Welcome to Arena Season Eight! I’ve been tempted to go back into PvP and Arena by some friends, and I thought that surely someone else would be interested in getting started with PvP. Right? Someone? Ladies? Hello? Regardless, if you’re wanting to start with PvP but have no idea where to go to pick up PvP gear, K’vn is hear to help!
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Cute Fuzzy Meow
March 30, 2010
Getting Started in Wrath PvP
March 24, 2010
Weekly Update — Midterms have come!
Hello, internet! 3.3.3 has arrived, bringing with it a decided lack of Ruby Sanctum and Gnomish Liberation Armies. Ah well, there’s a few good things from this patch that are relevant to me (and my readers?). First off, anyone collecting pets should head over to the pet shop in Dalaran, across from the Violet Citadel. They’re selling a few new toys, but also a new small pet: the Blue Clockwork Rocket Bot. The real pet collectors should also be excited to find out that both of the (previously BoP) engineering pets have become Bind on Use, so go find your favorite engineer and get them to make you a Lil’ Smoky or a Pet Bombling. There’s a new gnome vendor outside of the Engineering Trainer in Dalaran, too. You can trade those stockpiles of Frozen Orbs in for eternals, crusader orbs, runed orbs, or even a pattern to make a new Flying Carpet (tailoring-only), the Frosty Flying Carpet. And before anyone asks, yes I dropped a profession to skill up tailoring just for the flying carpet. Every mount counts!
I found it interesting that a lot of people who find this journal were searching for information on Sons of Hodir, polar bear mounts, or the bug with Hodir Dailies not showing up immediately in Dun Nifflem. I’m pretty sure I’ve covered all of those, but just in case I haven’t…
Polar Bear: Brunhilldar Village unlocks when you do the Sons of Hodir quest line. After you’ve quested there (and probably moved on to Dun Nifflem), if you come back you’ll notice they have a single daily quest. You may need to do the optional, non-Sons-of-Hodir reputation quests from the village in the houses overlooking the cliff to unlock some of them. Simply do the daily each day and you will pick up a pouch that contains salted goat milk, yeti cheese, or…. 1 in 50 shot at the Reins of the White Polar Bear Mount. Yum!
Sons of Hodir: “Help, the spear/helm/horn doesn’t appear after I’ve done the quest!” Easy fix, fly out of the village, out of it’s entire phasing area, then fly back in and it should show up.
This question was submitted by Geese of the Steamwheedle Cartel Server: “What level do I need to be to start getting Heirlooms?” Well, Geese, I would say about level 70. As the heirlooms article already covered, you’re looking at four sources for heirlooms — Stone Keeper Shards, level 80 emblems, and winning the Kalu’ak Fishing Derby. The Dread Pirate Ring from the Fishing Derby only really requires you to have Wrath of the Lich King installed. You could take a level one character, set their hearth to Dalaran, and then put them around any of the safe fishing areas in Northrend (Borean Tundra’s icebergs being a good bet) and if you catch the shark, hearth to Dalaran and turn it in for your prize. The competition happens Saturday at 2pm Server (give or take). For Stone Keeper Shards, if your side owns Wintergrasp then any Northrend dungeons you run will grant you Stone Keeper Shards on boss kills. It’s tricky to get into Wintergrasp to spend them, but if your side owns Wintergrasp then most of the time the Wintergrasp Battlemaster will have a portal to Vault of Archavon next to him and you’re set. For Emblems of Triumph, your first Northrend Random Normal Dungeon via Dungeon Finder grants you two Triumph Badges upon completion, so it’s possible for those to add up over time, too. So ultimately, you’re going to need a level 70 character to start getting anything except the ring.
The last of our questions comes from Nalbeb ofSteamwheedle Cartel, he asked about any changes in the past six months to make levelling alts easier. Well, that list is probably too long to go over, but the big one beyond heirlooms is probably to grab a Tome of Cold Weather Flying from your main and mail it to your level 68+ alts. If you have an eighty, there is no reason for your alts to have to walk through Northrend.
