Category Archives: Game Info

Game Info

Epic Gems For Everyone!

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MMO-Champion has just reported that one of the Shattered Sun NPCs on the Isle of Quel’Danas (Shaani, the Jewelcrafting Supplies vendor in the Sun’s Reach Harbor) will now sell all the raw epic gems for 15 badges.

Know your leylines!
Image from MMO-Champion.

Very interesting.

These gems are currently only available in Mount Hyjal (mined from gem nodes after the first or second boss) or Black Temple (from trash mobs). They sell for hundreds of gold on a typical Auction House. 2.4 was already going to reduce their value, by virtue of giving away a bagful of them with a number of pre-MH boss kills – Magtheridon will drop a bag of 3 of them, for instance.

However, selling them for badges means that almost everyone, except the truly solo player, can expect to get their hands on them – although not necessarily straight away, when you consider the fact that most people will want to lay out hundreds of badges on the new Tier 6-equivalent gear as well.

Furthermore, most of the recipes to cut them currently require Mount Hyjal faction, and the remaining recipes are BoP drops in Black Temple. All the existing epic gem cuts will now be accessible via Shattered Sun faction from Friendly to Exalted.

I’m very happy with these two changes. Anyone who knows me has heard me rant about how unreasonable it was of Blizzard to put the entire epic tier of a crafting profession in the hands of endgame raiders alone – I’m glad Blizzard’s doing something about that.

Now I can only hope that 25-man bosses will drop a reasonable number of badges, come 2.4, or we’re all going to be so starved for badges we’ll still be running Karazhan in 2009.

Game Info

Holy Paladins: Choosing Your Faction Goals

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There are a number of very good rep rewards available for paladins, particularly Protection and Holy paladins. I thought I’d do a bit of a rundown for those who are levelling a pally and haven’t identified their faction goals yet. If you’re a holy paladin in pre-raid gear, you might want to aim for:

Honor Hold/Thrallmar – Revered.
For Ring of Convalescence/Ancestral Band and Glyph of Renewal at Revered. (Sage’s Band/Farseer’s Band at Honored is a nice addition to your DPS set, too.)

Cenarion Expedition
You can actually skip CE faction if you’re purely Holy, unless you want Windcaller’s Orb (at Exalted) until you get a good healing shield. I wouldn’t recommend it personally – but hey, some pallies wear cloth, too.

Sporeggar
Nothing for you here.

Aldor/Scryers – Exalted.
For Greater Inscription of Faith (for Aldor) or Greater Inscription of the Oracle (for Scryers) at Exalted. (You can use Inscription of Faith/Inscription of the Oracle (Honored) until you hit Exalted.) Aldor also offers Vindicator’s Hauberk (the best pre-raid tanking chest) at Revered, and Medallion of the Lightbearer at Exalted (although there are better-balanced pre-raid neckpieces out there, this one does have good base stats). Scryer-aligned paladins can get Seer’s Signet at Exalted, which is very good for a shockadin set.

Lower City – Revered.
For Lower City Prayerbook, an excellent trinket for paladins that many prefer over epic alternatives. Gavel of Unearthed Secrets at Exalted is a good shockadin mace, too, and if you’re building a tanking set it’s the best tankadin mace you’ll find until raid or arena gear.

Kurenai/Mag’har
You can pretty much skip Kurenai/Mag’har faction altogether, from a paladin point of view.

The Consortium
You can skip this one, too.

Keepers of Time
For a pure Holy pally, you can skip KoT faction too. If you’re going to be doing some tanking, I’d recommend aiming for Revered for Timewarden’s Leggings and Glyph of the Defender (and Continuum Blade until you get to Exalted with Lower City for the Gavel).

The Sha’tar – Exalted
For Gavel of Pure Light, an excellent healadin mace (I got a Hand of Eternity crafted before I got to Exalted Sha’tar, but the Gavel of Pure Light isn’t far behind it). You might also want Crest of the Sha’tar (Exalted) for a tanking set, and Xi’ri’s Gift (Revered) for a shockadin set.

Ogri’la – Revered
For Apexis Cloak. Ogri’la Aegis (Revered) is a good tanking shield before you hit Exalted Sha’tar, too.

Sha’tari Skyguard
You can skip this as a healadin. Airman’s Ribbon of Gallantry (Exalted) is a decent shockadin trinket, though, when you consider the fact that you’re likely to be playing as a shockadin for solo content only – grinding and questing.

Netherwing
You can skip this too. Commander’s Badge (Revered) is a nice tanking trinket, though.

Shattered Sun Offensive – Exalted (New in 2.4!)
For Shattered Sun Pendant of Restoration, which is an amazingly good pre-raid healing neck. Shattered Sun Pendant of Acumen (Exalted) is also good for a shockadin set, and Sunward Crest (Exalted) may suit tanking pallies for threat generation.

Game Info, Playstyle

Healadin Macros

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So! There are a few handy macros that will make life as a holy paladin a little easier. Here are a few of my favourites:

Heal-through Flash of Light Combo
#showtooltip Flash of Light
/stopcasting
/use Lower City Prayerbook
/use Pendant of the Violet Eye
/cast [button:2,target=player] Flash of Light; [target=target,help] Flash of Light; [target=targettarget,help] Flash of Light; [target=none] Flash of Light

Heal-through Holy Light Combo
#showtooltip Holy Light
/stopcasting
/cast Divine Illumination
/cast [button:2,target=player] Holy Light; [target=target,help] Holy Light; [target=targettarget,help] Holy Light; [target=none] Holy Light

Edit: Please see the comments for some revised syntax tips since patch 2.3. The above will still work, but the revised syntax is cleaner.

