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The Moon has aligned with Mars, and the cosmic energies have infused this week’s Blood Pact with diabolical tidbits of Warlock-related content that will sear the souls of mortal men! This week, Blood Pact invites you to sit in on an actual gaming session…

Nick W.: I’d like to roll a Craft(Writing) check to make a column.
Game Master: Alright, make your check.
*Click clatter of rolled dice…*
Nick W.: I rolled a four…
Game Master: You create an episode of Blood Pact.
Nick W.: Damn!

Though it may have been watered down by the “bring the player, not the class” mantra, Warlocks are a utility class at heart. We can rock the DPS as hard as anybody else, but our real value comes in our summons, our debuffs, and our Soul Stones. That’s what I’d like to talk about this week.

Proper Soul Stoning is an important topic. One which I’ve never seen covered to my satisfaction. The general one line of advice everybody gives to new Warlocks is “make sure the healer has a Soul Stone.” But that’s about as helpful as “cast spells at things to make them die.” Sometimes it’s not true, and even when it is true, the fact of the matter is a great deal more complicated than the single sentence of instruction can convey.

So what is proper Soul Stoning procedure? Soul Shards are easy enough to come by these days that there really isn’t any excuse for not being prepared to Soul Stone whenever it’s appropriate, but when is that? And when it is appropriate, who is the best candidate for having the stone cast on them? The latter question is far too often ignored, particularly in raid situations where there’s more than one healer to choose from.

When To Use a Soul Stone

The answers to the first question, when to use a Soul Stone, are often considered self-evident. But like so many things that are so considered, everybody seems to think that the evidence points in different directions. Some Warlocks like to remain Soul Stoned constantly while leveling, others, only when they’re attempting something difficult such as soloing an elite. Personally, I’ve always felt the former case to be a bit excessive, but when a Warlock is alone, what they do with their Soul Stone cooldown is between them and their shard bag.

Disagreements on Soul Stone etiquette primarily crop up when dealing with others. My personal policy is to always try to keep a Soul Stone active if I’m in a raid or instance which is roughly my level. It may seem silly to Soul Stone the healer in normal Halls of Lightning when you’re in Ulduar gear–and I’ll admit that I’m hardly the most devout observer of my own policy. But when the group wipes because the tank couldn’t mitigate damage, or the healer couldn’t heal properly, then the Warlock who didn’t cast their Soul Stone is an easy target for scapegoating. I find it’s best to just save myself the aggravation and make sure there’s somebody Soul Stoned at all times in a larger group like that.

Even in situations where a Soul Stone would be useless for post-wipe recovery, it’s good to keep a Soul Stone active on somebody in the group. Remember that Soul Stones can revive people in the middle of combat with a very respectable amount of health and mana, so if the healer goes down in the middle of a fight, they can pop back up and maybe prevent the group from wiping. And of course: you get to claim credit for everything a healer does after they use your Soul Stone.

In smaller groups of less than five people, such as groups of adventuring buddies, or groups hoping to kill an elite together, Soul Stones are not usually expected of a Warlock. All the same, it certainly never hurts to fortify your group against failure if it appears there may be difficult challenges ahead. It can be particularly helpful when running a low level character through an instance. Nothing’s more frustrating than watching your friend’s alt get slaughtered by some level 30 elite you didn’t see, and be forced to wait while they make the long run back. Judicious application of Soul Stone can save you a lot of time.

Who to Soul Stone

Who to Soul Stone is a more difficult question, I think. As a very generalized rule, “Soul Stone the healer” does apply, but if we want to be a truly effective Warlocks, then we must to examine why we Soul Stone the healer. Most Raid Leaders don’t give instructions on who specifically should be Soul Stoned, so it’s up to Warlocks, as individuals, to select the target of our infernal blessing intelligently. It’s rather cool, actually. Raid leaders tell Shamans when to use Bloodlust, they tell Paladins which buffs to use, but Warlocks get to apply our most coveted buff at our own discretion.

The reason we Soul Stone the healer is twofold. First, healers are some of the most essential members of any group, and allowing them to return to life after being killed (with an empty aggro table no less) can turn the tide of an encounter and lead to a victory. Secondly, healers are Soul Stoned so that, in the unfortunate event of a wipe, they can pop right back up and resurrect everybody. Saving people the annoyance of running all the way from the graveyard. But those are just two reasons to Soul Stone a healer. What if, due to circumstance, one or both of these reasons is invalidated? What if additional, better reasons exist in another situation? And even when these two reasons are sustained, raids usually have more than one healer. Should selection simply be random chance?

As with most things, it’s always best if you know your group. If you know the people in your group, then you know what you can expect of them, which allows you to predict–somewhat–how your 30 minute cooldown will be spent. As an example, there’s always that one player who goes and gets themselves killed every other pull. If, in your group, that player is a healer, then you probably don’t want to Soul Stone them, since Soul Stones don’t last through death. You’ll cast your Soul Stone, they’ll die 6 minutes later, the Ret Pally will rez them, and poof! You’ve got 24 minutes before you can Soul Stone again. It would have been better to cast your Soul Stone on the Ret Pally, even though he’s just a DPSer. Because then, when your group wipes 10 minutes after your healer died, they wouldn’t need to make a lengthy and disheartening corpse run.

In fact, I’ve found that Paladins are, as a general rule, the best people to cast Soul Stones on. In terms of healer survivability, Paladins are second to none. Regardless of whether they’re healing, DPSing, or even tanking. So if there’s one of them in my group, I’ll usually default my Soul Stone to them. Lacking a Paladin, a Druid or a Shaman would be my second favorite. And I never Soul Stone a Priest if I can avoid it. Sorry guys, but you’re so damn squishy.

Soul Stones On The Tank

Contrary to conventional wisdom, I typically use my Soul Stone on the tank, so long as they have the ability to rez. Both tanks and healers are essential to any group, and either loss means that there’s about to be a wipe. Or, just maybe, something’s about to happen that’s worth writing in guildchat about. And it isn’t hard to recognize that tanks are able to foster such epic tales a little more often than healers are–a comment which will doubtless lead to me never getting another heal again.

