The ToC Raiding Gear List: Part 2 (Alliance)

Update: I updated the list to include my new valuation of Haste Rating.
Update2: Made some changes to my BiS selections because Vaenor on Moonrunner pointed out a better way to pickup the Spell Hit I needed.
Update3: Onyxia's Loot has been added.

Here is part 2 to the gear ranking. This post focuses on the jewelry and weapons available to moonkin. Please refer to part 1 to see how the list was built.

Edit: This is the Alliance Version of the List. You can find the Horde Version here.

Back:

Cloak of Displacement	Faction Champs 25 - H	278.2	188.9
*Jaina's Radiance	Tribute Chest 25 - H	260.6	260.6
Cloak of Displacement	Faction Champs 25	244.6	153.5
Bolvar's Devotion	Tribute Chest 25 - H	231.6	231.6
Drape of Bitter Incantation	Tribute Chest 10 - H	230.2	230.2
Drape of Mortal Downfall	Iron Council25 H	229	154.3
Drape of the Messenger	Algalon10	208.4	151.9
Shawl of Fervent Crusader	Tribute Chest 10 - H	204.7	204.7
Shawl of the Refreshing Winds	Northrend Beasts 25 - H	201.6	201.6
Kurisu's Indecision	Eadric's Cache - H	193.1	113
Flowing Sapphiron Drape	Onyxia25	178.8	178.8
Shawl of the Refreshing Winds	Northrend Beasts 25	170.3	170.3
Pennant Cloak	Sartharion25 H	164.1	164.1
Sunglimmer Cloak	Algalon25 H	158	158
Fluttering Sapphiron Drape	Onyxia10	156.5	156.5
Asimov's Drape	Mimiron25	143.6	143.6
Cape of the Unworthy Wizard	Kel'Thuzad25	140.5	140.5
Dark Shroud of the Scourge	Noth10	138.6	87.6
Sunglimmer Drape	Algalon25 H	138.4	138.4
Drape of the Spellweaver	Ulduar10	138.1	138.1
Shawl of Haunted Memories	Yogg-Saron25	137.5	137.5
Deathchill Cloak	Crafted	135.9	135.9
Shroud of Luminosity	Grobbulus, Heigan, Gothik, Maexxna25	135.2	135.2
Disquise of the Kumiho	Emblem of Valor	126.4	126.4
Shawl of the Old Maid	Grobbulus, Heigan, Gothik, Maexxna25	125.3	125.3
Shroud of the Citadel	Sapphiron10	122.9	122.9
Cloak of the Dormant Blaze	Ulduar10	104	104

The Tribute Run Cloaks are awesome, but lets face it. They are not going to be easy to get. Blizzard hasn't been great about getting us many good cloak options in the past couple of patches, but the ones that are there are good sources of Hit. Therefore you you want to switch some stuff around this is a great place to do it.

Neck:

Darkbane Pendant	Twin Valkyrs 10 - H	237.9	161.4
Pendant of Fiery Havoc	Flame Leviathan25 H	237.9	154.1
*Wail of the Val'kyr	Twin Valkyrs 25 - H	222.1	222.1
Darkbane Pendant	Twin Valkyrs 10	208.4	142.9
Wyrmrest Necklase of Power	Quest - Sapph, Malygos25	199.2	139.1
Pendant of the Piercing Glare	Kologarn10	194.9	111.1
Wail of the Val'kyr	Twin Valkyrs 25	189.1	189.1
Pendant of Focused Energies	Ulduar Zone Drop25	187.1	103.3
Chain of the Ancient Wyrm	Quest - Sapph, Malygos10	178.8	124.1
Pendant of the Shallow Grave	Thorim10 H	171.9	171.9
Chain of Latent Energies	Naxx Zone Drop10	163.8	101.9
Sapphire Amulet of Renewal	Steelbreaker25 H	163.3	163.3
Brilliant Hailstone Amulet	Confessor's Cache	162.8	117.3
Watchful Eye	Steelbreaker10 H	156.8	156.8
Circle of Arcane Streams	Sartharion10	152	95.5
Thunderstorm Amulate	Naxx Zone Drop25	146.4	95.4
Unblinking Eye	Iron Council25	143.7	143.7
Cosmic Lights	Sapphiron25	143	143
Evoker's Charm	19 EoC	139.6	139.6
Encircling Burnished gold Chains	25 EoH	131.5	86
Necklace of the Glittering Chamber	Malygos10	124.6	124.6
Titanium Spellshock Necklace	Crafted	120.4	120.4
Bone-Linked Amulet	Grobbulus10	118	118
Veiled Amulet of Life	Gothik10	112.9	112.9

There are not a lot of good necks in ToC, and that makes Wail of the Val'kyr an easier choice.