These two macros work in much the same way.

  • The “#showtooltip” line means that when you mouse over it you see the tooltip for the max rank of the named spell, not just an unhelpful tooltip with the macro’s name.
  • /stopcasting is no longer strictly necessary now that “client spell cast requests are now sent to the server even if your player is already casting another spell”, but it helps with timing anyway
  • The /use and /cast effects trigger my clicky trinkets (for Flash of Light) or use my mana-saver spell (for Holy Light) if their cooldowns are up. If they’re on cooldown, this will actually cause an error message saying the spell/item is not ready; if you prefer not to see that, you can insert “/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()” (without the “s) after these lines
  • The final line is the meat and drink of the macro. It resolves like thus: if I rightclick the macro, I heal myself. Otherwise: if my target is friendly, it heals them. If my target is hostile and has a friendly target, it heals that friendly. If my target is hostile and its target is also hostile, the spell won’t fire at all. If I have no-one targeted, it will trigger the spell and give me the glowy-outline-hand selection cursor.

The really important line of these macros is the part where it heals my hostile target’s target if friendly. This is what’s commonly known as a “heal-through” macro; it’s great for tank healing on a boss who requires multiple tanks – like Gruul or Void Reaver (or, say, BWL’s Broodlord Lashlayer, back in the old days). You just target the boss, and heal away; the spell will land on whoever was the mob’s current target at the time you started casting the heal. (That’s something that can catch you out, so be careful of it, if the mob changes targets a lot.)

Personally, I think that every single healer should have a heal-through macro for this kind of situation.

Note that you can apply this kind of principle to any spellcasting macro. I’ve got similar ones for Blessing of Protection and Lay on Hands.

Rez Macro
#showtooltip Redemption
/cast Redemption
/stopmacro [nohelp,nodead]
/say Resurrecting %t.

This one’s helpful because it means other rezzers don’t waste time rezzing your target instead of moving on to the next deadie. Breaking it down: the /stopmacro line means that it doesn’t announce itself if your target is hostile or dead. The %t is a placeholder that is replaced by the name of your target. And of course you can edit the /say text to say whatever you like – mine says “Upsadaisy, %t!”

Mouseover/Castthrough Cleanse
/stopcasting
/cast [button:2,target=player] Cleanse; [target=mouseover,help] Cleanse; [target=target,help] Cleanse; [target=targettarget,help] Cleanse; [target=none] Cleanse

I bet you can guess what this one does already. The trick with this one is that its first check is to see if I have my mouse over a friendly target (either their actual body in front of me, or their unitframe in my raid or party display), and if so it cleanses them (or tries to). Very handy for raids with mass decursing, or PvP situations; lets you cleanse without having to change targets.

Those are some of my favorite healadin-specific macros. You can find some useful tanking and DPS macros at the WoWwiki page for pally macros – and don’t forget to mine macros designed for other classes for good ideas about what can do with your own! If you’ve got any good healadin macros, please let me know in the comments – I’m always keen to see more.

Game Info, Playstyle

2.4: Turn Evil and How to Make the Most of It

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In all the hoo-ha about the big changes on the PTR, a few smaller changes have slipped through.

Here’s one I’m keen about.

Turn Evil
This is The Spell Formerly Known As Turn Undead (Rank 3). It’s effectively the same, except now it applies to demons as well as undead (and, as a result, is subject to diminishing returns and lasts 10 seconds in PvP).

This is an excellent change.

This quiet little change is mostly getting attention for its arena implications, but its effect on PvE is just as interesting. Previously, warlocks have been the only classes able to CC most demons (excluding hunter traps), and it’s made life hard for those guilds without many warlocks.

Now, well… don’t have enough warlocks for Magtheridon? Never fear! Your pallies can team up to keep a few infernals busy – enough to trim down the ranks of infernals beating on your squishies, at any rate. This change reduces guild reliance on a specific class for specific encounters, and that’s always a good thing in my opinion. (Encounters that require a specific class balance are made of fail; we’re not all hardcore guilds who can snap up recruits whenever they like, nor force guildies to play something other than what they want to.)

You can’t chain fear with Turn Evil/Turn Undead, because it’s got a 20 second duration and a 30 second cooldown. Two pallies teaming up can chain fear between them, of course, and you don’t need to be able to chain fear to keep a mob under control with it. You just have to use your environment and your other abilities to spend those ten seconds in between fears, to keep the mob under control.

  • Use Hammer of Justice to buy six seconds, and reposition further away – then taunt the demon to you when the stun breaks, and re-fear while it’s running over.
  • Delay a demon by taunting it back and forth between two healer pallies a reasonable distance apart; it’ll spend a lot of its time running back and forth, using up those dead seconds until your Turn comes off cooldown again. (The second pally could also fear it if necessary, but RD is an instant whereas TE has a 1.5 second cast time, so it’s less of an interruption to your other tasks.)
  • Pretend you’re a hunter and kite. Slap on Righteous Fury for extra agro gen, pump a couple of Exorcisms into the demon (and Holy Shocks if you’re a healadin), then fear it. You should be top of its agro list by now, so it’ll definitely come back to you when fear breaks, so just make sure you’re standing a good long way away so it’ll take a while to get back to you. Use environmental obstacles so it has to path around to get to you, if possible.
  • If you have a hunter with a spare pet, get them to put it on the demon as a backup tank. The demon will only be beating on the pet for ten seconds at a time, so the pet won’t die, and it’ll keep the demon busy til your fear comes up again.

