had to fly up through Icecrown and take an 8 minute tour of west Northrend just to access your Oracle or Frenzyheart dailies. Using a flying mount was right out as well, as flying mounts are not permitted in Wintergrasp. Now that you can fly to Wintergrasp, you can fly through it, making it a quick 3 minute trip on the flight path from Dalaran to River's Heart and shortening most trips significantly. I usually just use my flying mount instead of flight paths as I don't want to have to calculate where the nearest flight path is to my destination and epic flying mounts are just as fast. This major change gives me a reason to use flight paths again and saves me a lot of time. The removal of the requirement of flint and tinder to make a simple campfire is another convenient change. Instead of walking all the way back to the Sunreaver's Sanctuary in Dalaran or to a bonfire in Orgrimmar, I can simply make a fire without having to waste bag spaces on mats. It allows me to get my cooking done easily, and some people use it for the minor spirit buff to boot! Its another huge time saver. One of the most annoying thing about crossing rivers in WoW was jumping in, getting dismounted, swimming for 3 seconds, getting on the other side, and remounting. Now mounts can swim! They do so at your swim speed (unless you have the illustrious turtle), but not having to remount saves those precious few seconds when crossing rivers or lakes. Thanks Blizzard! The Argent Tournament was a major change, but giving me dailies I actually want to do in this location tied together a convenient path for effectively doing dailies. From that location in northeast Icecrown, its easy to jump to Storm Peaks for Sons of Hodir dailies or hop over to Sholazar basin for Oracle/Frenzyheart dailies. The "find this sword" daily and the fishing daily also send you to some other convenient locations that make doing dailies like the Kalu'ak ones less out of the way. It really ties together Northrend as a whole by making more locations relevant for dailies instead of a bunch of disjoint regions. Finally, polishing off those professions should be much easier now. Cooking is theoretically easier to level to 450 with more recipes giving skill-ups longer. Training that required books for fishing, first aid, and cooking now can be done at trainers, and low level fishing has been fleshed out. Stats on lower items have been adjusted, like Leatherworking's Tough Scorpid set which now gives Agility and Stamina instead of Agility and Spirit, and the Turtle Scale set which now gives stamina, intellect, and spell power instead of stamina, intellect and spirit. Materials were tweaked to make low level items easier to make. Its now much more attractive to level professions at low levels. What are your favorite "non-spotlighted" changes of patch 3.1?

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Whether or not you find it productive to spend time on the Public Test Realm, it is usually pretty interesting to at least hear about what Blizzard has in store for the future of World of Warcraft. MMO-Champion once again delivers on that front by looking at the latest build of Patch 3.1 on the PTR. With their all-seeing eyes, they've discovered some significant (and not so significant) class and profession changes, new mounts including a turtle, and a plethora of Ulduar Achievements. While the list of class changes is somewhat short, there are some very interesting ones. Paladins have had a few talents rearranged, Death Knights have a slew of changes, and other classes get some minor tweaks, but the the most interesting to me are for Shamans, especially elemental ones which are mostly aimed at PvP. Check them all out on MMO-Champion. The new mounts mentioned sound fun, but I mostly just want the turtle:

• Blue Skeletal Warhorse - Summons and dismisses a rideable Blue Skeletal Warhorse. This is a very fast mount.
• White Kodo - Summons and dismisses a rideable White Kodo.
• Venomhide Ravasaur - Summons and dismisses a rideable Venomhide Ravasaur. This is a very fast mount.
• Coralshell Turtle - Summons and dismisses a rideable Coralshell Turtle. This is a very fast mount, both on land and in water.