In my experience, healers usually only die when the tank is already dead. Of course there are numerous exceptions, but as a general rule it holds true. Which means that if you Soul Stone the healer, then usually that Soul Stone is only going to benefit the group after at least two deaths have occurred. And I’ve rarely seen a healer pop back up and heal a group of DPS through the remainder of a fight. On the hand, if the Soul Stone is on the tank, then in the general situation described above, it becomes available after the very first death in the party. The tank can pop right back up and, maybe, regain aggro before too much damage is caused.

Even if a few members of the party have been laid low in the time it took the tank to use his Soul Stone and regain aggro, it has been my experience that tanks are far more capable than healers of pulling a group through a rough situation without the aid of the other. Which might have something to do with the fact that it’s much easier to heal as a DPS spec than it is to tank as a DPS spec, so solo-tanks end up getting a little more help from the party than solo-healers do.

This is by no means a comprehensive guide to how to use Soul Stones in every situation a Warlock will find themselves in. Nor is it even really a guide at all. This is a discussion. We don’t think about Soul Stones very much, but they’re a vital part of being a contributing Warlock. It’s important that we, as a class community, consider the best ways to use these tools to the advantage of ourselves and our fellows. These are some of my ideas…what are yours?

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Hell yeah! MMO Champion has done its usual data-mining magic and managed to unearth most of the latest Arena gear and whoa, does it look amazing. Boubouille notes that many of the sets are incomplete and that some Photoshop work was done for display purposes, but I think we get the general idea. Season 7 items are the latest iteration of evolutionary design, which builds visually upon older sets. This design evolution was hinted at in vanilla World of Warcraft, where the old Warlord / Field Marshal PvP sets were minor visual upgrades from the Champion / Lieutenant Commander sets. The Season 7 item sets should probably called Badass Gladiator because, well, personally I think they’re just… badass.

While Blizzard promised the return of faction-specific sets in Patch 3.2, these will apply to PvE Tier 9, and from the looks of it won’t be as phenomenal as it sounds considering classes sharing the same armor type will look nearly identical to one another. On the other hand, Season 7 gear, which also seems to introduce new weapon models, keep on improving without having to resort to dragon nipples or orbiting Thralls. It seems that Zarhym’s promise of the Arena sets improving as the seasons continue is a solid one.

Personally, I think the newly uncovered Arena sets are the best Arena PvP armor sets to date. The first four seasons were merely recolored versions of PvE tier gear, with Season 5 introducing new but somewhat underwhelming designs. This time around, the PvP sets look truly epic, not merely recoloring previous seasons’ gear but adding new polygonal components, as well. Many sets also have newly-afixed gems and glows and are more ornately decorated. While some crankypants might criticize Blizzard’s art team for being lazy with this design philosophy, I have to confess that it hasn’t just grown on me, it’s officially won me over. This is how I would like the next expansion’s Arena sets to progress. It works. It’s awesome.

The only problem with this design philosophy is that the base set, or first iteration, has to be passably good to begin with. But I believe I’ve learned to trust Blizzard’s design team now with how they’ve managed to make visual leaps from one set to another by means of adding entirely new shapes into the relevant (and notably possessing the highest Arena ratings requirement) pieces, the head and shoulders. The Warlock set, for example, added sickle-like blades to the shoulders in Season 6. In Season 7, these blades were made even nastier with spikes and a nether-green glow. The head piece moved from a plain hood in Season 5 to a ninja-like cover in Season 6 and now to a more sinister cowl with subtle shadows over the eyes. The colors have also shifted to a more appropriate purple.

Perhaps the true winner in this game of Azerothian Pokémon would be Shamans, who were stuck with shoulders that looked like turtles in Season 5. Green, purple, red… it didn’t matter. It seemed as though no amount of re-texturing would save the awful set, but the Season 7 shoulders and helm look more than acceptable. I finally understand that the Season 5 texture was meant to emulate parched earth, not reptile skin — as the Shaman set evolves from rock to crystal, it’s almost poetic. It looks terrible on the human model MMO Champion uses by default, but I’m certain they’ll look pretty badass on the proper races. Because come on, you just can’t argue with this winning formula: if all else fails, add spikes.

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Patch 3.2 has been announced, and shamans saw some changes. That’s the short version.

Well, we’ve had the big patch notes bomb dropped on us, and they weren’t kidding about changing restoration around, were they? Of course, if you’re an orc shaman, you also got expertise with fist weapons added on to your racial, which is pretty neat all told. We also finally saw the debut of the new totem interface, which I can’t say enough good things about. The ability not only to drop up to four totems in one GCD but to have up to three customizable sets of four totems for different uses (I plan on making a set just for when there’s no DK’s around and I can finally use Strength of Earth totem instead of freaking Stoneskin) just made the clouds part and a host of glorious angels descend upon me. Turns out they wanted some money, but still, for a moment it was pretty keen.

Before we get rolling, though, I want to remind people: I want your horde screenshots! Otherwise this column is just going to be goat-men from the Twisting Nether, and I know you don’t want that. I personally don’t care, but you guys get so upset, and while that orc racial does make leveling my orc shaman appealing, I don’t really think I have the time.

I should probably also mention that rogues got axes in an attempt to give the design team more freedom to actually put some axes into the content. (Yay for one 1h DPS axe in all of Naxxramas, EoE, the Obsidian Sanctum and Ulduar!) I can only look forward to the host of axes in Argent Coliseum that are too fast for shamans to use effectively. On the up side, goodbye, totem stomper macros! We hate you!

First off, let’s look at those patch notes for shamans. We’ll break them down and comment on each change as we go along, to save time and allow me to use the plural personal reference for no good reason at all.

• A customizable totem bar will now be available for shaman allowing the storing of 4 different totems. These totems can be placed on the ground at once in one global cooldown for the combined mana cost of all 4 totems.

I’ve already commented on how awesome this is, and in fact I would think so just for the ability to drop four totems in one GCD. Since that ability alone would have been like Christmas on Caffeine Mountain for me. Since we also know that we’ll have three ’sets’ of totems with the Call of Fire, Call of Air and Call of Water abilities I keep having to touch my face in concern at this strange curved shape my mouth keeps setting into. My wife tells me it’s called a ’smile.’

• All Shocks now have a default range of 25 yards, up from 20 yards.

A solid, unremarkable but welcome change. More range is good.

• Base health increased by approximately 7% to correct for shamans having lower health than other classes.

