Category Archives: Game Info

Game Info

Professional Advantages

9 Comments

Note: this post contains information on Wrath of the Lich King.

So, you’re wondering what professions will serve you best at level 80? Here’s a super-quick rundown of the crafter-only advantages of each profession, to help you pick.

In addition, I’ve listed the major epic items that each profession can make, even if they’re BoE, as there’s likely to be a lucrative market in providing crafted epics.

Current as of WotLK beta build 8982.

Continue reading Professional Advantages →

Game Info

Inscription Guide Revised – Levelling

51 Comments

Note: this post contains spoilers for Patch 3.0.

This is the second of a two-part guide to Inscription, the new tradeskill being introduced in Wrath of the Lich King.

Last Update: 10 October; WotLK beta build 9056.
If you have questions, feel free to contact me.

For the full list of Inscription recipes and the complete Inscription Guide, download the guide as a PDF file here: inscription12.pdf. (The full guide is in PDF form because frankly, it’s almost impossible to format all those tables as a blog post.)

Otherwise, read on for the “short” version!

Continue reading Inscription Guide Revised – Levelling →

Game Info

New Jewelcrafting Patterns for Honor

2 Comments

Eyonix has confirmed that the “new Honor items” are cloaks and trinkets, upgrades over the current cloaks and trinkets but not huge ones.

However, on the 3.0.2 PTR tonight I also espied a Jewelcrafting vendor in the Stormwind PvP vendor area, selling 12 uncommon gem cuts for 1250 Honor each.

All the gem cuts are for Northrend gems, require 350 Jewelcrafting to learn, and create PvP-focused gems. They are:

  • Durable Huge Citrine: 7 Spell Power, 6 Resilience
  • Empowered Huge Citrine: 12 Attack Power, 6 Resilience
  • Lucent Huge Citrine: 6 Agility, 6 Resilience
  • Mysterious Shadow Crystal: 7 Spell Power, 8 Spell Penetration
  • Mystic Sun Crystal: 12 Resilience
  • Opaque Dark Jade: 6 Resilience, 2 mp5
  • Resplendent Huge Citrine: 6 Strength, 6 Resilience
  • Shattered Dark Jade: 6 Haste Rating, 8 Spell Penetration
  • Steady Dark Jade: 6 Resilience, 9 Stamina
  • Stormy Chalcedony: 15 Spell Penetration
  • Tense Dark Jade: 6 Hit Rating, 8 Spell Penetration
  • Turbid Dark Jade: 6 Resilience, 6 Spirit

These haven’t been posted anywhere that I’ve seen, so I’m not sure if they’re truly intended to be on the 3.0.2 PTR – it’s an excellent use of Honor points, to be sure, but the Northrend-level mats rather make me doubt that they’ll be released before WotLK. I hope my doubts are wrong!

Game Info

Holy Paladins in Wrath: New Spells

4 Comments

Note: this post contains information on Wrath of the Lich King. And in addition, it’s a bit speculative because it’s discussing things that may still be tweaked, nerfed, buffed, folded, spindled, mutilated, digested, adjusted, rejected, abolished, emasculated, disembowelled, inflated or otherwise amended. This is a beta, after all.

There’s been a lot of talk around the blogosphere about the changes to existing Paladin spell mechanics: in particular, the way situational Blessings are becoming Hand spells, and others are disappearing altogether. Now it’s time to take a look at what’s new, not just what’s different. I’ve held off on this post, since so much has been in flux, but now that Holy is officially not likely to change too much more, let’s take a look at what’s in store.

Continue reading Holy Paladins in Wrath: New Spells →

Game Info

Brewfest – Preparing For Achievements

5 Comments

Note: this post contains spoilers for Patch 3.0.

Patch 3.0.2 is expected to herald the introduction of the new Achievement system, so for many of us it’s time to start planning ahead and working on Achievements for which we can get retrospective credit.

There are a number of Achievements centred around the current seasonal event, Brewfest. With a bit of careful planning, you might well be able to get credit for a number of these achievements from Brewfest 2008, instead of having to wait for next year.

Please note that this is currently in development, and could change wildly at any time. Achievements have appeared and disappeared frequently during the Wrath beta; these may suffer the same fate.

Also, please note that the Brewfest is a fun and original seasonal event, and the following guide is a very dry and analytical way to maximise a certain kind of reward. Don’t forget to actually play the Brewfest content, too. Get drunk, clobber Dark Iron dwarves, have fun! If you’re looking for a good guide to the Brewfest in general, I recommend Dwarf Priest’s “Beer Me!” guide.

