WoW, Casually: Playing with your reading-age child

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 that 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. Since I last wrote about playing with preschoolers, I have been having an extremely rewarding time playing Itchee with The Spawn. The benefits to both of us are even greater than I originally wrote about. I find that my Itchee time is making me appreciate all of my WoW time even more. Nurturing my child while enjoying my limited playtime is a win-win situation. It’s particularly nice to have this indoor activity to do together with the nasty heatwave we are having in the real world. And that leads me to something I want to address before we get into the guide for playing with reading-age children: These guides are for parents who have made the educated decision to include WoW as one of the indoor activities to participate in with their

The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Going Back To The Well

The Care and Feeding of Warriors is WoW.com’s weekly column about all things clanky and rage-related. Matthew Rossi felt like using that old, old, lookit me in my bug shoulders from AQ40 screenshot. Yes, those are the Might legs. We can all look back and laugh now, sure. Back then it wasn’t funny. Believe it or not, there is a method to this particular madness. Since Blizzard was so kind to go back and release more Q&A for warriors this week, I felt to some degree constrained to talk about the answers they gave (and the questions they answered, for that matter) and in going over the post, one particular passage brought me back to the beginning, so to speak. To the days of running MC, BWL and AQ, gearing up in anticipation of patch 1.11 and Naxxramas. Let’s look at the particular exchange I’m referring to. Community Team: It appears that many players who enjoy the Warrior class for its damage aspects continue to feel that, without best in-slot items, their class’s performance is very truncated. Q: Is this an issue that we have seen in the Warrior class? If so, do we have any plans to accommodate those players who do not have best in-slot items, while still keeping those with the very best equipment from being too powerful? A:This really

What do you expect from a WoW movie?

Blizzard announced the Warcraft movie in 2006, after a long and arduous search for a proper production outfit that shared their vision. This search ended with Legendary pictures getting the deal – and while the studio doesn’t have spotless track record (Lady in the Water, I’m looking at you…), I think they’ve hit more home runs than strike outs, particularly with properties that resonate strongly with us geeks and fanboys. Whether or not you agree with their vision, it’s safe to say the guys behind Legendary respect their source material a great deal – from the visually stunning 300, the somber and severe The Dark Knight, and the un-movie-able Watchmen. I even really liked Bryan Singer’s reverent and messianic take on big blue in Superman Returns. Now, after a drought of news regarding the film, Harry Knowles broke the news about Spider-Man and Drag Me to Hell director Sam Raimi landing the job of helming the Warcraft flick. Variety soon reported that Charles Roven, who produced The Dark Knight, was also joining the mix. Although a lot of things can still change from now until we see Azeroth on the silver screen (directorial musical chairs isn’t uncommon in Hollywood), a lot of us at WoW.com were pretty stoked to hear

Arcane Brilliance: Five things every Mage should do before they ding 80

Each week Arcane Brilliance waves its wand and conjures a column about Mages. Then Arcane Brilliance turns the column into a sheep, sets that sheep on fire, and then freezes it into a flaming-sheep-sicle. This flaming-sheep-sicle-that-used-to-be-a-Mage-column is actually tastier than you might think, but also quite deadly. Having created it, Arcane Brilliance then proceeds to find the nearest Warlock and hurl the tasty-flaming-sheep-sicle-that-used-to-be-a-Mage-column-of-death at that Warlock, killing him or her instantly. It’s the flamingest, frozen-sheepingest, tasty-deathiest Warlock-killingest column on this website, let me assure you. Contrary to popular belief, Mages do not simply spring to life at level 80. Just like other, lesser classes, we too must begin at the lowly level of one. Even Mages must put their robes on one leg at a time, place one frail foot in front of the other, and trudge across Kalimdor, the Eastern Kingdoms, Outland, and finally Northrend until our experience bars progress from the left side of the screen to the right side a total of 79 times. Once upon a time, this process took awhile. An average trip to level 60 used to require the following: Approximately 192 trips from the north end of The Barrens to the south end…on foot, uphill