We’ve been talking about this around here for a while now so really, all I can say is good, I hope it balances shamans against other classes in the ridiculous AoE damage whirlwind that is Ulduar, especially on hard modes. I have grumping about how ‘hard mode’ really means ‘harder on the healer’ to do, but that can wait.

• Chain Heal: Jump distance increased to 10 yards. In addition, the amount of healing now decreases by 40% as it jumps to each new target, instead of 50%.

Speaking as a guy who had to spec back and forth between enhancement and restoration last night for a 10 man that felt like it was never ever going to end, good. Myself and a paladin trying to heal Ulduar alone? Yeah, uhm, anything that helps give shamans back some of that AoE healing niche you keep telling us we have is a good thing. I’m still not going to just mindlessly spam CH anymore with this change, but it will be nice to throw a chain heal into the melee with less fear that they’re all so spread out to avoid the charged pillars in Thorim’s arena that it won’t hit anyone.

• Ghost Wolf: Can now be learned at level 16. While in this form, snaring effects may not bring the shaman below base normal run speed.

The change to when you can learn it is obviously due to the mount changes. I’m actually mildly impressed with the change that gives Ghost Wolf a bit of utility for getting out of permasnare in PvP. Spamstring, though hath lost thy sting. (Since my other toon is a warrior I suppose I should be unhappy, but I have my shaman hat on now so we’ll ignore him.) Will it work on Chains of Ice? If it works on Chains of Ice I may have to kiss someone. (Note: Yes, it’s going to be you. And I’m going to use tongue. Lots and lots of thick, muscular tongue. Hope you like beards.)

Disclaimer: if you are not my wife, I’m not allowed to kiss you. Unless you’re an distaff relative. So if any of my aunts are reading this, get ready for some tongue I guess.

• Talents
  • Enhancement
    • Shamanistic Rage: Cooldown is now 1 minute, down from 2 minutes. Successful melee attacks now have a chance to generate mana equal to 15% of the shaman’s attack power, down from 30%.

I guess I’ll be using Shamanistic Rage more often. Not a really big deal, I don’t think, one way or another. The ability will grant less mana when you use it but you’ll use it every minute so it will average out and you won’t have to wait the extra minute if you’re feeling low on mana. Not entirely a non-change but not terribly significant, either.

And now we get to the big list of changes, namely restoration. Hold on to your hats, they’ve done a lot of work on this tree, it seems.

• • Restoration
    • Ancestral Healing: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical damage taken by the target by 3/7/10% instead of increasing the target’s armor.

This change means that rather than trying to figure out how much of a benefit that increased armor actually is, you’ll just straight up reduce the incoming physical damage. I would have greatly prefered a flat 10% damage reduction fully talented (so as to allow this talent to also help with massive bursts of magical damage like those we see in most hard modes) but it’s a minor positive change. It will keep the talent viable when applied to tanks with extremely high armor values.

• • Cure Poison and Cure Disease: Combined into a single spell, Cure Toxins.

All you’re going to get out of me here is a ‘yay, about time.’

• • Earth Shield: Dispel effects will now remove charges of Earth Shield rather than the entire aura.

A nice small change for PvP, not really earthshatteringly significant but better than having a whole stack of Improved Earth Shield wiped out in one mass dispel.

• • Healing Way: Redesigned. Rather than providing a chance of increasing Healing Wave spells on a friendly target, this talent now innately increases the effectiveness of the shaman’s Healing Wave by 8/16/25%.

It’s less gimmicky: you don’t have to cast a heal to get Healing Way to place itself on your healing target to get the increased effectiveness and it’s straightforwardly more benefit to your Healing Wave. Instead of having to cast one HW to get 18% more benefit from your next HW, you just straight up have 25% better Healing Waves. While the purist in me will miss the old Healing Way, this is just a better talent all told. You’re still mostly going to use Healing Wave as a clutch spell or in combination with Nature’s Swiftness when the tank is dropping fast, but when you do, it’ll heal for more. Simpler is sometimes better, and I think that’s the case here.

• • Mana Tide Totem: Totem health now equal to 10% of the shaman’s health.

I approve of anything that makes it harder to kill a totem that costs this many talent points to get.

• • Nature’s Guardian: Redesigned. Now has a fixed 100% proc rate, has a 30-second internal cooldown and increases the shaman’s maximum health by 3/6/9/12/15% for 10 seconds.

Okay, it’s better, and I might actually take it for PvP now. I still don’t think I have enough talent points in my PvE resto build for five points for this talent though.

• • Nature’s Swiftness: Cooldown is now 2 minutes, down from 3 minutes.

This synchs up with the change to Healing Way to make HW a more often used spell by resto shamans, since you’ll be able to throw a big instant HW out every two minutes. It’s surprising how much difference shaving a minute off of a cooldown can make in how often you will use it, so I rate this as a very nice (surprisingly nice, even) change to the talent.

• • Tidal Waves: No longer reduces the cast time of Lesser Healing Wave by 30%. It instead now provides +25% critical strike chance to Lesser Healing Wave, along with the previous 30% cast time benefit to Healing Wave.

Well, to be frank I’m really going to miss the cast time reduction on LHW. With proper use of Riptide I was able to throw a couple of really fast LHW’s when healing on a tank. On the other hand, more crit on LHW (which is still our fastest cast heal) will allow for more Ancestral Awakening procs and more of the new Ancestral Healing benefit. We’ll see how this one shakes out in actual use before I whine too much.

• • Improved Water Shield: This talent now has a 10/20/30% chance to be triggered by Chain Heal, and the charges of Water Shield are no longer consumed by this talent.

I’m happy that it finally includes CH, and I’m very happy that it no longer consumes the orbs, because I disliked having to use the GCD to do it while in a heated healing situation. An overall positive change.

Overall this is a pretty solid patch for shamans. Some of the changes (axes for rogues, for instance) are intended as an indirect benefit to us, while the restoration overhaul is pretty solid and seems aimed both at giving us some group healing bite back and making us stronger single target healers. And man, I cannot exaggerate how happy I am about the totem changes. What the heck, I’ll threaten to kiss people over those, too.

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First and foremost, this will be the next tier of raiding. There wow powas some speculation that this would be an interim tier of raiding, however that is not the case. The gear that will come out of the Crusaders’ Coliseum appears to be Tier 9.