Brewfest Achievements

Achievements You Can Complete In Advance

  • Direbrewfest – kill Coren Direbrew, the Brewfest special boss in Blackrock Depths.
  • Down With The Dark Iron – defend the Brewfest camp from the Dark Iron attack and complete the quest, “This One Time, When I Was Drunk…” (which is the quest that becomes available every half-hour after the Dark Iron attack).
  • Disturbing the Peace – while wearing 3 pieces of Brewfest clothing, get completely smashed and dance in Dalaran. Obviously you can’t complete this until WotLK goes live, but you can get the clothes in advance so you won’t have to wait for Brewfest ’09.
  • Does Your Wolpertinger Linger? – obtain a Wolpertinger pet. In Brewfest ’07, the Wolpertinger was a Brewfest quest reward – this year it’s purchasable from the Brewfest vendor for less than 50 silver.
  • Strange Brew – drink the nine Brewfest beers. These beers are sold by the various brewmasters around the Brewfest camps; however, like the foods, they only last 2 days. The same trick of mailing them to an alt and then returning them should work, however.
  • The Brewfest Diet – eat 8 of the Brewfest foods. These foods are sold by the various vendors around the Brewfest camps; however, they only last 2 days. They’re not BoP, however, so you can buy them and mail them to a banker alt, and leave them sitting in the mail (which doesn’t cost any lifespan), and mail them back when Achievements go live.
  • Have Keg, Will Travel – obtain a Brewfest mount. Last year’s Brewfest Rams count, as do this year’s rams and kodos dropped by Coren Direbrew.

Achievements That Will Have To Wait

  • Drunken Stupor – fall 65 yards without dying while completely smashed during the Brewfest Holiday. Unless 3.0.2 goes live before Brewfest finishes, this will have to wait for Brewfest ’09.
  • Brew of the Year – sample 12 beers featured in the Brew of the Month Club. You join the club by handing in 200 Brewfest Tokens to the Brewfest Vendor, and every month you’re mailed a new sample of beer.

    Each beer only lasts 14 days, so I’d recommend leaving them sitting in your mail (which doesn’t cost duration) until Patch 3.0.2 hits, and then drinking all the ones you have saved up – however, finishing off the achievement will have to wait twelve months unless the beers are indeed available from a vendor who sticks around after Brewfest. (Update: I’ve just checked the vendor, and she only sells one brew at the moment – so either she sells only the brew of that month, or only the brews that have been release so far. Either way, you’ll have to wait the full year for this achievement.)

  • Brewmaster – complete eight of Brewfest achievements (all of the above except “Have Keg, Will Travel”). The reward is a “Brewmaster” title.

    Obviously, as Drunken Stupor and Brew of the Year can’t be completed when achievements go live, neither can this achievement – and nor can any achievement which requires it (like What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been, the overall World Events achievement which awards a Violet Proto-Drake mount).

How To Do The Achievements

Food and Drink

Buy one of each type of Brewfest food and drink from the vendors, and mail them to a bank alt. Leave them sitting in the bank alt’s mail; return them after 29 days, and mail them off again if Achievements still aren’t live. Once Patch 3.0.2 goes live, mail them back to your main character and consume each one. This will complete Strange Brew and The Brewfest Diet.

The Brewfest Camp

Apart from normal questing, there are two important things to do in your faction’s Brewfest camp. The first is to buy a Wolpertinger pet from the Brewfest vendor if you don’t have one from last year, for Does Your Wolpertinger Linger?.

The second is to stick around until the hour or half-hour, and help defend the camp from the Dark Iron dwarves by throwing beer mugs you pick up from nearby tables. Once you’ve defended the camp, you can click on a piece of leftover Dark Iron machinery to get the quest that will give you the Down With The Dark Iron achievement. This quest is repeatable daily and awards Brewfest tokens; see below for more details about tokens.

Kill Coren Direbrew – A Lot

Go and see Darna Honeybock in Kharanos (for Alliance) or Slurpo Fizzykeg on the road to Razor Hill (for Horde), and get the quest to find the Brewfest spy in BRD. You’ll need to be level 65 to get this quest. Head to BRD, zone in and just to the right you’ll see some Dark Iron dwarves digging around some rubble. Kill them and use the consoles, and you’ll be transported via Mole Machine to the Grim Guzzler bar within BRD. The spy is just around the corner; he’ll give you a follow-on quest to insult Coren and kill him.