I’m working on the Ultimate Gnome article for after midterms this week, but I could actually use some help on this one. When it comes to most of it, I know exactly what I want to write, but I’m having trouble finding armor with a gnome theme. Goggles are a given, but what about the shoulders, breastplate, et cetera? Anyone have any ideas of very gnome-tastic armor? If so, let me know in the comments. And if you have any other questions, just comment and I’ll answer them next update (or write a guide about them if it’s a big question!).
March 17, 2010
Weekly Update!
Welcome to the weekly update. You would think that with all that’s going on, I would be updating less, but this is a nice thing I can spend a few minutes on between studying for midterms. I have a full semesters and a ton of work to do in the next two weeks. Some of it is midterms, some of it is catching up on work from being sick and missing class. All-in-all, though, I’m loving all of my classes still — even Calculus. But you’re not here to hear about Calculus, French irregular verbs, or the Bhagava-Gita — let’s talk about WoW.
I have up two new articles this week. I probably should have spread them out, but I didn’t want to get busy and forget! The most recent article is Heirlooms Continued: Enchants. I’ve had a lot of people messaging me about Heirlooms, which led to the write the initial article. I’ve had a blast with heirlooms in game, though in a slightly odd fashion — I do the fishing daily on each of my alts, and a full set of heirlooms adds +25% xp from that fishing daily. Most of my alts, after a year and a half of fishing dailies, have nearly hit 80. The next question I anticipated being asked, however, is what you can enchant on an heirloom. A lot of people had incorrect ideas — Sons of Hodir enchants are Bind on Account, so surely they work on heirlooms from the get-go, right? — and I thought it was time for a companion article to help straighten everyone out. I think that the Zandalar Signets of Might/Mojo/Serenity are some of the best investments if you’re serious about heirlooms, but I’ve got a full list of what works when, how, and alternative choices for the harder-to-find enchants. Speaking of Sons of Hodir, don’t miss the guide that’s up from months back on how to get started — just keep in mind that reputation values have skyrocketed in recent patches.
Preceding that is another article entitled Where is Wrath of the Lich King Going? which I’ve been working on in chunks ever since my raiding guild killed Arthas on 25 man two weeks back (Hard Modes time!), dealing with the future of the Scourge and where I see them going from here. It’s pretty difficult to talk about without getting into spoilers, but if nothing else it’s amusing, well, musings. Hopefully some of you out there are interested in more than the guides!
The PTR has been quite exciting with the things the data miners have found. Mounts are one of my favorite aspects of the game, and there’s a celestial version of Invincible that’s made of stars. Of stars! Who needs nasty spaceships when you can have a magical flying pony made of stars?! I’m interested in finding out where this is from, though I need to go pad my mount totals with the pvp mount I’m missing and a few Argent Tournament Mounts.
Do you have an authenticator? It seems like lately more and more people have been hacked, and while Blizzard is being pretty good about restoring accounts, it takes a long period of time. After a friend of ours watched her little brother’s account get hacked and him sit in Storm Peaks for a few days, Sare and I bit the bullet and picked up authenticators. Word on the street is that the battery lasts 5-7 years, which is good enough for me. I thought it would be a hassle since we have two computers and we don’t always use the same one for WoW, but by keeping them nearby it’s been extremely easy to log in and I feel safer. Plus, the Core Hound Pup is adorable on our weekly Molten Core runs. Two years and counting and no Biznik’s Accurascope pattern. Next week is the week!