Trinket:

*Reign of the Unliving	Anubarak 25 - H	331	331
Shard of the Crystal Heart	50 EoT	300.8	67.7
*Reign of the Unliving	Anubarak 25	295	295
Elemental Focus Stone	Auriaya10	283.7	87
Living Flame	Razorscale25	278.9	84
Dying Curse	Various Naxx Bosses25	268.5	139.2
Flare of the Heavens	General Vezax25 H	235.6	235.6
Illustration of the Dragon Soul	Sartharion25	200	200
Eye of the Broodmother	Razorscale10	193.1	193.1
Mark of the War Prisoner	Cyanigosa5	190.6	57.7
Scales of Fates	Thorim25	183.7	183.7
Pandora's Plea	Mimiron25	178.2	178.2
Sundial of the Exiled	40 EoH	173.1	173.1
Abyssal Rune	Eadric's Cache	168.5	168.5
Solace of the Defeated	Jaraxxus 25 - H	168	168
Embrace of the Spider	Maexxna10	164.9	164.9
Talisman of Resurgence	50 EoT	152.4	152.4
Shiny Shard of the Flame #	Onyxia25	150	150
Shiny Shard of the Scale #	Onyxia25	150	150
Solace of the Defeated	Jaraxxus 25	150	150
Talisman of Volatile Power	Faction Champs 10 - H	150	150
Purified Shard of the Flame #	Onyxia10	134	134
Purified Shard of the Scale #	Onyxia10	134	134
Talisman of Volatile Power	Faction Champs 10	132.4	132.4
Extract of Necromantic Power	Sapphiron25	124.3	124.3
Forethought Talisman	Various Naxx Bosses25	111	111
Sif's Rememberance	Thorim10 H	110	110
Vanquished Clutches of Yogg Saron	Yogg10 H	106.4	106.4
Je'tze's Bell	World Drop	106	106
The Egg of Mortal Essence	40 EoH	98	98
Soul of the Dead	Sapphiron25	74.3	74.3
Frenzyheart Insignia of Fury	Reputation - Frenzyheart	57.9	57.9
Oracle Talisman of Ablution	Reputation - Oracles	55.6	55.6

# The value of the Onyxia trinkets is the value of the set divided by 2. If you do not have the set, these trinkets are virtually worthless in terms of DPS. On top of that I don't have any hard numbers on the damage proc. I assumed the DoT has a 25% uptime.

As usual, I urge you to use this trinket ranking with a little bit of skepticism. Most of the new trinkets haven’t been tested to my knowledge and how their procs work is unknown. In most cases I assumed that they would work in a similar manner to the trinkets we had in the 3.0 version of WoW.

That said, when it comes to the best trinkets available the debate is very one sided. Both versions of the Reign of Unliving are clearly the best choices available. The best thing is, it looks like you can equip both of the at the same time.

Finally, I want to make one little comment about hit trinkets. I generally don’t recommend using hit trinkets after early raiding. The reason is they just have way to much hit on them. A single trinket can provide 45% of the total hit rating you need. Unfortunately that makes you very inflexible and forces you to skip some other awesome trinkets that provide a ton of Spell Power, Crit rating or Haste rating.

Rings:

Firestorm Ring	Jaraxxus 10 - H	260	158
Firestorm Ring	Jaraxxus 10	218.5	127.4
Frozen Loop	Hodir25	206	122.2
Shimmering Seal	Flame Leviathan10	203.1	126.6
*Band of Deplorable Violence	Anubarak 25 - H	200.7	200.7
Sinner's Confession	Confessor's Cache - H	194.4	114.2
Ring of the Vacant Eye	General Vezax25	183.4	106.9
*Nebula Band	Algalon10	177.1	177.1
Signet of the Malevolent	Gothik10	176.1	86.8
Band of the Invoker	35 EoT	170.3	170.3
Polished Dragonslayer's Signet	Onyxia Head	165.5	165.5
Band of Deplorable Violence	Anubarak 25	169.8	169.8
Conductive Seal	Mimiron25 H	168	168
Emerald Signet Ring	Kologarn10	166	104.1
Signet of Manifested Pain	Kel'Thuzad25	159.4	159.4
Etched Signet of the Kirin Tor	Vendor	158.8	158.8
Pyrelight Circle	Ignis25	156.6	156.6
Signet of Soft Lament	Yogg10 H	145.3	145.3
Inscribed Signet of the Kirin Tor	9750 gold	141.5	141.5
Glowing Ring of Reclamation	Flame Leviathan25	139.4	139.4
Lady Maye's Sapphire Ring	Iron Council10	129.5	129.5
Band of Channeled Magic	25 EoV	127.6	127.6
Lost Jewel	Various Naxx Bosses25	125.8	125.8
Signet of the Kirin Tor	8500 gold	123.9	123.9
Titanium spellshock Ring	Crafted	123.4	123.4
Ring of the Fated	Noth10	119.1	119.1
Ring of Holy cleansing	Heigan10	113.7	113.7
Band of Guile	Mal'Ganis5	113.7	113.7
Annhylde's Ring	Ingvar5	112.5	112.5
Timeworn Silken Band	Maexxna10	112.1	112.1
Signet of Hopeful Light	Reputation - Argent Crusade	107.8	107.8

Originally I would have equipped both versions of the Band of Deplorable Violence, but my revaluation of haste really helped the Nebula Band. You will also notice that the Emblem ring is very highly rated, but I would hold off picking it up until you have all of the tier piece you need.