If you’ve got any other good ideas about how to make the most of Turn Evil, please leave a comment! I’m looking forward to playing with the spell.

Game Info

Gems for Healadins

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I’ve made myself something of an expert on Jewelcrafting, ever since I wrote a levelling guide for jewelcrafting during the TBC beta (which is now somewhat error-prone thanks to Blizzard changing recipes and skill levels around; I’ll redo it someday).

There are a number of gem options that are suitable for healadin pallies, but you should make your choices carefully. Let’s look at a few of them:

Choices

The A Team:
[Teardrop Living Ruby]: red. +18 healing.
[Luminous Noble Topaz]: red, yellow. +9 healing, +4 int.
[Royal Nightseye]: red, blue. +9 healing, +2 mp5.

The three cuts above are all popular with paladin healers, and with good reason. Choosing between them is mostly a matter of personal taste, personal playstyle, and sometimes restrictions on gem color to activate a meta-gem or socket bonus.

[Dazzling Talasite]: yellow, blue. +4 int, +2 mp5.
[Gleaming Dawnstone]: yellow, +8 spell crit.

Both of these are decent second-string contenders, the talasite more so than the dawnstone. You wouldn’t want to focus on using either of these to the exclusion of the better gems, as your +heal would just fall too far; however, they can be useful to boost a problem stat (particularly the talasite) or to meet gem color limitations for socket bonuses or meta gems.

Do not, on the other hand, use [Lustrous Star of Elune]s. Compare them with [Royal Nightseye]s or [Dazzling Talasite]s; you loseWeight Exercise 9 +healing or 4 +int, for what? One measly mp5. Don’t do it. (Also, do not even think of using a [Sparkling Star of Elune]. You will be fired from the paladin club. Seriously.)

Picking Your Gems

Unfortunately, for most holy paladins, there’s no One True Rule for picking gems to put in your healing gear. (The exception is for paladins in a decent amount of T6-level gear, who are advised to stack pure +healing gems, as they don’t generally have mana issues.) Instead, you should consider how fights generally tend to work out for you. Are you desperately throwing mid-rank Flash of Lights while desperately counting the seconds til your potion cooldown refreshes? You might want to add some +mp5 or +spell crit gems to extend your mana longevity. Are you having to use inefficient Holy Light spam just to keep a tank up? Throw in some pure +healing gems to increase your healing output, allowing you to use a more efficient spell rotation. None of the good pally healing gems is a bad choice; it’s just a matter of knowing your personal healing style and how it meshes with the rest of the raid team.

Now, if you look at this Elitist Jerks thread (which is some excellent healadin theorycrafting, if unfortunately aimed at players who have access to the best of the best gear), the poster sets up a system allowing you to numerically compare the value of different gems.

If you put a point value to the gems comparing blue vs epic, say 18 pts for a blue to equate it to healing, you get the following level calculations:

1 healing = 1 pt
1 mp5 = 4.5 pt
1 int = 2.25 pt
1 spell crit rating = 2.25 pt

Because mp5 can only be applied in whole values however, the actual worths of mp5 on epic gems is greatly diminished because of the other stats you are loosing.

This is a really interesting system that’s good for comparing gems at a glance, but one of the big problems with it is that it gives +Int more Lose Weight Exerciseing than it deserves (because Int is magnified 10% by the Divine Intellect talent, and also contributes spell crit (from basic game mechanics), and damage and healing (from the Holy Guidance talent)).

Systems like this are tempting, because it gives you one easy answer: Gem A is categorically better than Gem B, because the formula says so, so there. If you pick your gems based on this system you’ll wind up with a huge mana pool because of the way it favours +Int, and that will contribute to your spell crit and +heal — but, in my opinion, not by enough to warrant the loss of mp5 or +heal directly. Instead, you really need to examine your playstyle and the effects of that playstyle, and decide on gems for yourself. (Which is not to say you shouldn’t socket gems with +int on them; I’ve used quite a few. Just don’t use them to the exclusion of everything else.)

Why Purple Isn’t Always Better (But Sometimes Is)

There’s a strong temptation to make use of the epic gems that you get in Heroic instances. However, most of them aren’t that great, and are definitely inferior to using more appropriate rare gems.

Let’s look at a couple:

[Blessed Tanzanite]: red, blue. +11 heal, +6 sta.
[Durable Fire Opal]: red, yellow. +11 heal, +4 resil.
[Soothing Amethyst]: red, blue. +11 heal, +6 sta. (This one’s actually from a Karazhan quest to kill Nightbane, not a Heroic drop.)

Don’t they look great? Look at that awesome +11 heal! And they’re epic!

…Yeah. And look at the other stats. +6 sta? +4 resilience? Useless to a PvE healer. (Unless you’re specifically gearing up a stamina set, of course, but as a general rule you shouldn’t be consciously sacrificing healing power for stamina unless your survival is more of a progression stopper than your tank’s is.) Leave the stamina and resilience for PvP healers, and stick with PvE healer stats.

On the other hand, there are some really really nice epic gems that are very suitable:

[Iridescent Fire Opal]: red, yellow. +11 heal, +4 spell crit. From Heroic Hellfire Ramparts.
[Rune Covered Chrysoprase]: yellow, blue. +5 spell crit, +2 mp5. From Heroic Shadow Labs.