Secondly, the encounters will be unlocked one per week until all five encounters are available. This mirrors very closely the way the Sunwell Plateau was handled back in Patch 2.4.

Finally, there will be a new “Crusaders’ Tribute” mechanic. The mechanic appears to track the number of times you attempt an encounter, and the fewer times it takes you to complete the encounter, the greater the loot will be for the final boss. A type of raid where you are going for the Tribute rewards will be called a “Tribute Run.”

For further information about the upcoming patch check out WoW.com’s Guide to Patch 3.2.

The full details of the announcement after the break.

This is the official announcement:

In the next major content patch, the construction of the Crusaders’ Coliseum on the Argent Tournament grounds will be complete, and it will hold new challenges for players. We’d like to share some details on the new dungeon, which represents the next tier of content for the game, but keep in mind that this is still in development and subject to change. The Crusaders’ Coliseum will include:

• New epic 10- and 25-player raid dungeon with five encounters, with each encounter being unlocked one week at a time
• A more intuitive structure for harder encounters. This raid dungeon will have four different versions: 10-player, 25-player, 10-player Heroic, and 25-player Heroic, with each one using a separate lockout.
• Introduction of the Crusaders’ Tribute! Each of the Heroic mode instances has a new tribute system that will limit players on the number of attempts they get in the Coliseum each week to present a greater challenge for the most battle-hardened heroes. Additional rewards can be earned depending on the number of attempts left in the tribute run each week when the final boss is defeated.
• New 5-player dungeon with three encounters that will include Champion’s Seals as each one is defeated
• New tier of armor and weapons that are modeled with Alliance- or Horde-specific themes

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15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you’d like wow poto hear more about.

If you think “the furry fandom” sounds like a bunch of players who like playing Tauren, you’d be right — to a tip-of-the-iceberg degree. This week’s 15 Minutes of Fame looks at a often maligned, frequently mocked yet little understood hobby and lifestyle: the furry fandom, or furries. Furries (or “furs”) are fans of fictional, anthropomorphic animal characters with human personalities and characteristics. Together, these furries form the furry fandom, a community of artists, writers, roleplayers and general fans of the furry art forms who gather on the internet and at conventions. Yes, these are cosplayers in fur suits – but there’s a lot more to it, as this week’s profile will show.

Now, before we proceed: Yes, there’s a segment of the furry community that’s into erotic art. While the media have had the proverbial field day with this furry fodder, the sex-focused furs are by no means an especially representative segment of furry fandom. Even if they were, this profile is not headed there. Instead, let’s head back to the WoW.com context of the furry fandom: a World of Warcraft player (and frequent WoW.com commenter) who expresses himself emotionally and spiritually through his furry persona.

EDIT: As always, hateful, insulting and trollish posts will get deleted. You don’t have to agree, but you can disagree without resorting to personal attacks. Multiple offenders will be banned, k thx ~ The Management

Main character AishaLove
Server Gilneas

15 Minutes of Fame: Ok, AishaLove, let’s take this from the top for readers who are totally new to the idea of the furry fandom. What exactly is a furry?

AishaLove: Our community is mostly those who believe they have animal spirit, or are truly an animal on the inside. Some just like the art, some just like the friendly people. Some are part of the fandom because they like the freedom we seem to enjoy expressing ourselves. People that are otherwise human but still enjoy the fandom, we often call “furry friends.”

Some of us like to dress up in a fur suit and become our fursonas in a sense. This is a minority in our fandom, and it’s a harmless thing. I even know of people who go fursuiting to children’s hospitals and other places, to bring some joy to others.

We have a huge art scene. A lot of it is erotic or adult, but certainly not all (though erotic art should never be seen as bad :P).

As for the furry community in WoW, I’m not well versed on it. I know that there are guilds in WoW that are all furs. I know they like to do thing like roleplay as their characters or “fursonas.” You can often spot furs by their names — names like “SlyFox,” “KeriKitten” or “TomRabbit” can often be a fur. My ex-wife had a guild she called “Feline Mayhem.” I’m sure after this article is posted, you’ll find a lot of furry people coming out of the woodwork.

I’d like to note, I’m not an expert about the furry fandom. I’m simply a regular guy who happens to be furry. My views are coming from a personal perspective, not that of the entire fandom.

Obviously, there’s a whole spectrum of beliefs and interests along the furry spectrum. Can you give us a quick guided tour?

From my experience, there are lifestylers (people who live a lifestyle as a fur). These people can have fun and interesting personality traits, like sounds they make like their respective animal fursona, or they might act a bit like an animal. They may even live as their fursona. These people often dabble in all or just a few other aspects of furdom.

We have artists, people who like drawing furry art work, and lots of writers in our fandom, too, from poetry to novels some of us can produce some awesome literary works.

We have furry friends. These are people that are otherwise human but enjoy the fun atmosphere the fandom often gives off. These people often like the art scene, as well.

We have the spiritual types, those who believe they are their animal spirit or fursona on a spiritual level. Some believe they will become their fursona when they die. Others believe they have an animal spirit watching over them. Others have different beliefs, as well — the range of spiritual beliefs in the fandom is endless.

We have people who live to go to conventions and other furry events. The furry community has cons all over the United States and abroad, and some are attended by millions of furs! Our biggest con, I’d have to say, is Anthro Con or AC. Cons are great places to see furs and furry friends alike have a great time, doing all sorts of things together.

Our community is just chock full of gamers, it seems as well. In any popular game, you will often see furry servers, clans or guilds. Some games I’m aware of that have huge furry followings are Team Fortress 2, WoW, Left 4 Dead and Super Smash Brothers Brawl, just to name a few. We seem to love our consoles, too — everything from the NES to the Wii and PS3.

Tell us about how being a furry is connected with your persona inside the World of Warcraft.

Well for one thing, my favorite race is the Tauren. Being the only furry race to choose from, it’s a given. I feel ashamed I don’t give no Tauren love, though, as I got tied into an Alliance guild. I still love them, though!

I always play females. I identify with my female side so much more closely than my male side. I became comfortable with my gender identity through support from the furry community.

