WoW - Patch 6.0.3 Is Out!

Yep another patch.

There are a few class prolems solved and varous other things but mostly it seems to be the resolution of problems with the Iron Horde quest rewards ...

World Event: Iron Horde Incursion

• Characters that have completed the Iron Horde Incursion event can now visit a vendor near their faction's respective beachhead to purchase replacement quest rewards.
• Report to the King/Warning the Warchief: Characters with a healing specialization should now be able to select Ironmender's Totem as a quest reward.
• Thrall received a reminder that he is currently still on Azeroth.

WoW - The Chopper - Horde and Alliance

Last night I remembered to log on to my Hordey and check out the Chopper.

I did spend sometime wondering how to get hold of it; it wasn't in the mail. Did I have to go get it from a vendor?

Well, it turns out I already knew it?!? Had I logged on drunk and taken it out of the mail box?

I heard on The Instance Podcast the other day that the Alliance will have to spend 100,000 gold to get their version!

Turps said he definitely would as not many people would have it. I will too for that exact reason but judging by the look of the Horde version it won't be worth anywhere near that amount!

HOTS - First Real Game

Tonight the eldest lad insisted I show him Heroes of the Storm. To be honest I can't believe I haven't gone back on it myself.

So on we pop and there's another tutorial to do. We play through that and then we're ready to go.

I'm still not really sure what I am doing and am still doing the wrong mouse clicks for movement and attacks, but towards then end I'm doing it right more often than not!

The lad is really liking it and is asking why he can't have it on his account! Because you need to be invited to alpha!

Speaking of which, I had assumed that it was going to be the same as with WoD. Get invited to alpha but it is actually Beta which they haven't renamed yet.

Well, a week later it's still identifying itself as alpha. Not that you'd guess. This seems like a highly polished game and I'm loving running round as Jim Raynor killing Malfurion and Diablo!

Wondering now when the free play character rotation occurs.

WoW - Guild Heroic Garrosh Down

I popped on to WoW this afternoon and did a couple of bits and bobs. Boreas asked if I wanted to come along to Siege tonight.

Well, he used to ask me a lot, but I never made it along, so he stopped asking. I said I probably could a bit later, he said it was flex so that should be fine.

Well, after doing all my other bits and bobs, I logged on and proceeded to try and find my headphones - spent quite a while cursing about where they could have gone before finding them in the first place I looked!

Then when I got on I couldn't get them to work with Teamspeak. Finally I got to hear the crew and the game but could not speak. That will suffice.

So I got a summon to the Shaman (who I think had already been downed) and joined 11 of my guildies(well most of the were) and off we pop to Nazgrim and he dropped like a fly and a door opened up behind him. Ah! That's how you access the next stage. I've only ever done this on LFR so usually that is where the raid disbands!

So off to Malkorok we go and he goes down and I get Malkorok's Tainted Dog Tags to replace Cloudstrike Pendant. Heroic Warforged no less!

Oops! At this iLevel I should change my loot specialisation to Holy, which Boreas reminds me of!

Wowhead says this is no longer available in game. I don't know what that is all about!

So we're in Heroic, which is the old Normal. I thought we were in Normal which is the old flex (hence the flexible raid size). So Heroics are now flexible too?

Everyone else is moaning about no loot drops. At least I have something!

So, now it is off to the Spoils and again a nice easy fight over before we realise it!

Next up is Thok and he gives us our first sign of trouble. We wipe at 0% when a tank and a healer have got him down the last few % - painful!

It was a pretty scrappy attempt so we were lucky to get that far. Attempt 2 goes a lot better, I even get targeted and manage not to drag him through the raid!

So then it's on to seigecrafter for another 2 shot.

Paragons next and this was nice an easy, which is good because I hate this fight and then on to Garrosh.

I can't remember how many attempts we had on Garrosh. Only 3 I think. We did the stack on the tank tactic in phase 1 even though I instinctively ran to Green on the first defiled weapon (whatever it's called!).

We didn't spend too long and he dropped quite soon. It was at this point that I realised why Boreas had made sure we had out loot specs sorted. This was the guilds first go at the Heroic* Garrosh where it qualified as a guild achievement so we got a lovely heirloom mace:

 

 Yep, that'll replace my Kardris' Scepter!

Everyone had being saying how ridiculously easy this was, i can't wait to give it another go!

* the old normal

WoW - Order of the Cloud Serpent

So tonight, 2 days later, I hit exalted with the cloud serpent dudes.

Riding on my Onyx Cloud Serpent :)

HOTS: What The Actual F**K?

I seem to be able to play Heroes of the Storm. On night 2 of WoW patch 6.0.2 are you taking the actual piss? I have anglers dailies to do ffs!

Oh, didn't I tell you? That only took a few minutes to download. It's now ready to play!