These are both very tasty, because you don’t find spell crit on healer gems when you’re looking at the BoE gems from jewelcrafter cuts. (Don’t believe me? Check the chart!)

(There’s also [Luminous Fire Opal], [Royal Tanzanite] and [Dazzling Chrysoprase] from Shattered Halls, Slave Pens, and Old Hillsbrad heroics respectively. You should recognise all three as being epic ‘upgrades’ of the cuts recommended above in the ‘Choices’ section.)

Meta Gems

There are two reasonable options in the meta gem selection (although many helms these days don’t actually have meta sockets).

[Bracing Earthstorm Diamond] – this gem is a lot easier to get now that the prerequisites have been relaxed (now it only requires more red gems than blue; it used to require more yellow gems than blue as well, which was very hard to juggle). However, it still requires some jiggery-pokery to get it working, and the reduced-threat bonus isn’t nearly as appealing for paladins as it is for other healing classes.

The most popular choice is [Insightful Earthstorm Diamond]. The Int bonus is nice, the proc goes off a lot, and the activation is easy to manage. It’s an all-around winner.

Socket Bonuses

Socket Bonuses tend to act like a homing beacon. You see your shiny new shoulders with two yellow sockets, and you think “omg, must socket yellow gems!” and before you know it, you’ve put in two [Luminous Noble Topaz]es without actually checking to see if you need more int – or would mp5 suit you better?

There are some socket bonuses you just don’t need. For instance, I just picked up [Crystalforge Pauldrons] – two yellow sockets and a +4 stam socket bonus. I really don’t care about that 40 health, so I’m under no obligation to socket yellow-compatible gems in there. On the other hand, you better believe I stuck to the socket colors for my Mask of Introspection – the socket bonus is +9 healing; that’s half a rare gem right there!

In other words: yet again, there are no hard-and-fast rules. Look at the socket bonus and decide if it’s worth getting, then look at the gems you’d put in to achieve it, then decide if you’re sacrificing too much for the socket bonus to be worth it overall.

Game Info

2.4: More Dailies! (Fishing, Sunwell.)

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See my complete guide to the Sunwell dailies here.

Okay, so time to give a rundown on a few more of the PTR’s new daily quests:

Crocolisks in the City
This one’s a fishing daily.

“Hello lass. I’m glad you’ve stopped by to talk to this old man– there’s trouble back home.

A traveling merchant recently sold a batch of baby crocolisks to some gullible children. Crocolisks are wild beasts, and many have escaped and now lurk in city waterways.

Grab your strongest fishing pole and drop a line in Stormwind or Orgrimmar and bring one of the little devils back to me. I’m anxious to see one.”

It’s pretty straightforward from here – just do what the quest says; fish in the waterways of Stormwind or Orgrimmar until you catch a baby crocolisk. I got one on on the fifth or sixth cast.

Intercept the Reinforcements
This one’s a fun and easy half-bombing half-kill quest. You hop on a dragonhawk which flies you out into the bay and you ‘bomb’ the sails of the three blood elf ships out there. (Just aim the bomb circle at the sails themselves.) Then the dragonhawk lands, you kill six Dawnblade Reservists, and then you mount back up on the dragonhawk (which kindly stuck around for you) and fly back. The Reservists are easy kills, and drop Sunfury Signets.

Reward: 7.6g, 250 rep.

Taking the Harbor
A straightforward kill quest; kill 6 Dawnblade Summoners, 6 Dawnblade Blood Nights and 3 Dawnblade Marksmen. I haven’t completed it yet due to overcrowding and server instability, but the rewards are 12g and 250 rep.

Making Ready
Kill Darkspine Myrmidon (ie nagas) and use their keys to steal three pieces of ore from their chests. I can’t actually complete this as the NPC is mobbed on the PTR, but the quest rewards are 12g and, according to WoWwiki, 150 rep.

Know Your Ley Lines

Know your leylines! This quest is fairly easy, particularly when the island is busy with fellow questers. All you need to do is run to three locations, use the quest item (a crystal) at the spot in question and then hand it in to Astromancer Darnarian to receive a scroll that will teleport you to Shattrath (and 12 gold and 250 rep).

The three locations:

  • Bloodcrystal: top left dot on the map; look for a very large floating red crystal (surrounded by smaller ones).
  • Dawning Square portal: this is the same location as the Emissary of Hate (for the Battle for Sun’s Reach Armory daily quest); look for the large wispy purple wall.
  • Naga shrine: head over to the coast and dodge lots of nagas; look for a cupola (like the ones in Zangarmarsh) with an Azsharan statuette in it near the southernmost stretch of the Greengill coast area.
Game Info

A Guide to Daily Quests V: Shattered Sun

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a.k.a “2.4: Sunwell Dailies – The Guide”

Rather than do a hodge-podge of posts about quests here and there, I thought I’d try and put together a bit of an index to the quests as a whole; this should be largely complete now.

The Sunwell Dailies – How They Work

Basically, the world event in 2.4 involves the Shattered Sun Offensive – a new faction – working to reclaim the Isle of Quel’Danas, one chunk at a time. Each phase has a goal (or several goals) and the new dailies for that phase work towards those goals; the goals are achieved when the dailies have been done often enough server-wide.