Off Hand:

Symbol of Transgression	Jaraxxus 25 - H	275	171.2
Chalice of Benedictus	Twin Valkyrs 10 - H	247.3	168.9
Symbol of Transgression	Jaraxxus 25	242.9	151.9
Cosmos	Algalon25	231.5	138.6
Chalice of Benedictus	Twin Valkyrs 10	217.6	150.2
*Chalice of Searing Light	Twin Valkyrs 25 - H	190.4	190.4
Leviathan Fueling Manual	Flame Leviathan25	182.6	107.9
Surplus Limb	Patchwerk25	172.3	114
Chalice of Searing Light	Twin Valkyrs 25	168.7	168.7
Ward of the Violet Citadel	25 EoH	161.7	92.5
Ironmender	Kologarn25	137.7	137.7
Watchful Eye	Steelbreaker10 H	137.6	86.6
Igniter Rod	Ignis10	131.3	131.3
Accursed Spine	Noth25	126.2	126.2
Matriarch's Spawn	Maexxna25	123.3	123.3
Antediluvian Cornerstone Grimoire	Onyxia25	117.5	117.5
Handbook of Obscure Remedies	25 EoH	106.9	106.9
Antique Cornerstone Grimoire	Onyxia10	100.8	100.8

I'm back to favoring a Main Hand/Off Hand combo and the Symbol of Transgression is the best Off Hand if you can use the hit. The two Onyxia offhand are a little better then what I've listed here due to the skeleton. Unfortunately I have no way to evaluate the DPS of the Skeleton. That said, I doubt it will be good enough to make these offhands that good in terms of DPS.

Main Hand:

Blade of Terasque	Northrend Beasts 25 - H	878.4	785.5
*Misery's End	Anubarak 25 - H	816.3	816.3
Blade of Terasque	Northrend Beasts 25	774	692.1
Heartcrusher	Tribute Chest 10 - H	745	745
Blade of the Silver Disciple	Faction Champs 10 - H	743.5	743.5
Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings	Quest - Ulduar25	723.4	723.4
Misery's End	Anubarak 25	722.6	722.6
Starshard Edge	Algalon or Mimiron H25	710.3	639.3
Blade of the Silver Disciple	Faction Champs 10	661.2	661.2
Aesuga, Hand of the Ardent Champion	General Vezax10	643.9	643.9
Soulscribe	Yogg25	631.1	631.1
Spectral Kris	Black Knight - H	568.1	568.1
Haunting Call	Naxx Zone Drop25	567.5	485.5
Stormtip	Iron Council10	556	556
Plasma Foil	XT-002 Deconstructor10	548.3	548.3
The Soulblade	Kel'Thuzad10	547.8	493.1
Wraith Strike	Maexxna25	537.5	537.5
Hammer of the Astral Plane	Kel'Thuzad10	537.2	537.2
The Impossible Dream	Loatheb25	522.3	522.3
Ice Spire Scepter	Malygos10	516	516
Titansteel Spellblade	Crafted	504.1	449.5
Titansteel Guardian	Crafted	479.7	479.7
Blade of Dormant Memories	Patchwerk10	476.9	476.9
Dagger of Lunar purity	25 Champion's Seals	460.8	460.8

Again, I am back to favoring MH/OH combos and this is the best Main hand without Hit rating

Two Handed Weapon:

Clemency	Tribute Chest 25 - H	956.1	956.1
Enlightenment	Twin Valkyrs 10 - H	933.6	933.6
Cold Convergence	Anubarak 10 - H	914.4	914.4
Intensity	Ignis25	865	646.4
Enlightenment	Twin Valkyrs 10	822.3	822.3
Staff of Endless Winter	Hodir25 H	806.7	806.7
Cold Convergence	Anubarak 10	800.3	800.3
Unraveling Reach	Freya10	775	567.4
Greatstaff of the Nexus	Malygos10	768.4	595.4
Icecore Staff	Hodir10 H	763.3	763.3
The Lifebinder	Freya25	742.3	742.3
Rapture	Iron Council25	720.7	720.7
Devotion	Yogg10	644.8	644.8
Pillar of Fortitude	Ulduar Zone Drop10	617.1	617.1
Damnation	Four Horsemen25	614	614
Staff of Restraint	Sartharion25	604.6	604.6
Sulfur Stave	Loatheb10	600.2	492.7
Staff of Draconic Combat	Eregos5	557.8	557.8

I am back to favoring MH/OH combos but Staves are still a viable option since Blizzard now seems to be itemizing them better.

Relic/Idol:
Currently the best Moonkin idol in game is the [Idol of Lunar Fury]. The others don't even come close, so buy it as soon as you can. If you can't get your hands on that one right a way the [Idol of the Shooting Star] is your best bet. It is of a higher ilevel then the [Idol of Steadfast Renewal] and you get a little more damage from using it. The last idol you will see is [Idol of Crying Wind]. It is not a good option in my opinion. The problem is that you will not be using IS enough to really make use of the idol. There may be some situations where it is better then the SF or Wrath idol but it will never beat the Idol of Lunar Fury.

I also don't recommend using any of the idols from TBC. All of the WotLK idols currently available will be purchaseable with Emblems in 3.2 and are much better then anything we found in Outland.