Latest Paladin Patch Notes

Paladin (Updated)
 
Ability Pruning

See the Ability Pruning section above for discussion of why we’re pruning class abilities. For Paladins, the pruning focused on removing niche abilities, and trimming cooldowns.

•     Avenging Wrath is no longer available to Protection Paladins.
•     Divine Favor has been removed.
•     Divine Plea has been removed. Mana costs for Paladins have been adjusted accordingly.
•     Guardian of Ancient Kings is now only available to Protection Paladins.
•     Hand of Salvation is now only available to Protection Paladins.
•     Holy Light has been removed.
•     Inquisition has been removed.
•     Seal of Righteousness is no longer available to Holy Paladins.
•     Seal of Truth is no longer available to Holy Paladins.

    

Ability Consolidation and Refinement

There were a few mergers of passive abilities, and some tweaks to a couple of abilities.

•     Divine Light has been renamed Holy Light.
•     Divine Protection now lasts 8 seconds (down from 10 seconds).
•     Guardian of Ancient Kings now lasts 8 seconds (down from 12 seconds).
•     Daybreak now heals all allies within 10 yards for 15% of Holy Shock's healing (instead of 75%, split between each ally).
•     Grand Crusader now triggers from any avoidance, not just dodge and parry.
•     Hand of Sacrifice is now off global-cooldown.
•     Judgment is now naturally free for Holy Paladins, and naturally generates 1 Holy Power for Protection and Retribution Paladins.

               -  Judgments of the Bold has been removed.

•     Redemption’s mana cost has been reduced by 95%.
•     Selfless Healer no longer causes Bastion of Glory to apply to Flash of Light. For Holy Paladins, it now increases the healing of Flash of Light on others by 35% per stack (up from 20%). For Retribution and Protection Paladins, the effect on Flash of Light remains unchanged.
•     Sword of Light now increases damage by 25% (down from 30%).
•     The Art of War’s effects have been merged into baseline Exorcism.

    

Holy Changes

We made several changes for Holy, to go along with other larger system changes to compensate for the removal of Guardian of Ancient Kings from Holy, and merged its benefits into Divine Favor. In order to follow through on our change to merge all types of Haste %, we removed the Spell Haste % from Seal of Insight to a Holy-only passive, so that it didn't also increase Protection's baseline Haste by 10%. Our changes to healer mana and mobility also indirectly increased the value of Selfless Healer by a large amount, so we brought it back down to be even in power with the other talents on its row. We also raised the range of Denounce to be consistent with other spells. Lastly, we adjusted the critical strike chance of Holy Shock, to increase the value of Critical Strike for Holy Paladins.

•     Avenging Wrath now also increases all of the Paladin’s healing by 20% for its duration.
•     Beacon of Light now has a small Mana cost.
•     Denounce's range has increased to 40 yards (up from 30 yards).
•     Holy Shock now has twice the normal chance to critically strike (instead of having an additional 25% chance to critically strike).
•     Infusion of Light now also passively increases Haste by 10%.
•     Seal of Insight no longer increases spell Haste by 10%.
•     Selfless Healer for Holy no longer causes Judgment to grant Holy Power. It also is only usable on Flash of Light, no longer on Holy Light or Holy Radiance.
•     Tower of Radiance’s effects have been changed and merged into baseline Beacon of Light.
•       - Tower of Radiance now causes Flash of Light and Holy Light on a Beacon of Light target to refund 40% of the spell’s Mana cost instead of generating 1 Holy Power.

        

Protection Changes

For Protection, we tweaked Eternal Flame in order to reduce its massive self-healing amount, and provide better balance between talents on that row. We also added a new passive, Shining Protector, in order to give defensive value to the new Multistrike stat. Holy Wrath’s damage and cooldown were also increased, and Sanctified Wrath changed to buff it further, in order to give Protection Paladins more burst threat and damage, while retaining its core damage-splitting identity.

•     Mastery: Divine Bulwark now increases damage reduction from Shield of the Righteous by 6% (scaling with Mastery, down from starting at 8%), and causes Bastion of Glory to increase healing received from Word of Glory by 6% (scaling with Mastery, down from starting at 8%).
•     Bastion of Glory no longer affects the periodic healing of Eternal Flame. It still affects the direct healing portion of the ability.
•     Sanctuary now reduces damage taken by 10% (down from 15), and no longer increases Armor.
•     Guarded by the Light now increases Stamina by 15% (down from 25%), and increases block chance by 5% (down from 10%).
•     Shield of the Righteous now reduces physical damage taken by 20% (down from 25%).
•     Bastion of Glory now increases Word of Glory’s healing by 6% per stack (down from 10% per stack).
•     Shining Protector is a new passive ability for Protection Paladins.
•     Shining Protector: All heals you receive have a chance equal to your Multistrike chance to trigger Shining Protector, healing you for an additional 30% of the triggering heal.
•     Holy Wrath’s damage has been increased by 100%, and its cooldown increased to 15 seconds (up from 9 seconds).
•     Sanctified Wrath for Protection Paladins has been redesigned.
•     Sanctified Wrath (Protection) now increases the damage of Holy Wrath by 100% and causes it to generate 1 Holy Power.