Note: Once a goal has been achieved, the dailies are still accessible with new names, and (if it was a major goal) a new phase opens up. The new versions of the old dailies are listed under “Replaced by”, below.

To begin with, you start at Neutral with the Shattered Sun Offensive. There are six or seven daily quests open to you. To kick it all off, though, you’ll want to get the starter quest (“Enter, the Deceiver…”) from the questgiver near A’dal in Shattrath, and head to the Isle of Quel’Danas. You’ll automatically know the flightpath once you hit a flight master in the Eastern Kingdoms; Quel’Danas is connected by flightpath to Zul’Aman (and apparently also to Silvermoon, for the Horde).

The following are the SSO dailies. Note that unlike other sets of daily quests, new quests open up depending on how far your server is through the world event, not based on your own personal reputation level. The only quests that are affected by your own rep are: a single quest at each new rep level (which doesn’t actually require you to do anything, other than pick up a package of freebie rewards), and a single quest at Exalted which is the avenue to getting the new title. Everything else is available at Neutral rep, if your server has unlocked the phases.

This means that people coming late to the party will be able to rep up very fast indeed; once phase 4 is completed there are 18 dailies available for Shattered Sun rep (plus an extra 1 if you’re a miner, herbalist or skinner).

Phase 1: The Landing to The Sanctum

Major Phase Goal: Reclaiming the Sanctum (via The Sanctum Wards and Erratic Behavior)

Phase 1 starts in a small camp near the landing on Isle of Quel’Danas; there are two dailies here, working on reclaiming the Sun’s Reach Sanctum. These two quests are “The Sanctum Wards” and “Erratic Behavior” are described below. When these two quests reach their goal, the Sanctum is reclaimed.

In addition, phase 1 offers five more daily quests with no specific goal, three of which start in Shattrath: “Sunfury Attack Plans”, “The Multiphase Survey” and “Gaining the Advantage”; and two at the Throne of Kil’Jaeden: “Blood for Blood” and “Blast the Gateway”.

The Sanctum Wards
This quest is given by Theris Dawnhearth at the staging area on Quel’Danas. To complete it, kill Wretched Fiends and Wretched Devourers and gather 4 Mana Remnants from their corpses, then use (right-click) the Mana Remnants on a sanctum ward (the big red floating crystals with Wretched mobs around them). The mobs can be found all around the starting area on the island; don’t go down into Dawnstar Village, as it’s a different kind of enemy down there.

Reward: 9.1g and 150 SSO rep.
Replaced by: Arm the Wards!

Erratic Behavior
This quest is given by Vindicator Xayann at the staging area on Quel’Danas. She gives you a stack of modified golem control cores. Find and kill 5 Erratic Sentries; use the modified cores on each sentry’s corpse to reanimate it as a Converted Sentry. It’ll accept its new orders and run around happily. Two things to note: first, loot the sentries before you convert them, else you loseWeight Exercise the loot; second, it’s worth doing this at the same time as the Sanctum Wards as the mobs are in the same area, and these mobs are non-agro so once you’re done with the quest you can ignore them.

Reward: 9.1g and 150 SSO rep.
Replaced by: Further Conversions

Sunfury Attack Plans
This quest is given by Lord Torvos in Shattrath in the NE quadrant of the inner ring, nearish the flight point. The quest asks you to go to Netherstorm and get the Sunfury Attack Plans off blood elves there. Any Sunfury blood elf in Netherstorm has a chance to drop these plans; you may as well combine it with killing elves for any Aldor/Scryer quest you have, or farming for drops.

Reward: 10.1g, 250 rep, and Shattered Sun Supplies (a package with a random green and sometimes a Badge of Justice).

The Multiphase Survey
This quest is given by Harbinger Haronem in the inner ring in Shattrath. He gives you a pair of Multiphase Spectrographic Goggles and sends you to the Spirit Fields around Oshu’gun in Nagrand. (They’re the areas around Oshu’gun, with the large symbols on the ground.)

The goggles let you detect “red Multiphase Disturbances” passively, and have a Use effect to take a Multiphase disturbance reading. The detection effect only works in Nagrand, so don’t put the goggles on until you’re in Nagrand or you won’t get the detection buff at all (and will get very confused flying around looking for red things you can’t see).

Red Multiphase Disturbance

With the goggles on you’ll see the red glowy light patches; just get near one, right-click your goggles (it will dismount you, so don’t be too high up), and repeat six times with new red patches. (A reading will disperse any given Disturbance, but others in your group also get credit for it.)

Reward: 10.1g, 250 rep, and Shattered Sun Supplies

Gaining the Advantage
This is a gathering quest that requires you to have herbalism, mining or skinning to even pick up the quest; it’s given by a quest giver next to Lord Torvos (near the Shattrath flight master). While you have it, mining any ore, gathering any herb, or skinning any skinnable creature in Outland has a chance to drop Nether Residue as well as the usual product. Hand in 8 Nether Residues for the quest reward. I suspect this one’s worth just keeping in your logs, gathering as normal, and handing in every time you get 8 Residues – rather than actively trying to ‘farm’ for the Residues every day. Unless you’re a gatherer extraordinaire, anyway.

Reward: 16.39 gold, 250 SSO rep and 1 Major Rejuvenation Potion.