Coren drops a quest item which you hand in for Brewfest tokens, and completing the quest will ensure that your kill of Coren will be credited for Direbrewfest when Achievements go live. Coren also drops the Brewfest Ram and Brewfest Kodo mounts; you’ll need one of these to get credit for the Have Keg, Will Travel achievement. There are no concrete figures on drop rate right now, but it’s looking fairly low – probably less than 10%. You’ll probably need to kill him quite a few times – each person can trigger the event once a day (on the standard daily quest reset timer) so a normal group can try five times a day for a mount.

Get Brewfest Tokens

Brewfest Tokens are used to buy things from the Brewfest vendor, and can be gained from a number of quests, some of which are repeatable. You’ll need tokens to complete the Disturbing the Peace and Brew of the Year achievements.

  • Disturbing the Peace, completed after Wrath goes live, requires you to have three pieces of Brewfest clothing. The hat (available in four colors) costs 50 tokens, the boots or slippers cost 100 tokens, and the dress or regalia costs 200 tokens – so completing this Achievement requires 350 tokens, minus the cost of any Brewfest clothing you got last year.
  • Brew of the Year requires you to join the Brew of the Month Club, which costs 200 tokens.

Ah, but how to get tokens? The WoWwiki Brewfest page has a listing of all the Brewfest quests, but in short:

  • If you have any Brewfest Tickets left over from last year, you can exchange them (at a 1:1 ratio) at the Brewfest vendor.
  • Killing Coren Direbrew the first time awards 40 tokens.
  • Completing one of the Barking quests (riding around the city on a special ram) awards 15 tokens, repeatable daily.
  • Completing There and Back Again (ferrying 3 kegs to the Brewfest camp, non-repeatable) gives 15 tokens.
  • Completing keg runs awards 2 tokens per keg you ferry back; typically you should be able to do 10 kegs or more in the time limit. This is on a 12-hour timer, separate from daily quests, so if you time it right you can get 40 tokens or more a day.
  • Completing the daily quest to defend the Brewfest camp from the Dark Irons awards 15 tokens.

Thus, you get 55 tokens from non-repeatable quests, and can easily get 70 tokens a day (or more, if you’re good at ram riding) from repeatable quests.

Checklist

As a summary of everything above, here’s a quick checklist to help you get the biggest Achievement bang for your Brewfest buck:

  • Buy one of each Brewfest food and beer, and mail them to a bank alt. (Strange Brew, The Brewfest Diet)
  • Buy a Wolpertinger if you don’t already have one. (Does Your Wolpertinger Linger?)
  • Do the quest that becomes available after the Dark Iron attack on the Brewfest camp. (Down With The Dark Iron)
  • Kill Coren Direbrew. (Direbrewfest)
  • Kill Coren Direbrew repeatedly until you get a ram or kodo. (Have Keg, Will Travel)
  • Gather 350 Brewfest Tokens and buy three pieces of Brewfest clothing, minus any you have from last year. (Disturbing the Peace)
  • Gather 200 Brewfest Tokens and join the Brew of the Month Club. Leave beer samples in mail. (Brew of the Year)

Happy drinking!

Game Info

Inscription Guide Revised – Introduction

10 Comments

Note: this post contains spoilers for Patch 3.0.

This post is a revision of my previous Inscription Guide.

This is the first of a two-part guide to Inscription, the new tradeskill being introduced in Wrath of the Lich King. The second part will cover specific recipes, required mats, and a recommended path for levelling the skill as efficiently and quickly as possible.

Last Update: 10 October; WotLK beta build 9056.
If you have questions, feel free to contact me.

For the full list of Inscription recipes and the complete Inscription Guide, download the guide as a PDF file here: inscription12.pdf. (The full guide is in PDF form because frankly, it’s almost impossible to format all those tables as a blog post.)

Inscription is a profession practised by Scribes. At its core, Inscription involves using herbs to create glyphs of magical power, which enhance spells and items. The profession was originally advertised as new content for the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, but Blizzard have since advised that it will be available as of Patch 3.0 before WotLK is released.

What Scribes Do

Scribes create a number of scrolls, glyphs and other consumables that anyone can use. They make:

In addition, Scribes have several abilities only they can take advantage of:

  • Master’s Inscriptions; self-only shoulder enchants (similar to enchanter-only ring enchants or the new tailor-only spellthreads). These come in four varieties: Axe, Crag, Pinnacle and Storm.
  • Off-hand items; bind-on-pickup offhands, from low-level blues to level 77 epics.