Lastly, more and more new achievements are being implemented. With Ulduar being a huge instance with 14 bosses and 11 "hard modes," there were bound to be a ton of them, and the list doesn't even look to be comprehensive as there are no Heroic mode achievements included. Keep in mind that many of the numbers are placeholders and will likely be changed before 3.1 goes live. ***Also beware that the achievement details may spoil some content!***

• The Siege of Ulduar (Defeat the bosses of The Siege area of Ulduar on Normal Difficulty.)
• The Antechamber of Ulduar (Defeat the bosses of The Antechamber area of Ulduar on Normal Difficulty.)
• The Keepers of Ulduar (Defeat the Keeper bosses of Ulduar on Normal Difficulty.)
• The Descent into Madness (Defeat the bosses of The Descent into Madness area of Ulduar on Normal Difficulty.)
• The Secrets of Ulduar (Defeat every boss in Ulduar on Normal Difficulty.)
• Unbroken (Defeat Flame Leviathan on the first try without anyone repairing their vehicle on Normal Difficulty.)
• Three Car Garage (Defeat Flame Leviathan while in each of the following vehicles on Normal Difficulty.)
• Take Out Those Turrets (Destroy a Flame Leviathan Defense Turret on Normal Difficulty.)
• Shutout (Defeat Flame Leviathan without causing a System Shutdown on Normal Difficulty.)
• Orbital Bombardment (Defeat Flame Leviathan with 1 Orbital Defense System active on Normal Difficulty.)
• Orbital Devastation (Defeat Flame Leviathan with 2 Orbital Defense Systems active on Normal Difficulty.)
• Nuked from Orbit (Defeat Flame Leviathan with 3 Orbital Defense Systems active on Normal Difficulty.)
• Orbit-uary (Defeat Flame Leviathan with 4 Orbital Defense Systems active on Normal Difficulty.)
• A Quick Shave (Defeat Razorscale without allowing her to fly into the air more than once on Normal Difficulty.)
• Minimal Casualties (Defeat Razorscale without any friendly NPCs dying during the fight on Normal Difficulty.)
• Iron Dwarf, Medium Rare (Defeat 1000 Iron Dwarves with Razorscale's Flame Breath within 2 seconds on Normal Difficulty.)
• Shattered (Defeat Ignis the Furnace Master while shattering 77 Iron Constructs within 5 seconds on Normal Difficulty.)
• Hot Pocket (Survive being thrown into Ignis the Furnace Master's crucible on Normal Difficulty.)
• Stokin' the Furnace (Defeat Ignis the Furnace Master in 2 seconds on Normal Difficulty.)
• Nerf Engineering (Defeat XT-002 Deconstructor without him recovering any health from XS-013 Scrapbots on Normal Difficulty.)
• Nerf Scrapbots (Defeat 1000 XS-013 Scrapbots within 12 seconds using XE-321 Boombots on Normal Difficulty.)
• Nerf Dark Bombs (Defeat XT-002 Deconstructor without any raid member dying from a Dark Bomb on Normal Difficulty.)
• Must Deconstruct Faster (Defeat XT-002 Deconstructor in 20.5 seconds on Normal Difficulty.)
• Heartbreaker (Defeat XT-002 Deconstructor after destroying his heart on Normal Difficulty.)
• I Choose You, Runemaster Molgeim (Defeat the Iron Council with Runemaster Molgeim as the last member alive on Normal Difficulty.)
• I Choose You, Stormcaller Brundir (Defeat the Iron Council with Stormcaller Brundir as the last member alive on Normal Difficulty.)
• I Choose You, Steelbreaker (Defeat the Iron Council with Steelbreaker as the last member alive on Normal Difficulty.)
• But I'm on Your Side (Defeat the Iron Council while under the effect of a Steel Boot Flask on Normal Difficulty.)
• Can't Do That While Stunned (Defeat the Iron Council without allowing Stormcaller Brundir to cast Chain Lightning or Lightning Whirl on Normal Difficulty.)
• Overload Overlord (Defeat the Iron Council without any raid member being struck by Overload on Normal Difficulty.)