Getting to the Last Two Dailies
First up, you have to complete the Missing Magistrix quest, where you search fruitlessly around Quel’Danas until you finally find the teleporter you need in a hidden corner. (It’s at 48,45.) Use the scroll at the teleporter and you’ll be teleported to the Throne of Kil’Jaeden in Hellfire Peninsula, where you complete Missing Magistrix and she gives you two more dailies to do. (Oh, and there’s no portal back to Quel’Danas from there, so plan your questing carefully.) Note that this portal-to-the-area only works for your first run through the quests; on future days you’ll have to get there yourself.

The two new dailies are both completed at the Throne of Kil’Jaeden; be careful not to agro Kazzak if he’s up.

Blood for Blood
Kill 4 Wrath Heralds for their blood, which isa 100% droprate, and this blood empowers the quest item you were given, the Fel Siphon. You use the Siphon on elite Felblood Initiates to turn them into Emaciated Felbloods, who you then kill. 4 Emaciated Felblood kills, and you’re done. The big problem is that the Felblood Initiates are few and far between so you will be waiting a long time for your four kills unless people on your server are smart about grouping up. Note that on busy servers, while the dailies are popular, respawns aren’t a problem at all.

Reward: 11.19g, 250 rep and 5 Marks of Sargeras or 5 Sunfury Signets.

Blast the Gateway
You’re given a Sizzling Ember quest item, which you use to summon a Living Flare minion that follows you around. Kill Incandescent Fel Sparks (fel fire elementals, basically) to empower your Living Flare; once your flare becomes an Unstable Living Flare (about 6 Spark kills, i think), run it back to the teleporter to blow it up. The trick to this quest is: your flare can be empowered by being near any Incandescent Fel Spark when it dies, regardless of whether it’s tagged by you or someone else. I suspect that grouping would make this quest trivial; otherwise, try and stay near other people when you’re all killing your own Sparks, even if you’re not grouped, and you’ll still get the shared benefit.

Reward: 10.1g, 250 rep, Shattered Sun Supplies.

Phase 2: The Sanctum to The Armory

Major Phase Goal: Reclaiming the Armory (via Distraction at the Dead Scar and The Battle for Sun’s Reach Armory)
Minor Phase Goal: Opening a portal from Shattrath to the Isle (via Intercepting the Mana Cells)

So, once your realm has collectively done enough of the first Quel’Danas dailies to retake the Sun’s Reach Sanctum, it becomes a ‘friendly’ building with SSO NPCs inside, and you can go there to find two new daily quests. These are quests that contribute to opening up the Sun’s Reach Armory. It also opens up a daily quest to activate a portal in Shattrath that goes to Quel’Danas, and once that’s been activated there’s another daily to get a Quel’Danas -> Shattrath port.

The Bombing Run
This quest is called Distraction at the Dead Scar. You speak to Ayren Cloudbreaker (the flightmaster at your original landing-point), and he sends you off on a bombing run – you fly through the village, down the eastern side of the Isle, then you do a couple of circuits of the Dead Scar, then back up the other side to home base again. The part at the Dead Scar is the relevant bit; you’re given Arcane Charges, and you have to use those to kill demons in the Dead Scar: 2 Pit Overlords (big green guys with tails, like Magtheridon), 3 Eredar Sorcerors and 12 Wrath Enforcers. It’s just like the original bombing dailies in Hellfire Peninsula, really; you fly on an auto-controlled dragonhawk rather than your own mount.

This quest was originally an absolute pain to do, because quest credit often wasn’t assigned properly, and the tougher mobs took several bombs to kill. It’s now been nerfed: all mobs require a single bomb, except the Overlords which take two. It’s very easy to solo this quest with a single pass now, even if you have competition on the run.

Reward: 9.1g and 150 rep.
Replaced by: The Air Strikes Must Continue

If you’re interested in seeing this bombing run in progress, check out this post with a video.

The Battle for Sun’s Reach Armory
This one’s easy; you kill six demons down in the Dawning Square and plant your banner on the body of the Emissary of Hate. (Note that you can get credit for bannering an Emissary corpse killed by someone else, and he can be bannered by anyone until he despawns.) Respawn times are hellishly fast, so get out of the area as soon as you’ve killed your six.

Reward: 10.1g and 250 rep.
Replaced by: The Battle Must Go On

Intercepting the Mana Cells
This quest opens a portal to Quel’Danas from Shattrath. The original quest comes from an NPC in the Sanctum, but the daily questgiver, Exarch Nasuun, is in the Terrace of Light in Shattrath. He asks you to go to Blade’s Edge and gather 10 Smuggled Mana Cells from the ethereals at Bashir’s Landing – but the mana cells are hidden out of phase.

To complete this quest, fly up to Bash’ir’s Landing in Blade’s Edge Mountains, and kill the ethereal NPCs there until one of them drops a Bash’ir Phasing Device. You only need one for your entire party; one person uses it and the whole party (and pets) drop ‘out of phase’ as long as you remain in the area. It affects all party members and pets within 100 yards of the person who activated the device; if you get more than 100 yards away, you’ll suddenly drop back into the ‘real world’ (and probably get beaten up by ethereals you couldn’t see until then). Just run back towards the party until you get back in range of the party member, and you’ll drop back out of phase. The ‘out of phase’ state remains until you leave Bash’ir’s Landing.

Once you have used the Phasing Device, the world goes flickery and grey. The effect can be very disconcerting – the screen goes black-and-white, and kind of wobbly – mages with Invis will recognise the effect, as will draenei who did the level 10 totem quest. For those of you who haven’t seen the effect, it looks much like this:

Phased-out in Bash'ir's Landing

While you’re phased, you’ll be able to see the mana cells that have been hidden until now. Run around, loot them, dodge or kill the phase wyrms (which have very large agro radii, it seems). The mana cells look much like the image on the right.