Post BlizzCon Review - Part 2

Edit2: Thank you to everyone that has e-mailed me version one of the post below.
Edit: This post may seem a little brief because it is the second time I've written it. Blogger ate the first one when I hit publish. I saved it several times while writing it, but the backed up versions where not available and I didn't copy it to an external source. If anyone knows how to get it back let me know.

In Part 1, I talked about some of the more general changes, and the changes announced in the Class and Professions panel. In this post I will take a look at the announcements made during the Raid & Dungeon's Panel and the Game Systems Panel.

Patch 3.3: Icecrown Citadel

If you go buy the timing of the past couple of patches then patch 3.3 is going to come out in a few 4 or 5 months. Therefore it is no surprise that Blizzard gave us a preview of what is in store for the final content patch of Wrath of the Lich King.

The Icecrown Citadel raid will have 4 floors and 12 bosses. That is on par with Ulduar, Naxx and the other large raid instances, but I expected it to be bigger. I didn't expect the 31 bosses that Ghostcrawler joked about, but I assumed that from the comments made pre BlizzCon that ICC would be the biggest raid instance of the expansion. However, since Naxx has 15 bosses, and Ulduar has 14, ICC will come in at third.

As long as the encounters are good, it does really matter though. The Airship fight sounds particularly interesting. I know a lot of people don't like the vehicle fights, but I've enjoyed them for the most part. I am also very glad that they are using the Ulduar teleporter again.

The last bit of good news is that they will be adding another 5 man instance in ICC with 3 wings and 8 bosses. I didn't think they added enough 5 mans during TBC and its nice to see that they are providing new instances for more casual players and alts to run.

My guild still has a lot of work to do in Ulduar and ToC but all of this news about ICC is getting me excited.

Patch 3.3: Cross Server LFG
There is no guarantee that this will be available for Patch 3.3, but they indicated that that is their goal.

Wow! Just Wow.

I'm not sure how I feel about this change. It has potential but there are a lot of potential pitfalls as well. I would love for it to be easier to find group to run an instance, but I'm not sure how much this helps.

As a DPSer the main problem I have with finding a group is finding a Tank and/or Healer. This will increase the number of Tanks and Healers in LFG but it will also increase the number of DPS looking for tanks and healers. So we may be in a similar situation.

The second thing I worry about is this reward for leading a pug. I understand the thought process but I'm not sure how it will work. More people will want to lead pugs, therefore there will be more pugs. We all win right? ... Not really. The reward will either be so good that people will only run an instance if they can lead it or it will be so bad that nobody cares. In which case the change had no impact.

Ultimately I see this as a reward for tanks and healers to make themselves available. Tanks are the natural party leaders because they should determine the kill order and they need lead to put up the raid icons. On top of that if you have two people being stubborn about who gets the reward, who is going to get it? Its easy to find DPS, hard to find a healer or a tank. If a Healer says I will only come if I can lead your likely to give it to him.

The third reason I'm worried about Cross Server LFG is because of what it could do to the Auction House. Can players trade while in in an instance? If so what is to prevent two people or a multi-boxer transferring good from one server to another. It could reek havoc on AH prices, and provides an advantage for players with multiple accounts.

4.0 Raids and Dungeons:

There isn't a a whole lot to talk about here, but I did find a few things interesting. The first is that there will be 4 raid instances at launch. Blizzard makes it sound like this is an increase over the standard, but I will wait for details before I get to excited. Technically there were 4 raid instances at the start of WotLK with a total of 18 bosses.

The second thing I want to talk about is the fact that they are reusing content from Vanilla WoW again. I have mixed emotions about this. I don't want them to ever recycle content like they did with Naxx again, but if they can update the encounters with new abilities that make it comparable to the modern raid boss then I think it could be awesome.

Bringing back Deadminds and Shadowfang Keep in heroic form is also interesting. I don't know what either instance is for the Horde, but Deadminds is an iconic instance for the Alliance. It is very well designed, has good loot, and is a lot of fun. So, I'm kind of happy that I will be able to run it again. On top of that, I never ran SFK so it's basically new content for me. I like this change.

Rated Battleground:

I'm not much of a PvPer, but I particularly hate Arena. I have a hard time finding a decent group. I suck so we end up losing most of the battles. The other players so over gear me that it's not even worth trying.

Battlegrounds on the other hand are much better for a casual PvPer like myself. Some of them have PvE like aspects that I can excel at. There isn't so much individual responsibility. Basically this is a good way to get a person like me into PvP. I'm sure that some hardcore PvPers will look down on rated BGs, but this will benefit them also. I'm sure some people will make the transition from BGs to Arena because of the gear they received from BGs. This is good for everyone despite what they think.

Guild Advancement System:

At first I was really excited about the guild advancement system. I liked the idea of being able to level a guild, getting special perks, and generally having something to brag about. As someone who has leveled several alts, the Guild Heirlooms sound particularly nice. However, after thinking about it a little bit my excitement has diminished, at least from a raiding perspective.

Don't get me wrong. I still like the idea of getting perks for being in a guild, and I am still looking forward to being able to get more Heirlooms for leveling my toons, but I think my first reaction was over blown. I've seen a lot of comments about how great this is for guild leaders, and how it will help keep guilds together and reduce drama. At first, I thought along these lines as well, but I now realize that it is all smoke and mirrors.