Ready Check: Freya

Ready Check is a twice-a-week column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. Today, we step back a little and look at endgame in the context of sports. Let’s recap Ulduar so far, shall we? You’ve wrecked the Flame Leviathan. With a touch of kindness in your heart, you euthanized Razorscale. In a moment of vengeance, you laid some justice down on Ignis the Furnace Master. Guffawing in humor at his odd voice, you looted Deconstructor. Then it came time to “bridge your experience” by beating up Kologarn. The Assembly of Iron proved to be no difficulty for your incredible raiding prowess. Even Auriaya and her small legion of adds gave you little pause. Perhaps you’ve even stepped up to the man, the myth, the legend: Hodir. But now, Ulduar’s got a life. You’re facing down Freya. You start the encounter by killing the three Elders. These elders are Elder Brightleaf, Elder Ironbranch, and Elder Stonebark. Fighting the three elders is relatively straightforward, but I bring them up because these three Elders are critical to Hard Mode. We’ll deal with Ulduar Hard Modes in more detail later,but generally you would

Totem Talk: Getting into the Spirit of the thing

Each week Matthew Rossi lovingly hand-crafts Totem Talk from a single switch of aged Barrens scrub pine. This week, we try and calm some fears and discuss what changes we’re still hoping might make it into patch 3.2. This week’s image comes from Protein, a restoration shaman on Bladefist (he didn’t specify US or EU realm). Before we get rolling on the changes that shamans haven’t seen yet in the various notes to patch 3.2, let us take a look at what notes we have seen, especially the most recent ones. Shaman Earth Shock: Redesigned. This spell no longer interrupts spell casting, but rather reduces melee attack speed by 10% for 8 seconds (exclusive with similar effects such as Thunder Clap). Wind Shock: Has been renamed Wind Shear and no longer shares a cooldown with Flame, Frost or Earth Shock. Maelstrom Weapon: Now also has a chance to reduce the cast time of Hex. Hardly massive changes, but at the same time pretty welcome. The fact that ES gives a form of Thunder Clap is weird since pretty much every tank has or will have that debuff in patch 3.2 (Thunder Clap, Icy Touch, Infected Wounds and the incoming paladin ability) so it seems odd from a PvE standpoint to give it to a non tanking class. If this is intended as a PvP ability… well,

Hunter gear for the level 80 beginning raider

Have you just reached level 80? Hoping to see endgame before Patch 3.2? Are you wanting to raid, but not sure what gear to get? Well then, this guide is for you! It might be true that you can go straight from questing and leveling straight into raiding Naxxramas. Maybe even get carried on a few 10man Ulduar Normal mode runs (if this happens I’m sure you will probably be a part of the next Guildwatch post.) When you make the transition into endgame you really can’t expect to crush the damage meters. Don’t feel all insulted and indignant, it really isn’t your fault. When your questing and leveling you don’t really focus on gear much. Not to mention making sure you have the correct pet or spec to achieve the numbers published on Elitist Jerks or some of those other Hunter sites. Another drawback of making the mad dash to end game could meant that you might have passed up on some great items to get your endgame raiding started on the right foot. Worse yet, you might have vendored or disenchanted some of those quest and reputation rewards for easy gold. Nothing can make you feel lower than a Gnome Warlock than showing up in quest greens and blues, doing less dps than the Tank all because you didn’t think ahead and get a good starting raid set. Of

Hunters discover “new” Worgen pet

As the holiday weekend rolled around, we started to get a number of tips that Hunters were successfully training themselves a…Worgen pet? Worgen?!? How was this level of cool allowed into the game without anyone knowing about it until now? Well, it turns out that the Worgen pet is in fact a very clever use of game mechanics somewhat akin to those used by Hunters in order to tame the (now sadly vanished) Grimtotem Spirit Guide. Garwal, a warg NPC in northern Howling Fjord who can turn into a Worgen as part of a questline (the link is the Horde version, but it’s the same for both Horde and Alliance) can actually be tamed and kept in Worgen form if the timing is right. Mania’s Arcania has a look at the process used here, which involves a little math, a little guesswork, and the strategic use of Wyvern Sting. Regrettably, you can only get Garwal to transform into a Worgen if you haven’t done the questline concerned, so I would imagine most Hunters at 80 who leveled in Howling Fjord are out of luck (unless you can snag someone who hasn’t done it yet — and even then I’m not sure you’d see him in Worgen form without the requisite quest item). Neither of my Hunters are close to Wrath content yet, but I’d absolutely kill for this

Blood Pact: All about soul stones

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