I can’t say I’m lucky enough to have been able to interact with many furs in game. That is to say, many people I knew were furs. You see, we often seem like normal, everyday people until we choose to say, “Oh BTW, I’m a fur.” But I do tend to let my furriness leak out. I’ll often use my catch-phrase, “Myar!” Best way to describe it is kinda like how a cat goes “meow” or a dog goes “ruff” — I go “Myar!”

What does being a fur means to you, personally?

To me personally? Being a fur is spiritual. It means I know who and what I am on a deep spiritual level. I am a DracoGryph (dragon/gryphon hybrid). I am spiritually of both genders (a blend of the two – androgynous, if you will), and to me, my soul is that of my fursona. To me, shi is me, I am hir (”shi” and “hir” are androgynous words we use to refer to gender, those of both genders). I may be male on the outside, but on the inside, being a fur allows me to see what I truly am and be content with that. It means that no matter what happens, I have my spirit watching over me.

When I describe my fursona and my spiritual beliefs, I’m dead serious when I say to me, I have a spirit watching over me. Shi is like my oversoul; this is my spiritual beliefs. I just don’t call it a “religion” because my beliefs are 100% unique to me, and no one shares them quite the same way I do, though many share belief systems similar or that share a lot in common to mine. My beliefs could be summarized as a bit of a mix of Wiccan, native American and my own “fill-in-the-blanks” from years of trying to figure myself out. It’s taken me 23 years to come to know myself as I come to see it now,and my beliefs will always keep changing and evolving as I do.

My journey into the fandom started when I was young, about 16. I was struggling with my sexuality, did not know if I was gay, straight or even that there was a third option (bi). Had no real spirituality; a baby sitter of ours used to take us to a Christian church, and that stuck, but mostly because I just did not want to go to hell.

When I discovered the fandom, I was introduced to so many new ways to view the world: the concept of accepting, even being joyful of who you are, no matter what anyone else thought, and the concept that it’s ok to be different than what our culture deems acceptable. It was not easy coming to grips with being bi. I spent a long period even questioning my gender identity.

For me it’s not about roleplay or fantasy. When I say I’m a blue herm DracoGryph in my heart, I feel great pride. The fandom is full of great roleplayers, though, and many of them have thier own beliefs, though some just like to role play. I’m not a roleplayer, though.

I have to stress, though, I live in the real world. I have no delusions that IRL, physically, I’m what I say I am on the inside, and I have no issues with my physical appearance differing from my spirit. It’s just how life is, and that’s fine with me.

I have many friends who have similar beliefs. Some are even part of mainstream religions like Christianity or Judaism. I know a good number of Wiccans, too.

I belong to a group of truly understanding, fun, open-minded individuals that just want to accept you for who you are, not to judge. It means I have the ability to help others through my understanding and openness and my ability to understand others from the point of view of someone who has struggled to find these things out for himself.

That sounds like a side of the furdom probably not many people are aware of. What about the lighter side?

The fandom is not all spirituality and roleplay. We are normal people, too, and we like to do everything the average person does. I guess we just let our inner child out more often then not and tend to enjoy many things in a furry way. Like movies — we love furry movies like Bolt, The Lion King, Over the Hedge, etc., and we are huge fans of games with anthropomorphic characters, like Starfox and Animal Crossing. We enjoy comics, too, and god, you should see some of the comics the fandom can produce.

I suppose a lot of furs love roleplay so much because it’s like a chance to be our fursona for a while, even if it’s just pretend. For some, it’s a chance to be their true selves. We have such a huge art community because what better way to bring your fursona to life then to draw or paint a picture?

So you’re not connected with many other furries who play WoW?

I currently only play on one server. I enjoy the friends in my current guild and I am hesitant to leave, even though being in a furry guild would be fun

I know a few people from FurAffinity (the furry website), but I’m not aware of them in game or they play on other servers. I could name a couple of names, but I think that they would prefer their privacy. I’ll let them comment on this article if they want to come out and play.

So are you in a mainstream guild, then? Are you able to be open about your furry interests with other members?

I’m a member of A Neo Creation. I would not say we are “mainstream.” We are more a guild composed of friends and family of friends who just want to have fun together. They know I’m a fur, and most of them are not furs themselves. They understand it’s the lifestyle I lead, and some even have been sources of support to me. No issues have ever come up related to my furriness.

WoW players seeking other furries can connect at Blizzard’s Furry Friends.

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This week saw the first of Blizzard’s class Q&A columns. Amazingly, we shamans got to go first. While Eliah already covered the basics for us, I thought going in depth with the discussion would be worthwhile. There’s a lot of information in the Q&A as a whole to go over and discuss. For example:

• One longer-term wow gold kaufenchange we are considering is removing the buff totems (replacing them with normal spells) and making all of the totems do something more active, like the current damage or healing totems. We’ve even discussed letting shamans carry a totem on their back (the tauren do it already) but that may be too far out there.

No, no it’s not too out there. Make it happen, make it happen now please. I don’t care if you have to make a new weapon category that only shamans can equip for this to happen, I want to see shamans with those great big honking totems on their backs already.

I don’t know how I feel about the idea of losing Windfury Totem and getting some kind of Windfury Aura or what have you, though. I mean, it would be more convenient, sure, but totems are a big part of the way the class plays and I don’t know how I’d feel about losing the buff totems. I’ve never found totem placement to be onerous outside of the fact that I have to drop the totems individually, and they’re looking into a fix for that.

• One of the features we have been working on is a way for shamans to drop all four totems at once (on one global cooldown). This will hopefully make the totems more attractive while soloing and will let the shaman in a group environment quickly get his or her totems down again if the group has to move or they get destroyed. We’d like to get this feature in soon, but we want to make sure the user-interface works well and feels integrated to the rest of the game, so we can’t yet announce a date. And of course, this is still in the planning stage, and so subject to change.

This really can’t happen soon enough. One of the things that drives me crazy when I spec enhancement and bring my undergeared self into a fun run 10 man is that I have to spend so much time dropping totems while other classes can just start with the DPS. It’s not a problem when we’re about to pull a boss, since you should have time to drop whatever totems you’re going to use, but when clearing trash (especially if the rest of your raid is geared enough to chain pull) it’s obnoxious.