The biggest misconception is that this will result in a penalty for leaving a good guild. That is incorrect. This will result in a penalty if you leave a good guild and don't join a new one. Leveling a guild doesn't sound all that difficult, since the Gxp taken from just the top 20 earners. On top of that, the top raiding guilds on the server don't necessarily play more then the less progressed guilds. I expect there will be a lot of guilds level 20 guilds on every server, and it shouldn't be hard to get into one. Therefore, no one is going to sit there and say, "I'm pissed off, but I'm not going to leave my guild because I don't want to lose the perks," because they can probably get them some where else.

There are two types of guild who I think this change will have a large impact on. The first is Leveling guilds. Most of us were in some small little guild with a couple of people when we went from 1 to 60 or 70 or 80. We didn't do much with the guild but it gave us a way to get a couple of groups, talk in gchat a little bit. Expect a lot of these guilds to merge and for there to be some huge leveling guilds on your server. Now that people will actually have a reason to be in a guild other then for the cool name expect people to stick around to take advantage of guild heirlooms and such.

The second is the PvP guild. I think Arena really hurt this type of guild. It is easy for 2 to 5 people to organize when they are going to play and they don't really need to be in the same guild to do so. Along with the creation of rated BGs, PvPers now have a reason to stay in the same guild.

Talents and Mastery:

One of the bigger shocks of BlizzCon is that they will not be extending the talent trees in the new expansion. The 51 point talent will still be the top of the tree despite getting 5 additional talent points to spend. Normally that would disappoint me because there aren't any great talents that I would use the additional 5 points for. I would probably pick up Nature's Focus and Gale Winds but that isn't huge.

The interesting part is the creation of the Mastery system. Not a lot of details are know, but from what I understand Blizzard will take a lot of the passive benefits off of our talents and include them in the mastery system. That way we pick them up just by investing the points in that tree. According to Blizzard this change is being made to make the talents "more fun." They will be eliminating things like the hit bonus on Balance of Power and the haste bonus on Celestial Focus, and put more emphasis on talents like Eclipse, Owlkin Fury and such. I will hold my judgement until we see the finished product, but it sounds interesting. I wonder if they are going to be able to cram all of our passive buffs in to three mastery buffs and how will they replace all of the passive buffs in our tree. Now that we won't have to pick up things like Moonfury, where are we going to put those talent points in the future?

Archaeology and Path of the Titans:

Again, we don't know a lot of details, but I am a little annoyed with what we've heard so far.

In my view, Secondary professions should be something useful, but not required. Cooking and fishing fit this mold perfectly. I've leveled both to some extent on Graylo, but almost completely ignored them on my alts. First Aid is a little is little different because I do think it is required for a raider, but then again it is incredibly easy to level unless your a tailor and hurting for cloth.

From level 1 to 85 Archaeology seems to fit in with the other secondary professions. It will provide a few cosmetic and utility benefits. You can make a little gold by selling artifacts. It sounds like a nice profession but something you could do without if it didn't' interest you.

My problem is with the Path of the Titans and it sounds like Archaeology is a key part of the Path of Titans. According to Blizzard, Path of the Titans is a way for a max level character to progress their toon outside of gear. They also tout that which path you choose is not tied to your class and thus provides significant more levels of character customization.

Well, I don't buy it.

First of all, if the Path of the Titans is a way for you to advance your toon at max level, it's basically just new content without adding new zones. It's really no different then being able to level to 90 instead of 85 except that the progress is delayed and we have to run around old zones to get it done.

My second issue is that the PotT will end of falling into one of two design paths. The buffs could be so useless that nobody cares about them. In which case Blizzard wasted a whole lot of development time when they could have been doing something more fun like coming up with a new zone, instance or BG. I don't think this is likely, but definitely possible. The second path that the PotT could fall down is that the buffs are so good that they are practically required if you want to participate in endgame raiding or rated PvP. This would in turn make Archaeology a required profession pretty much any toon you wanted to advance, and that falls outside of what I think a secondary profession should be.

I'm not saying that Archaeology or Path of the Titans is a bad idea. I guess I just don't like how it's being presented to the players. They are making it sound like they are giving players new options and greater levels of customization, but they are not. First off, our current talent trees offer thousands of different possibilities for character customization, but most of us still fall into the same standard specs. This is because a couple of the specs are significantly better than almost all of the other specs. The Path of the Titan Glyphs will fall into the same situation. Sure, we may have 10 different options but it is likely that most moonkin will pick the same path or glyph, because it is the best for the way moonkin are played.

What I think is really going on here is that Blizzard is spending a lot of money to update the old zones when most players are already at max level. Some will level new toons but most will be trying to level their mains right away so that they can start raiding and such. Therefore most of us will miss all of the revamped content at least for a couple of months. What the path of the titans will do is force us to go wondering around Azeroth to level up Archaeology to see all of the wonderful redesigned zones. I don't really blame them for this, but I wish the had just come out and said it.

Post BlizzCon Review - Part 1

I don't know about you, but I am a little shell shocked. There is so much to talk about, that I'm going to have to break this post into two parts. The first will focus on the leaks, the changes to Azeroth, and the Class & Professions panel. The second will focus on the game systems panel, the PvP changes, and the Raid/Dungeon's panel.