After Hard Modes and Mounts, do you know what I love? Small pets! And Gryphons! I’ve spent a long time looking for a gryphon stuffed animal for Sare, with many failures. I found one semi-puppet, and that’s the best I could do. Well, it looks like Blizzard has finally given into my demands, and they’ve released a gryphlet plushie that comes with a gryphlet small pet. How cute! The only thing I can’t understand is why my friends haven’t gotten me one yet? My old main from Burning Crusade was actually named Gryphlet, for crying out loud! Harrumph. Well, my only gripe with the gryphlet is the unusually large head. Is that normal? There’s a horde counterpart, the Wind Rider Cub, and except for his cowlick hair he’s adorable, too! It’s funny how the wyvern models are some of the most complained-about in the entire game, but this little Wind Rider is just plain adorable. Gryphlets and winged-kittens, who could appeal to me more?
Speaking of kittens, I do casually read a few comics some days. I’m not a big fan of most of the WoW-related comics, but the one that has kept me coming back is NPC Comic. Hopefully the artist, Mary Varn, won’t be too upset if I tell her that the reason I read the comic is for the two cats, Chloe and Bink. The druid-cat necklace is just too adorable, and I love blue cats! For the curious, I also read XKCD (it’s geeky, but sometimes I can’t help myself) and Exploding Dog (My computer background is often one of these).
Finally, I’m excited about the things on the horizon for World of Warcraft. Gnomeregan reclaimed, Echo Isles, Ruby Sanctum — bring it on! In the mean time, we’re working on Lich King 25 hard modes. We have a handful of them down with another two nearly complete. My gear is finally starting to shape up a bit so I don’t feel under dressed for the Lich King Ball. All-in-all, good times. Except for my Calculus Midterm coming up. Or the French Writing Assignments (Quelle Dommage!). Or the Gilgamesh, Book of Job, Bhagava-Gita writings coming up. Ick. Pray for me!
I suppose since the last paragraph began with “Finally” this is actually a post script, but now that the heirloom questions should be handled, what do you want to hear about next? I keep getting demands for the Ultimate Gnome article, but I need to load up WoW Model Viewer to get a good picture since I don’t actually have a Gnome with most of the items it would require. Would you like to hear about the Argent Tournament? I’ve had a few friends start it up, and someone close to me just found out you can get Champion Seals from heroic Trial of the Champion. An achievement guide? Let me know what you need, and I’ll provide it!
March 16, 2010
Heirlooms Continued: Enchants
Now that we’ve covered Heirlooms and how to get them, it’s time to talk about enchants. Heirlooms fill one of the following slots: Trinket, Ring, One-handed Weapon, Two-handed Weapon, Shoulders, or Chest. Trinkets cannot be enchanted, so we can exclude them. But what about the others? Well, there are a few rules for enchanting heirlooms. First, enchants all have some sort of level requirement to them. You can toss Berserking on your Respurposed Lava Dredger, but if your alt is under lv 60 it won’t ever proc +400 attack power. This leaves you with two avenues of attack: you can either constantly change the enchants on your heirlooms as the characters level, or you can find the best enchant that works right from level one and just use that. That’s what this guide is for, to help you pick out your enchants.
March 15, 2010
Where is Wrath of the Lich King Going?
First, a warning — this article contains spoilers. Chances are everyone has either seen the final cinematic from defeating the Lich King. Maybe you clicked the new statue in Dalaran, saw it on MMO Champion, or killed Arthas on 10 man. There are also some spoilers concerning Culling of Stratholme, Warcraft III, and the Scarlet Onslaught plot in Northrend. So if you don’t want those spoiled for you, turn away now!
March 2, 2010
Heirlooms and You!
Wrath of the Lich King introduced a wonderful new class of gear that makes levelling alts a much more pleasant experience: Heirlooms. Heirlooms are gear with a light yellow text that bind to your account. Their level, stats, and armor type is based on the level of the wearer. Often they mimic a blue of the same level, with some mail evolving to plate at 40 and some leather evolving to mail at the same level. They don’t have durability, and therefore don’t require any money to repair. While all of these things are more of a convenience, they also have one more big thing going for them: many heirlooms grant an increase in experience from quests and monsters. Wearing heirloom shoulders, chest pieces, and rings together grants you a current maximum of +25% extra experience. Nice!
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