A couple of weeks back we talked about enhancement finding themselves getting hit hardest by the AoE damage in Ulduar - turns out it’s not just that enhancement have the lowest stamina on their set gear (although they do) but it’s also an artifact of the class. “Shamans currently have the lowest base health of any class, and this often leads to concern over their survivability.” It turns out that this comes down to us from the original design of World of Warcraft, and that the current plan is to change it. “This is one of those weird legacies that has been in the game forever. Nobody currently working on classes can remember why that decision was initially made, so we plan to revert it for 3.2.” Since elsewhere in the Q&A they talk about how shamans were designed in tandem with paladins as the ‘offensive hybrid’ to the paladin’s ‘defensive hybrid’ (wow, how times have changed) I imgaine the shaman’s lower base health was meant to be balanced by their offensive options like purge and windfury.

What’s really odd about this is that back in the day, enhancement actually had a few tricks that made them decent tanks. Rockbiter was a solid aggro tool at low levels, for instance. My orc shaman tanked Wailing Caverns for a group back before the gates to AQ had even opened yet and Silithus didn’t even have any real point to going there. (I think he hit level 20 just around the time they put the Cenarion Circle outpost and flight point in, before that the only FP was closer to the entrance to the zone.) It’s interesting to see the changing nature of the game interact with such older design elements, I guess, but I’m still glad it’s getting changed.

• Q. When itemizing for the shaman class, what are the aspects that are looked at, and are there plans to make additional improvements to the way itemization is done for the class or for specific talent specs?
• A: One of the problems we have with dropping one-handed weapons is the overlap. If we drop axes, rogues can’t use them. If we drop swords, shamans can’t use them. If we drop fists, death knights can’t use them. We are looking at changing one of these restrictions in 3.2, though it likely won’t be for shamans to use swords.

Well, I’m torn here. The most obvious change would be to let DK’s use fists. On the one hand, boo to anything good for DK’s. (Let’s see how long it takes the DK players to grab the torches and pitchforks! Just kidding, guys, I love the way you overwrite all of my good melee buffs.) But on the other hand, more fist weapons! Yay! I love fist weapons! I’d seriously be okay with every boss in the game dropping a fist weapon, even caster fists. I don’t even think it makes sense for fist weapons to be unavailable to some classes - even a frail bookworm like a mage or warlock should know how to punch someone, and how hard is it to wear a set of brass knuckles (the default fist weapon appearance) or slide your hand into a grip? So sure, bring on more caster fists and let everyone use them, if it gets more fists into the game.

I am mildly sad (but not surprised) to see the nails driven further into the coffin of two hand weapon use by shamans. I know it’s the way Blizzard intends the various specs to function (dual wield for enhancement, caster weapon and shield for elemental and restoration) and it’s been said numerous times, but anyone who leveled up and remembers the glorious day your 2h weapon finally has windfury on it can understand my nostalgia here. Boom! Things go flying apart into chunks! Boom!

Finally, the discussion of PvP was interesting. The only time I PvP is as resto because, frankly, as enhancement I get kited to death too easily even with Imp GW, and that’s not even taking a rogue deciding I should be dead in the amount of time he can keep me stunned into account. The points made about shaman mobility and how healing shamans are very strong in fives (which leads to them being focused down first, and the survivability being low in that circumstances. Elemental has a niche as a ‘kill the wounded guy’ spec according to Blizzard.

• One of the challenges of designing the shaman class is that we think it is one of the most challenging classes to play in PvP. (Players sometimes call this having a “high skill cap.”) The shaman has to think about defense and offense at the same time, while many classes can worry about one or the other. For example, a Holy paladin can concentrate on keeping his or her group alive while the Restoration shaman has to do that while also keeping totems up, offensively purging buffs from the enemy team, using Wind Shock to interrupt spell casts, etc. The challenge is making it not too difficult for the average player but also not too powerful for the guy who can master all of the shaman’s tools. (Warlocks and hunters have very similar challenges, by the way.)

Frankly, I think they’ve gone too far towards the conservative here. The shamans who master all of the classes abilities in PvP (and brother am I not one of those) doesn’t get the bang for their buck, so to speak, that other classes can currently muster in PvP. Shamans are still very vulnerable (in part due to that lowest overall health issue, in part due to a lack of real options to escape beyond an easily trinketable disarm/silence spell in Hex and the 51 point elemental talent) and I really believe this needs to be addressed.

Finally, yay, they’re looking for ways to kill totem stomping macros. Awesome, get that done, can’t wait for that. I’m fine with totems being easily killable but not with people not even having to target the things to kill them.

There’s a lot more in the Q&A than we can possibly cover here… the discussion of how to place relics in the game, on bosses or badge vendors, I found of particular interest. I’d almost always go for vendors myself, as these drops quickly become shards once every shaman has them. I recommend going over to read it in detail, to see how Blizzard views shaman itemization, the current raiding role of the class and how they believe it’s doing, and so on. I intend to discuss the healing portion of the Q&A in its own post soon, as shamans as healers are currently very different from their BC role.

Next week, possibly healing in depth, and possibly Ulduar.

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Robin Torres writes WoW, Casually for the player with limited playtime. Of course, you people with lots of playtime can read this too, but you may get annoyed by the fact that we are unashamed, even proud, of the fact that beating WoW isn’t our highest priority. Take solace in the fact that your gear is better than ours, but if wow goldthat doesn’t work, remember that we outnumber you. Not that that’s a threat, after all, we don’t have time to do anything about it. But if WoW were a democracy, we’d win.

In my experience, the best class to play as a casual player is one that is easily soloable, with little downtime, but also able to find groups quickly when necessary, particularly at max level. Following is how I rate each class according to those criteria.

Rogue: Sneaking past mobs you don’t want to mess with and stunning your enemies so they can’t fight back make the Rogue a fun character to solo. They are extremely gear dependent, however, and self-healing is limited to profession-related skills. While rogues make a fight go quickly, there are many of them and you’ll have a hard time finding groups while leveling and in the endgame. (Edited to add note: Many readers have pointed out that there aren’t as many rogues as there used to be. Perhaps there are more leveling on PvP servers. Ganking me. Like just now. Regardless, there are many DPS classes vying for group spots and rogues still have a harder time finding groups than all tanks, healers and DPS classes who can also heal as necessary.)