• With Open Arms (Defeat Kologarn without destroying either of his arms on Normal Difficulty.)
• Disarmed (Destroy both of Kologarn's arms within 12 seconds and then defeat Kologarn on Normal Difficulty.)
• If Looks Could Kill (Defeat Kologarn without any raid member being hit by Focused Eye Beams on Normal Difficulty.)
• Rubble and Roll (Defeat Kologarn with 6000 Rubble creatures alive on Normal Difficulty.)
• Cheese the Freeze (Defeat Hodir without any raid member being hit by Flash Freeze on Normal Difficulty.)
• I Have the Coolest Friends (Defeat Hodir without any friendly NPC dying on Normal Difficulty.)
• Getting Cold in Here (Defeat Hodir without any raid member having more than 3 stacks of Biting Cold on Normal Difficulty.)
• Staying Buffed All Winter (Possess the effects of Toasty Fire, Storm Power and Starlight at the same time on Normal Difficulty.)
• Don't Stand in the Lightning (Defeat Thorim without being affected by Lightning Charge on Normal Difficulty.)
• I'll Take You All On (Defeat Thorim, the Ancient Rune Giant and the Rune Colossus on Normal Difficulty.)
• Who Needs Bloodlust? (Defeat Thorim while under the effect of Aura of Celerity on Normal Difficulty.)
• Siffed (Force Thorim to enter the arena and defeat him while Sif is present on Normal Difficulty.)
• Lumberjacked (Defeat Elder Brightleaf, Elder Ironbranch and Elder Stonebark within 2 seconds of each other on Normal Difficulty.)
• Con-speed-atory (Defeat Freya within 2 minutes of engaging a creature in the Conservatory of Life on Normal Difficulty.)
• Deforestation (Defeat 2 Ancient Water Spirits, 2 Storm Lashers and 2 Snaplashers within 120 seconds on Normal Difficulty.)
• Getting Back to Nature (Defeat Freya while she is affected by Attuned to Nature on Normal Difficulty.)
• Mind the Mines (Defeat Mimiron without anyone in the raid triggering a Proximity Mine on Normal Difficulty.)
• Strike Out (Defeat Mimiron without anyone in the raid being hit by a Rocket Strike on Normal Difficulty.)
• A-bomb-inable (Defeat Mimiron without anyone in the raid being hit by a Bomb Bot on Normal Difficulty.)
• Set Up Us the Bomb (Complete the following Mimiron achievements on Normal Difficulty.)
• I'll Form the Head! (Force Mimiron to combine the parts of his greatest creation within 20 minutes on Normal Difficulty.)
• Shadowdodger (Defeat General Vezax without any raid member being hit by Shadow Crash on Normal Difficulty.)
• I Love the Smell of Saronite in the Morning (Defeat General Vezax without being affected by Saronite Vapors on Normal Difficulty.)
• Never Stand Near the Faceless Dude (Defeat General Vezax without allowing him to regain health from Mark of the Faceless on Normal Difficulty.)
• Crazy Cat Lady (Defeat Auriaya while doing something cool on Normal Difficulty.)
• Supermassive (Defeat Algalon the Observer while destroying 4 Black Holes within 10 seconds on Normal Difficulty.)
• Observed (Defeat Algalon the Observer on Normal Difficulty.)
• He Feeds On Your Tears (Defeat Algalon the Observer without any raid member dying on Normal Difficulty.)
• She's Not Bad for an Old God (/Kiss Sara in Ulduar on Normal Difficulty.)
• Drive Me Crazy (Defeat Yogg-Saron without any raid member going insane on Normal Difficulty.)
• He's Not Getting Any Older (Defeat Yogg-Saron within 22 minutes on Normal Difficulty.)
• They're Coming Out of the Walls (Defeat 200 Guardians of Yogg-Saron within 12 seconds on Normal Difficulty.)
• In His House He Waits Dreaming (Experience all 5 visions of Yogg-Saron's mind on Normal Difficulty.)
• The Undying, Part Two (Within one raid lockout period, defeat every boss in Ulduar on Normal Difficulty without allowing any raid member to die during any of the boss encounters.)

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