Reward: 10.1g, 250 rep and a Shattered Sun Supplies package.
Replaced by: Maintaining the Sunwell Portal

Once the portal has been opened, the following daily becomes available:

Know Your Ley Lines
Given by Astromancer Darnarian in the Sun’s Reach Sanctum, this quest opens up once the Shatt->Quel’Danas portal is activated. He sends you to take ley line readings at three points on the island; the reward is a scroll that will teleport you back to Shattrath.

Know Your LeylinesYou can see the ley line points in the map to the right. The three locations are:

  • Bloodcrystal: top left dot on the map; look for a very large floating red crystal (surrounded by smaller ones).
  • Dawning Square portal: this is the same location as the Emissary of Hate (for the Battle for Sun’s Reach Armory daily quest); look for the large wispy green wall.
  • Naga shrine: head over to the coast and dodge lots of nagas; look for a cupola (like the ones in Zangarmarsh) with an Azsharan statuette in it near the southernmost stretch of the Greengill coast area.

It’s fairly easy; you can do it without having to kill a single mob, particularly if your server is crowded or you do it at busy times. Also note that this quest ‘stacks’ nicely with a number of the quests from Phases 2, 3 and 4 (see below) – the Bloodcrystal is surrounded by mobs that will give quest credits for the Taking the Harbor quest, the Dawning Square portal is the same location where you fight mobs for The Battle For Sun’s Reach Armory/The Battle Must Go On, and the Naga shrine is surrounded by mobs for Making Ready/Don’t Stop Now and Disrupt the Greengill Coast/Open For Business.

Reward: 11.99g, 250 rep, and Darnarian’s Scroll of Teleportation, a unique single-use scroll that will teleport you from the Isle of Quel’Danas back to Shattrath.

Phase 3: The Armory to The Harbor

Major Phase Goal: Reclaiming the Harbor (via Taking the Harbor and Intercept the Reinforcements)
Minor Phase Goal: Building the Anvil to allow NPC to sell badge gear and repair (via Making Ready)

Once the Armory is reclaimed, a number of new quests open up on the Isle.

The Other Bombing Run
This quest, aka Intercept the Reinforcements is the easiest bombing run of the lot. You hop on a dragonhawk (from Ayren Cloudbreaker again) which flies you out into the bay and you ‘bomb’ the sails of the three blood elf ships out there. (Just aim the bomb circle at the sails themselves.) Then the dragonhawk lands, you kill six Dawnblade Reservists, and then you mount back up on the dragonhawk (which kindly stuck around for you) and fly back. The Reservists are easy kills, and drop Sunfury Signets. If you find the main boat is too crowded, you can swim to the left or right boats and kill mobs there instead.

Reward: 7.59g, 250 rep.
Replaced by: Keeping the Enemy at Bay

Taking the Harbor
A straightforward kill quest; kill 6 Dawnblade Summoners, 6 Dawnblade Blood Knights and 3 Dawnblade Marksmen. The Summoners are warlocks (with an imp pet), the Blood Knights are paladins, and the Marksmen are archers. You can find the mobs all around the harbor building, plus scattered throughout the Dawnstar Village (eg around the Bloodcrystal).

Reward: 11.99g, 250 rep.
Replaced by: Crush the Dawnblade

Making Ready
This is probably going to be the most popular quest on your server, as it’s given by Smith Hauthaa (at the back of the Armory) and unlocks her as a badge vendor and repairer.

She asks you to get three pieces of Darkspine Ore for her. To get this, head out to the Greengill Coast on the eastern side of the Isle, and kill Darkspine Myrmidons for their keys. Note that the Sirens do not carry keys! Use a key on one of the chests lying around on the ground to unlock it and retrieve the ore therein. You can collect all three keys before opening the chests if you want; also, remember they go into your keyring, not your bag.

Also note that you can pick up extra keys, but they don’t stick around – you loseWeight Exercise them either when you hand the quest in, or when you log. So don’t bother farming for extras; it’s just wasted effort.

Reward: 11.99g, 150 rep.
Replaced by: Don’t Stop Now

Ata’mal Armaments
This only becomes available once the Anvil has been built via Making Ready. Smith Hauthaa will send you to gather Ata’mal Armaments from orcs in Shadowmoon Valley on the Ata’mal terraces near Black Temple. Get five armaments, come back, and use them on her anvil to create the cleansed items she wants you to hand in.

My preferred kill spot is around 70,40. The mobs are pretty easy to kill – there are Chosen, Slayers (which usually come in pairs) and Darkweavers; all can drop Armaments, although I personally have had best luck with the Slayers. Watch out for the patrolling elite Drakonids, though.

Reward: 18.28g, 350 rep, and Blessed Weapon Coating or Righteous Weapon Coating.