Leaks and World Changes:

The pre-BlizzCon leaks took most of the sting out of the announcement that Azeroth would be changing quite a bit, but I still think it is worth commenting on.

First of all, I think Blizzard did the leaks on purpose. There are so many changes that I Blizzard wanted to prepare people. It also makes people excited for the expansion, and helps sooth some of the back lash that might come from some of the more significant design changes.

I like the idea of them revamping classic Azeroth. It makes sense from the players perspective and from the designer's perspective. I've now level 4 toons through Azeroth and have started a 5th. Believe me, I am not excited to do it again. For Players, this may make leveling pun again because you get to see new stuff. It gives us a a reason to try a new class, and hopefully makes it easier to level with out having to travel across the world to complete a quest or get to a new leveling zone. For Developers, it should help attract new players. Leveling has to be a big barrier to attracting new players. The content is 5 years old, and the game doesn't really begin until Northrend any more. If I was a new player it wouldn't seem all that attractive to me to go through 70 or 80 levels of out of date content just to get to a place where there are people. Its a win/win.

For Max level toons they are increasing the level cap to 85 and opening 5 new zones for players level 80 and higher. It's nice that they they are going back and reusing some of the inaccessible lands on the map but there is one change here that I like the most. All of the new lands will be accessable through Deepholm, one of the new areas. I was not looking forward to the long flights from Hyjal to Uldum or riding a boat between the contants.

Though I have to say one of my reactions to this change was a little unexpected. I now want to play Horde. I'm not talking about abandoning Graylo or the Alliance in general, but there is a lot of content out there that I haven't seen, and I may not get to see it after the expansion. So, I have an urge now to level a couple of horde toons, but probably not to 80. I mainly want to see the starting areas and check out the primarily horde zones like the Barrens and Thousand Needles. So I will likely level a couple of horde toons to 20 or so to see the starting zones. I've already done a Blood Elf so that is one down. I'll probably also try and level one to 60 or so. It doesn't sound like Outland or Northrend will change much so I probably won't need to take a toon past 60 right away.

Itemization Changes:

It would have been really interesting to be in the room and hear them make all of these changes. I can only imagine what the shock of thousands of people felt like. If you've read the reports then you know that these changes are huge. They are basically eliminating 6 stats by combining them into other stats or talents. Creating a new stat called Mastery. They're are completely revamping out some of the stats are used by some classes. Here are the highlights as I saw them.

• Spell Power - Gone!!! It's now being included in with Intellect.



• Mp5 - Gone. It is being converted to Spirit.



• Spirit - Is a regen stat only useful to healers.



• DPS Mana Regen - Based upon Int now?



• Mastery - According to MMO Champion "Makes you better at what you do."

I was talking to a guildie about these changes and he was pretty unhappy. He thought that it was taking some of the complexity out of our gearing choices and that ultimately all of our choices will be based upon iLevel. I can see where he is coming from but I don't think it is an issue.

What is are we (and caster DPS in general, he is a mage) losing? Spirit is a marginal stat that no one wanted. Mp5 is an even worse stat that people wanted even less. We're not really losing Spell Power, it's just being combined with the marginal stat of Int to make it more relevant. Since we don't balance Int, Spirit, or Mp5 as it is so we aren't loosing any complexity. In fact, we are gaining complexity, because we will have to worry about Mastery.

I only have two worries coming out of this topic. The first is regarding regen. I assume that regen is still going to be important for DPS, I just wonder how we are ment to manage it. My second worry is how this will affect how we gem our gear. Spell Power is the only red gem stat the we currently want. Blue doesn't really have anything we want, and Yellow has a ton of useful stats. If they don't redesign how gems work then we won't have any stats we want from red. Stam will be the only desirable stat from Blue. Yellow will have Int, Crit, Haste, and Hit. Hopefully they will move Int to red, and make Mastery a blue gem stat.

Reforging:

This is a new ability that will work through the professions and allow you to modify the stats on your gear and I the sound of it. If I understand the mechanics correctly, we will be able to reduce one stat on our gear to add a little bit of another stat that is not already on the item. For example, if the item currently has stam, int, crit, and hit on it you could reduce the amount of hit on the item and add some haste to it.

This is awesome. This will make managing our caps a whole lot easier. Just think of all the current items with tons of Hit Rating on them. Those items be come more desirable because you can now convert some of the excess hit into a more desirable stat.

Racials:

Once they first started listing the new racials for Worgen and Goblins I started to get a little jealous.

• Worgen:
  
  • Viciousness - +1% damage
  
  
  • Dark Flight - +70% run speed for 10 seconds. 3 minute cooldown
  
  
  • Abberation - Length of Curses and Diseases reduced by 15%.
  
  
  • Flayer - Skinning skill increased by 15 and allows you to skin faster
  
  
  • Two Forms - Purely cosmetic



• Goblin:
  
  • Best Deals Anywhere - Always receive the best possible gold discount, regardless of faction.
  
  
  • Pack Hobgoblin - Calls your personal servant allowing you bank access for 1 min. 30 minute cooldown.
  