Warlock: Warlocks are extremely easy to solo. They have pets, they have self-heals and they have nasty damage. Their spells make downtime pretty non-existent and they can often solo group quests. A skilled Warlock can find groups at max level, but they are not in high demand at this time.

Warrior: Warriors have become much more fun to solo, but are still hampered by a lack of class specific self-heals and therefore require some downtime. If you do make it to the endgame, however, you will find that tanks are in high demand and that a skilled DPS Warrior can also get work.

Shaman: Leveling a Shaman is not difficult. You can blast, melee and heal. If you want to hang out with the big boys in the endgame, however, expect to keep one of your specs Resto, because non-healing Shamans just aren’t in very high demand.

Priest: It takes a while to pick up speed when leveling a Priest without a lot of grouping. Shadow Priest soloing is the fastest and gets much easier when you get Shadowform. If you take one to the endgame, you’ll be the belle of the ball. They’ll want you for your heals and Shadow Priests can even get spots in raids these days.

Mage: Mages are definitely soloable and are very fun to play, but they tend to have a lot of down time for healing and mana regeneration. With no non-profession-related self-heals and nothing but comfy clothes to wear, you really need to be on your toes with your spells and abilities to battle alone. To partially make up for your downtime, your travel time is greatly reduced by the ability to teleport to major cities any time you like (as soon as you’re high enough in level, of course). In groups, Mages are in demand for their DPS and crowd control. Don’t discount the utility spells as well. The buffs, food and drink and making convenient portals at the end are all highly valued by groupies.

Druid: I’ve been playing a Druid since open beta. I love the class and have Night Elf droods abandoned across multiple servers — once I went Horde, I never rarely go back. Druids are great for soloing as either Balance or Feral spec and are usually welcome in any group while leveling. Because of their multiple forms, Druids rarely get boring and make traveling speedy even at low levels. Druids are also extremely versatile at max level. Groups will want you as a healer, tank or DPS. The only drawback to playing a Druid is that they are not easy to just pick up and play (unlike DKs and Pallies). You really need to learn the nuances of all of your options and it can be hard to go back to after a long absence from the game or playing another class. Many don’t consider this a negative thing about the class, however, and enjoy the extra brainpower involved in playing.

Death Knight: Death Knights are cake to solo. Not only do they start at level 55, but they are practically indestructible and mow through mobs speedily. They pair up nicely with any other class for those lucky enough to have a quest buddy. DKs also rock the endgame. They make great tanks and are awesome melee DPS. Their main drawback is that they are a dime a dozen. Once you make it to max level, you’ll find many others like you competing for instance and raid spots both in your guild and in PuGs. I highly recommend a DK to every casual player as an alt, but you may find getting groups too time consuming for your busy schedule.

Hunter: The Hunter is one of two classes that I have never played past level 11. It’s just not my bag. They are, however, arguably the easiest class to solo. The fact that they have no non-profession-related healing abilities is countered by the fact that their pets take most of the damage and the mobs drop quickly due to massive DPS. Hunters are so easy to solo that they tend to be the class of choice for gold-farmers (do they exist anymore or do they just hack and steal now?) as well as children and players new to MMOs. Because their damage dealing skills are so powerful, they are definitely wanted in the endgame. But you have to have the spec, gear and skills to be able to function in groups and raids and 80 levels of soloing isn’t going to get you these. Expect to have to work hard on your gear and grouping skills before being invited to the good PvE group activities.

Paladin: Before Blizzard “fixed” Retribution, leveling a Paladin was easy, but kinda boring and with a lot of downtime for mana regeneration. Now that Ret Pallies are OP (which I think is pretty much an uncontroversial statement), leveling is a breeze and a ton of fun. With barely any downtime and usually multiple mobs at once, I tear through content on my formerly boring, previously mana-challenged paladin. Also, when I have to make sudden AFKs due to my main job of taking care of The Spawn, I rarely come back to a dead Blood Elf. (Though I run the risk of being run off cliffs ever since I taught her how to run around in game. “Oops!”, she says.) And once you get to the endgame, the world is your oyster. You’ll be wanted as either a tank or a healer by everyone and be favored for (though not guaranteed) DPS spots as Retribution.

When making your decision as to what class to play, think about what role you want to fill when you are ready to participate in the harder group activities. Regardless of how you like to play, you are more likely to get into PuGs and scheduled raids if you are speced in a group-friendly way. So if you are unwilling to play certain roles, choose a class accordingly. Are you against both healing and tanking? Then pick a Hunter or other class that is completely unable to do either. Are you willing to tank, but find playing the whack-a-mole heal game a chore? Then choose a Warrior or Death Knight. But if you are happy to be flexible until you are able to get into a group that allows you to play your favorite spec, then a Paladin or Druid is for you. Taking either class to the endgame will allow you more opportunities and faster grouping than any of the other classes. And for the first few encounters, you will probably want to try healing. Groups are much more likely to be lenient on your mistakes (which you will definitely make) and poor gear if you are a healer, more than any other group role.

When it comes right down to it, no one can tell you what your favorite classes are to play. So if you pick a class that is tougher to level, but you enjoy it more then you have made the right decision. If you are torn like me, however, the above guidelines should help. What did I decide? Well, like I said, I’m a proud altaholic, so I picked two. My Pally is working her way through Outland and my Druid is thoroughly enjoying the quests in Northrend. My guild leader has promised me a healing spot in the second string 10 man raids once I hit 80. Of course, the fact that I’m married to him may have biased his decision a bit. But the healing gap helped too. Anyway, I’m off to play with a rejuvenated sense of purpose after my (kinda) decision. May you have as much fun as I’m having.

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Word is coming through the grapevine that patch 3.1.3 will be released tomorrow. MMO-Champion is also confirming this, so given both of our information I’d say it’s a sure bet.

We posted the patch notes last week when Zarhym released them, and they’re after the break so you can become reacquainted with the small changes that’ll be happening. If there are suddenly new notes tomorrow we’ll let you know.

When a mirror is available for download we’ll get a post up; probably sometime wow goldearly tomorrow afternoon. This patch is also likely a harbinger of maintenance tomorrow, however there has been no official announcement yet.

The patch notes after the break.

World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.1.3

The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/
The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

Death Knights

• Frost Presence: Armor bonus is now 60% down from 80%.