Phase 4: The Memorial and The Alchemy Lab

Major Phase Goal: Build the Alchemy Lab (via Discovering your Roots)
Minor Phase Goal: Build the Memorial (via A Charitable Donation)

This phase opens up when the Harbor has been captured (ie when Intercept the Reinforcements and Taking the Harbor have been repeated up to the 100% mark). The Harbor now counts as an inn (complete with Innkeeper and mailbox) and the following new dailies become available:

Discovering Your Roots
This quest works towards the goal of opening up the Alchemy Lab. Go to Razorthorn Rise – it’s on the border of Terokkar Forest and Hellfire Peninsula, and kill Razorthorn Flayers until you get a gland drop. Use the gland on a Razorthorn Ravager (which you can find in the area covered by a brambly, thorny “roof”) and it becomes your pet – you’ll get a pet bar on your screen, so make sure your UI doesn’t have that disabled if you use custom bar mods. Run around to the dirt mounds and hit the button on your pet bar that triggers your ravager to dig through the mound. The mound will despawn, and a root will appear, lootable by anyone in your party. Get five roots, and go hand them in. Simple!

Tips: Make sure you’re not trying to use the gland on one of the bugged ravagers (which stand around evading). The ‘charm’ doesn’t wear off until you leave the area, so you only need one gland; extra glands disappear when you turn in the quest.

Reward: 9.1g, 350 rep, Shattered Sun Supplies.
Replaced by: Rediscovering Your Roots

Disrupt the Greengill Coast
Go to the Greengill Coast and kill Darkspine Sirens for Orbs of Murloc Control. Use the Orb to free 10 murloc slaves. (Note: works nicely with Know Your Ley Lines and Don’t Stop Now.) When you use the Orb, try and get as many murloc slaves in the area of effect as possible – you should be able to get 2 minimum, sometimes as many as 4 if you time it right. Note that Orbs will continue dropping on Siren kills until you hand the quest in, even after you’ve freed all ten slaves.

Reward: 11.99g, 250 rep.

A Charitable Donation
Donate 10g to help build a memorial monument. This is the ‘minor’ goal of this phase (comparable to the Portal in phase 2 and the Anvil in phase 3). Note that this goes by really quickly – my server (Proudmoore, the first to complete the monument) was completing 1-2% of the quest per minute. Also, note this quest is not available to people with Exalted reputation.

Reward: 150 rep.
Replaced by: Your Continued Support

Open For Business
This quest only becomes available when the alchemy lab has been unlocked. Gather 5 Bloodberries from around the Isle (they come off bushes that look like the Mana Berry bushes for the relevant cooking daily) and hand them in to Mar’nah in the Harbor building.

Reward: 11.99g, 250 rep, Bloodberry Elixir

Game Info

Holy Shock Again

5 Comments

I just noticed on the PTR that the new Holy Shock:

a) costs 650 mana (up from 435, a ~33% increase), so that’s a big cost increase and makes Holy Shock much more of an “emergency stopgap” heal than a viable part of a healing rotation. This is also going to make life more mana-intensive for shockadins, unfortunately. Blizzard giveth and Blizzard taketh away.

b) is currently bugged and doesn’t consume Divine Favor when DF’s activated – you get a constant string of crit Holy Shocks until you cast FoL or HL to use up the DF charge. I assume that will be fixed before it goes live, though.

Game Info

Nethers as BoE Drops

6 Comments

Primal Nethers and Nether Vortexes are currently Bind on Equip on the PTR, instead of BoP (confirmation here), and this has sparked quite a lot of discussion; I just watched a debate scroll past in guildchat while in an instance.

To be honest, I like the change; it’s something I’ve been hoping for for a while. It puts the onus to get the nether on the person who wants something crafted. I realise it may affect people who’ve made a lot of money from crafting and charging a premium for their nethers, but there are other ways of making money.

Two things I’ve found problematic about nethers being BoP:

  1. guild crafters are expected to provide nethers for guildmembers who want things crafted, regardless of whether the nether (which has usually been ‘earnt’ on a guild run) is going to a cause that benefits the guild or not.
  2. it becomes hard to allocate BoP crafting patterns if they’re for recipes that require nethers; you have to try and assign the patterns to people who are reliably going to have access to nethers, without offending the crafters who don’t make the effort to do heroics.

This change cuts through all that: you provide the mats, the crafter makes it for you. If you don’t put the work in to get the nether, you don’t get the item made. The crafter is under no pressure to provide a nether, either. And, finally, if you want nether-requiring gear on your alts you can now go and instance for the nethers on your main, without having to take a badly-geared alt into a heroic and drag the group down.

Game Info

Buff: Holy Shock

4 Comments

And another great healadin change from the 2.4 PTR! WoWInsider is reporting that Holy Shock has had a buff to its effects

Holy Shock
Old version: Blasts the target with Holy energy, causing 530 to 574 Holy damage to an enemy, or 530 to 574 healing to an ally.
New version: Blasts the target with Holy energy, causing 721 to 779 Holy damage to an enemy, or 931 to 987 healing to an ally.

In my current healing set (with 1930 +heal) my Holy Shock currently heals for ~1370; after the patch it’s going to be around 1770 healing, which is better than my Flash of Light. Flash of Light takes 1.5 seconds; Holy Shock is instant but triggers the GCD. Flash of Light has no cooldown, Holy Shock has a 15 second cooldown. Flash of Light costs 180 mana, Holy Shock costs 435 mana.

Looking at the two spells, the obvious conclusion is that Flash of Light is still better overall; it’s a far better heal per mana output, and not far behind on pure healing output (and has no cooldown). However, Holy Shock is going to be decently viable as an instant “save someone from dying now” spell, which paladins have so far lacked, and the buff is going to make it a valuable – but not overpowered – part of the healadin arsenal. I won’t be weaving HSes in whenever the cooldown is up, but I will be using it to save lives.

Thumbs up.