  
  • Better Living Through Chemistry - Increases Alchemy skill by 15
  
  
  • Rocket Barrage - Launches your belt rockets at an enemy, dealing scaling fire damage. 2 minute cooldown.
  
  
  • Rocket Jump -Activates your rocket belt to jump forward. 2 minute cooldown.
  
  
  • Time is Money - Cash in on a 1% increase to attack and casting speed.

Those are some awesome racials. With paid race changes becoming available at some point, there would be no reason for me to remain Night Elf when I could get access to those awesome Worgen racials, though I would rather have the Goblin racials.

The good news is that they plan on revamping the old racials as well. Hopefully they are along these same lines and just as awesome. Otherwise your going to be sing a ton of Worgen and Goblins running around. There would be no reason ont to switch.

Other Changes:

Professions - The big change here is the addition of level stat gains when you craft Rare or Epic items. For example, if you craft a green item it will only give you 1 skill point but crafting a Blue item may give you 2 or 3 skill points. This should make leveling professions easier and less costly. They also said that they are looking to make Gathering Professions and Fishing more fun.

No Spell Ranks - In the future you will only train a spell once and its damage and mana cost will scale with your level. Not earth shattering but nice. We won't have to run all the way back to a trainer when we level up anymore unless we get access to a new key ability. It's not really surprising given how they changed the way mana costs are determined.

Hunters - They will no longer use Mana and will now use a new resource called Focus. It will behave very similarly to Energy. Not a big impact on me since I don't play a hunter, but thought it was big enough that I should mention.

Warlock - The shard system is getting completely revamped. As a part time lock the changes look good to me, but I will leave it up to the real warlocks to really evaluate these changes. Basically, you will only have 3 shards and they will work like the DK rune system. Shards will only be used in combat to enhance spells.

Why Cartel's Don't Work in WoW.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned how I am trying to make more money off of the AH. I've had modest success but I'm not going to reach the gold cap anytime soon. I am in several markets but this post will focus on my activities in the Netherweave Bag market. It's a great market because the bags are in high demand and the cost of raw materials is relatively low. I don't make a ton of money from it but it is a decent little chunk.

So, the other day I was at the AH making some bags to put up for auction when I get a tell. I don't have the exact quotes but the conversation went like this:

[Cartel]: I noticed your making some bags. People are willing to pay 10g per bag. Please don't post below that.

[Me]: Thanks, but no thanks.

[Cartel]: Grumble, grumble grumble. You're an idiot. You're losing money. We have over 1,000 bags and we are going to undercut you so that you don't sell any bags and lose your deposit.

Funny thing is, every single one of my bags sold. I did not lose a single deposit. I made money on every sale, and I don't have a single piece of inventory. Being a part of a cartel may sound good to the inexperienced reader, but let me assure you, almost all WoW cartel's are a bad idea.

What is a Cartel?

According to Wikipedia:

Cartel - a formal (explicit) agreement among firms. It is a formal organization of producers that agree to coordinate prices and production.

For a cartel to work, you need to control one of two things.

1. Delivery Channel: If you control how a good is obtained and used then you can dictate terms to both suppliers and consumers. I think MicroSoft is a good example of Delivery Channel control. Windows is by far the most used computer operating system in the world. MicroSoft has taken advantage of this by forcing Internet Explorer and other programs to be installed along with Windows.
   
   
2. Supply Chain: If you control the raw materials needed to produce a good then you control the good. OPEC is a great example of Supply Chain control. Its member nations control a significant portion of the world's oil production capacity and can increase prices by cutting production.

Why it Doesn't Work in WoW.

1. Delivery Channel: There are only 2 delivery channel's in WoW: The AH and the chat channels. Obviously players have no control over either. A player could make a lot of money if it was possible to exclude all other producers from posting on the AH, but that's just not going to happen. The delivery channels are completely controlled by Blizzard. So, if you want to maintain a cartel you have to control the supply.
   
   
2. Supply Chain: There are exceptions but it is virtually impossible to control supply in WoW. Especially for a product like Netherweave Bags. To craft the bags you need 3 things.
   
   
   • The pattern: It's available to every Tailor form the profession trainer. So you can't limit the supply by limiting the number of people that can craft the item.
   
   
   • Netherweave Cloth: It is dropped by 200 different types of mobs in Outland. Therefore you cannot prevent other people from farming it, or picking it up in normal play.
   
   
   • Rune Thread: Available from 182 vendors in the game in an unlimited supply. So you can't prevent people from buying it.

If you do manage to get the main producers of bags to agree on a common price, two things will happen.

First, new producers will enter the market. When people see that they can sell bags for 10g and the mats cost only 5g, they can quickly turn those mats in to bags and have hem on the AH for close to a 100% profit. This will drive the price down.

Second, cartel members are encouraged to cheat. All of their main competitors are holding the line at 10g. All you have to do is create a new alt. Transfer a bunch of bags over and sell them at 9.50g. Why sell 50% of your bags at 10g when you can sell 100% of them at 9.5g. You will make a lot more money that way.

Due to these two reasons the cartel will ultimately break down.

Where Cartels Can Work in WoW.

There are two times when cartels can work in WoW.