Druids

• Improved Barkskin: This talent now also grants 80/160% additional armor while in Travel Form or not shapeshifted.
• Improved Tree of Life: The armor bonus to Tree of Life Form from this talent has been reduced to 67/133/200% bonus armor.

Hunters

• Hunter’s Mark: The ranged attack power bonus from this ability has been increased from 300 to 500.
• Master Marksman: This talent now also decreases the cost of Aimed Shot and Chimera Shot by 5/10/15/20/25%.

Paladins

• Eye For An Eye: This talent now deals 5/10% of the critical strike damage taken by the paladin back at the attacker.
• Hand of Freedom: The base duration of this buff has been reduced from 10 seconds to 6 seconds.

Rogues

• Overkill: Talent redesigned. Now increases energy regeneration by 30% while stealthed, and for 20 seconds after breaking stealth.

Warlocks

• Chaos Bolt: This spell no longer ignores damage reduction effects of the target.

Warriors

• Blood Frenzy: This talent now provides 5/10% haste instead of 3/6%.
• Bloodthirst: Cooldown reduced from 5 seconds to 4 seconds, and rage cost reduced from 30 rage to 20 rage.
• Juggernaut: This talent now also increases the cooldown on Charge by 5 seconds.

Items

• Death Knight PvP Gauntlets: The chance to refresh a Frost Rune when casting Chains of Ice has been removed. When equipped, these gloves now generate 5 additional runic power whenever Chains of Ice is used.

Dungeons

• Ulduar
  • Mimiron
    • The flight time of Rocket Strikes has been increased, and Rocket Strikes will try to prefer players at range.
    • The Leviathan Mk II component of the V-07-TR-0N will become stunned during Phase 4 when the VX-001 component begins to cast the P3Wx2 Laser Barrage ability.
    • Proximity mines now deal less damage and have a lower duration. A small arming time has also been added so proximity mines will not immediately detonate on creation.

Bug Fixes

• Druid Tier 8 Balance Set: The 4-piece bonus no longer has its effect consumed by Starfire casts in progress when it triggers. The chance for the effect to be triggered has been reduced down to 8%, as it was originally inflated to compensate.
• Ice Layered Barrier: Upgraded to item level 232. In addition, the stats in the tooltip have been correctly adjusted to 78 spell power, 48 haste rating, 16 mana per 5 seconds, 52 Intellect, and 50 Stamina.
• Pulsing Spellshield: The stats listed in the tooltip for this item were incorrect and have been adjusted. This item provides 69 spell power, 34 haste rating, 42 critical strike rating, 45 intellect, and 45 stamina.

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The Hunter’s Mark’s Atkallen takes a good look at one of my new favorite Hunter abilities: Lock and Load. I’m pretty late to the party on this one (BigRedKitty showed us all how awesome it was a while back), but ever since I went dual spec and started raiding Survivalist, most of my time is just spent waiting for a Lock and Load proc. And oh boy, when it hits twice in a row and I can throw off Explosive Shots for free on just a global cooldown, look out.

But Atkallen’s post suggests something a little sneakier wow goldabout the buff, which procs off of any trap snares or damage, or, more commonly, off of Black Arrow, another Survivalist talent. It used to proc off of Serpent Sting, from 3 to 10 percent of the time according to how many points you put into the talent, and when it was changed to the current form and lowered to 2, 4, and 6 percent, most Hunters worried that they wouldn’t see it pop up as much. But here’s the thing, and I can attest: it still shows up all the time.

The problem may lie in the tooltip — for a while, it still said 3, 7 and 10% chance to proc, and that was scheduled to change in 3.1.2. It’s fixed now though, and Atkallen speculates that maybe they were waiting to change the actual proc down too. But that was only the tooltip, and Atkallen is convinced that, anecdotally, LnL has something else going on. Finally, Voldenmist in the comments over there points out that LnL also had its own cooldown removed (which is why I can chain it occasionally), so that may have something to do with it as well — maybe the procs coming closer together make it seem like more procs in general. Hunters, are you getting more LnL procs than you expect?

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Addon Spotlight takes a look at the little bits of Lua and XML that make our interfaces special. From bar mods to unit frames and beyond, if it goes in your Addons folder, we’ll cover it here.

Power Auras Classic is, as the name wow gold kaufenmight suggest, a powerful mod. It does something that you may not know you had a need for: displaying visuals on your screen based on various conditions. For instance, on my rogue, I have it set to display a big red blood drop in the left-center of the screen whenever I don’t have Hunger for Blood up.

It’s incredibly flexible, and as is the case with most very flexible mods, it takes some work to get the most out of it. For each aura, you can set the position, size, color, and alpha of the texture you want displayed, what conditions you want it displayed under, how you want it to fade in and out, and probably more options I haven’t gotten to playing around with yet.

For those of you scratching your heads right now, “texture” means image (think textures on 3D game objects), and “alpha” refers to the transparency of the image. An image with an alpha of 0 is completely transparent, while one with an alpha of 1 is completely opaque.

Trigger conditions for displaying an aura include: - Presence/absence of a buff on yourself, enemies, or party member s - Presence/absence of a debuff - Power levels (energy, mana, rage) - A skill being usable (i.e. off cooldown, and active for active skills like Overpower) The last one I find especially useful for my Destruction warlock; I have a green dragon show up to the left of my character when my Chaos Bolt is ready to fire, and an orange flame to the right when I can Conflagrate. Throw in a timer bar for Immolate, courtesy of Elkano’s BuffBars, and I’ve got all the information I need right in the middle of my screen.

Of course, since I like information overload, I also have DoTimer cooldown bars for CB and Conflag, but they’re not strictly necessary. That’s the one feature I miss from PAC, actually - I’d like to be able to show an aura if a skill was going to be usable in 0.5 seconds, for instance, or at least start it fading in at that time. There is apparently some way to make PAC show you countdown timers, but I haven’t figured it out yet.

Anyway, if you think it might be helpful to have customizable indicators that light up under certain conditions, PAC is for you. I was intimidated by its complexity when I first looked at it (and I’m somebody who swears by Grid and PitBull, and misses FlexBar like crazy), but it’s really not that bad. It’s set up to make it easy to do common tasks (like everything should be). Good job to the creator/maintainers for making it about as usable as could be for a low-level display addon like this.

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