How Glyphs Work

Every character has a ‘glyphs’ tab in their spellbook, which has slots for 6 glyphs – 3 minor and 3 greater. Glyphs created by Scribes are put in these slots, and will modify the character’s spells. Some glyphs currently require a Lexicon of Power to apply; it’s an in-game item like an alchemy lab or mana loom and there’s one in Dalaran in the Inscription trainer shop.

Minor glyphs give a minor or cosmetic effect, eg:

  • changes the visual effect of a spell
  • gives a small reduction in a spell’s mana cost
  • gives a buff spell increased duration

Major glyphs give a significant upgrade, eg:

  • increases chance to avoid interruption while casting
  • increases damage done by a spell

Learning Inscription

There are Inscription trainers in various cities of Azeroth, Outland and Northrend:
Neutral

  • Professor Palin, Magus Commerce Exchange, Dalaran

Alliance

  • Catarina Stanford, near The Stockade, Stormwind
  • Elise Brightletter, Great Forge, Ironforge
  • Feyden Darkin, Craftsmen’s Terrace, Darnassus
  • Thoth, Crystal Halls, The Exodar
  • Michael Schwan, Honor Hold, Hellfire Peninsula
  • Mindri Dinkles, Valgarde, Howling Fjord
  • Tink Brightbolt, Valiance Keep, Borean Tundra

Horde

  • Jo’mah, The Drag, Orgrimmar
  • Margaux Parchley, The Apothecarium, Undercity
  • Poshken Hardbinder, Pools of Vision, Thunder Bluff
  • Zantasia, Court of the Sun, Silvermoon City
  • Neferatti, Thrallmar, Hellfire Peninsula
  • Booker Kells, Vengeance Landing, Howling Fjord
  • Adelene Sunlance, Warsong Hold, Borean Tundra

Inscribers will also need an Inking Set and various kinds of blank parchment; these are sold by Inscription Supplies vendors. There’s one in Dalaran, Larana Drome, and other trainers should also be accompanied by them.

Milling

Milling is a subskill of Inscription, and a direct parallel of Jewelcrafting’s Prospecting. Inscribers learn Milling when they first train Inscription skill; it allows an inscriber to turn 5 herbs into raw materials for inks.

These raw materials are called “pigments”; different types of pigments are derived from milling different herbs. The first tier of herbs – Peacebloom, Silverleaf, and Earthroot – produce Alabaster Pigment. Other types of pigment (such as Dusky, Golden, and Emerald Pigment) are milled from higher tiers of herbs.

Milling each batch of herbs also has a chance to produce a rare pigment as well as the common one. For instance, milling 5 Briarthorn will produce 2 or 3 Dusky Pigment, and may also give one or more Verdant Pigments as well.

The rare pigments are used to make rarer inks, which are in turn used to make offhand items, tarot cards and the like. See the upcoming Levelling Guide for more details of recipes.

Milling herbs requires certain Inscription skill levels depending on the level of the herbs. Milling never gives Inscription skill, even at low levels.

Game Info, Playstyle

Healadin Glyphs – A First Look and a Revelation

7 Comments

Note: this post contains information on Wrath of the Lich King.

Inscription is still being tuned, and a lot of glyphs are incomplete or non-existent – not to mention we haven’t seen a single Minor Glyph yet for most classes.

However, some of the existing Glyphs are worth taking a look at; of course, they may change before Inscription goes live. And some of the glyphs lead to some very interesting conclusions about possible playstyles when Wrath goes live.

Continue reading Healadin Glyphs – A First Look and a Revelation →

Game Info

Inscription Still, Still Not In

1 Comment

Inscription update for the day: it’s mostly still not implemented, so still no guide from me.

To be more accurate: a lot of recipes are now available from the trainer, from skill level 1 up to 400 at present. However, the materials for the recipes have not yet been tuned. Every glyph currently requires Moonglow Ink (made from Peacebloom, Silverleaf, Earthroot, or Mageroyal), one of each type of parchment (bought from Vendors), and one piece of Mageroyal. Obviously, 400-skill recipes aren’t going to require a level 10 herb, so clearly they’re placeholders until the correct list of mats is implemented. So, there’s no point in creating a powerlevelling guide just yet.

Update: Druid glyphs appear to have the correct mats requirements. However, it’s clear that Inscription is still very unfinished, and any powerlevelling guide would be premature and inaccurate.

Also, note that the Glyphs pane of the spellbook now has three slots for Major Glyphs and three for Minor Glyphs; it looks like the model of two Major, two Minor and two Lesser has been abandoned.