1. The first is when there is a limited number of crafters within the market. This can only happen when it is difficult to obtain a pattern, which happens fairly often in WoW. If you get a pattern first you can dominate a market until the rest of the community catches up. This happens most often when new content is released that drops a new rare pattern, or when a pattern is a random discovery.
   
   
2. The second is when the raw materials are not farmable by a majority of the player base. I haven't seen this occur in WotLK, but it happened in TBC with the Epic Gems. For nine months in TBC, the only way to get epic gems was to run Black Temple or Mount Hyjal. To run those instances you had to complete a very complected attunement process that including killing two of the most difficult bosses in the game. This gave the top guilds a gold mine where they could sell gems to PvEers who could not complete the attunement process and PvPers who had no interest in completing the attunement process and raiding.

If you do spot an opportunity like two I've mentioned above, capitalize on it, but don't go overboard. They can vanish in a flash. With the first example, as time goes on more and more people will pick up the pattern and increase your competition. With the second example, you never know when Blizzard is going to yank the rug out from under you by making the gems purchasable with badges or honor. You don't want to get stuck with a huge inventory and a diminished market.

Faction Champions: A Moonkin's View

I've said this before, my guild doesn't raid 25mans on Tuesdays. We did have a 10man group that when and did Faction Champions on Tuesday, but I was not a part of that group. So, after reading some of the comments from guildies and seeing the massive amount QQ on the official forums I thought this might be a fun challenge for a change. The first two bosses we 1 shotted on our very first attempts and even picked up some achievements.

I guess you could say Faction Champions was harder. Exactly twice as hard if you use our experience. We two shotted it instead of just one. I don't say this to stroke my epeen or to say "look how awesome I am." My point is that with the right approach this fight isn't that hard. Here are my observations.

It's NOT a PvP fight:

Most of the QQers seemed to misunderstand what this fight is about. They make comments like "if I wanted to PvP I would go to arena" and "not all of my guild has PvP specs."

I've got news for these posters. There may be similarities like the Diminishing returns on CC, but this is NOT a PvP fight. Here are the differences:

• In PvP the two sides have even numbers of 5v5 or 15v15. In Faction Champions25 its 25vs10. Three of them are going to be healers so you only have 7 running around DPSing people maybe a little bit more if you include pets.



• Players do not control the mobs. The mobs may not behave the same way that traditional bosses do, but they don't behave like players either. Players would focus target and kill as single member of the opposition first. These mobs don't focus much if at all. I never had more then one mob on me, and if I could get away from him long enough he would switch targets .

Moonkin Tips:

This fight is all about Individual Responsibility and Surviving. Everything that these mobs do can be countered, so as long as your raid is prepared you shouldn't have a problem getting around any of the issues that they present. Here are my tips:

• Dispels: If you see your Decursive or what ever mod you use light up like a Christmas tree then start dispelling. Most of your dispellers are healers, and they are pretty busy preventing people from dying. So as a moonkin you can dispel curses and poisons to prevent a lot of incoming damage. You obviously sacrifice some of your own damage to do so, but it is more then a fair trade.



• Crowd Control: If your like me you haven't touched your Nature's Grasp or Cyclone spells in a very long time. The only time I use Entangling Roots or Hibernate is on specific mobs and I have macros for those situations. So it may seem a little strange for these spells to be come so important. Moonkin don't have a lot of escape spells like Blink or Iceblock so the key to our survival is CC. These are the spells we have available.
  
  
  • Nature's Grasp - This is probably the best CC we have for this fight. It's purely reactionary and you don't have to target a mob to get it off. Try to keep this buff up as much as possible.
  
  
  
  • Entangling Roots - This is only good on melee targets, but it is a very short cast that you can get off quickly if your Nature's Grasp is down.
  
  
  
  • Cyclone - It only CCs the mob for 6 seconds, but that is a lot of time to run away if you need to. It also works well on Casters to interrupt casts if your being focused on by a Caster DPS mob.
  
  
  
  • Hibernate - This spell wasn't that useful. We did have the hunter up with a pet, but my CC was broken pretty quickly. Since there is only one mob that you can CC with it and it wasn't affective, I wouldn't worry about having Hibernate on your bar.
  
  
  
  • Typhoon - I don't have the spell and I wouldn't pick it up just for this fight. To be honest I don't know how I feel about Typoon for this fight. The knock back is a double edge sword. It can save people's lives, but it can also slow DPS on the target. You may want to talk to your raid leaders before you use it to much.

(Side Note: Try to have a little space between you and your fellow raid members. This will make it easier for you to target a mob that is beating on you.)


• Heal Yourself: This is a very chaotic fight. Don't assume that the healers have you covered especially in the beginning. I have all of my healing spells macroed to target me and cast a heal. It's very easy to pop a couple of Lifeblooms on myself while I'm running away from a mob I just CCed.
  
  Of course, it also goes without saying that you should use Barkskin, Healthstones, and healing pots if you can.

Summary:

I know how easy it is to get lost in DPSing a target, but this is one of those fights where it is paramount to pay attention to your surroundings. Make sure all your CCs are close at hand and don't be afraid to use them, but be sure not to spam them either. As long as your raid does what it can to survive, focuses on a single target, and does what it can to take the healers out of the fight, you should complete this encounter without much difficulty.