        

Miscellaneous Changes

We made a few additional changes to Paladins. We revised the functionality of Hammer of the Righteous a bit, such that its performance is about the same, but its tooltip is much clearer. We also made Stay of Execution much more attractive to use as an emergency button. We also revised how Eternal Flame interacts with Holy Power, and allowed it to once again trigger Illuminated Healing. One big change for Retribution that isn't mentioned here is the removal of Inquisition (see Ability Pruning), which will have a notable effect on their rotation.

• Eternal Flame’s periodic healing effect has been changed. Its duration now scales with Holy Power, instead of its healing. Its effect at 3 Holy Power remains unchanged.
• Hammer of the Righteous now deals 50% Physical weapon damage (up from 15%) to the primary target, but the primary target is no longer hit with the Holy damage.
• Illuminated Healing can once again be triggered by Eternal Flame.
• Seals no longer cost any mana.
• Stay of Execution (the Holy version of Execution Sentence) now deals its healing in a large burst at first, and then decreasing over time (reversed from before).

WoW - Waiting for 6.0.2

So, last night I finished all the mad stuff before 6.0.2 hit. I was trying to level Runesprocket the warlock from 87 to 90 before the pre-expac patch hit so that he could start the legendary quest-line. Obviously that wasn't going to happen!

The Americans have already got 6.0.2 but we have to wait until tomorrow morning to get it. I suppose it's their turn! So what am I going to do?

Well, it's time to restart those rep grinds.

Ooo, I haven't finished the Cloud Serpents. So I pop over to Jade Forest and pick up the quests. After a quick relog over to the banker to pick up some mats for bandages and cooking I am soon on the  dailies and knock them all out in about 20 minutes.

After loooking at how much more rep is needed it looks like I stopped doing these dailies 3 days away from exalted! DOH!

Whilst fishing up the minnows needed for one of the dailies I also got this ...

No back over to Halfhil to grind some more Lotus and Celestials before going to do bugland!

WoW - The Raid Browser and Ordos

Tonight I booted up the raid browser and queued up to do an Ordos fight.I didn't even realise this was here or how useful it is until finishing off the Wrathion quests on Timeless Isle!

So I signed up as a healer and was almost instantly in an Ordos raid.

I admitted that I was a newbie and someone gave me a few pointers - Stay out of the bad. Keep away from people with bad.

We took 2 attempts to get him down but down he went and I got ...

 ...a prot/ret helmet as I had left my loot specialisation on protection! DOH!

Never mind, it'll be good for levelling in Warlords of Destruction!

(Again, 6.0.2 stats as I forgot to get a screenhsot when it dropped!)

WoW - Wrathion? You Mad Bro? Judgement of the Black Prince

To finish the Chapter V achievement after getting your legendary cloak you need to go fight Garrosh. Even if you have beaten him before.

So I joined up with LFR and got into a raid just starting. Great I'll ave to do the whole thing! Well it didn't go too bad until the Garrosh fight itself.

It's been a while since I've done Garrosh and apparently the tactic is now to stand on the tank and just soak the defiles (or whatever they're called here!) during phase 1 and only swap between the two other spots in phase 2.

Well we started with a couple of stupid wipes before actually getting to phase 2 and then another wipe when the room filled with empowered blahblahs.

Eventually we got him down on about attempt 4 or 5 with a very scatty fight. A kill is a kill though! So back to the Inn to see Wrathion again.

Looks like he isn't very happy ...

Wrathion says: Idiot king!
Wrathion says: Fools! Imbeciles!
Wrathion says: A complete waste!
Wrathion says: You were there! Is it true then? What happened in Orgrimmar?
Wrathion says: That fool king!!
Wrathion says: I did everything in my power. The whole world was his, he needed only seize it!
Wrathion says: Oh sure, another year of fighting. Enormous casualties trying to take Thunder Bluff. But the rest of the Horde would've caved, eventually.
Wrathion says: TONG! DRINK! NOW!
Wrathion says: What? Yes, I was backing the Alliance.
Wrathion says: I thought Hellscream's victory was assured before he turned half of his Horde against him. So I changed my allegiance.
Wrathion says: Oh, don't look so surprised! I'm a black dragon. My loyalties are my own.
Wrathion says: But that idiot, IDIOT Wrynn! "High King" indeed!
Wrathion says: Why did he allow another warchief? He could've united the world under the Alliance banner. What a fool I was to trust his ambition!
Wrathion says: Should've taken over the throne room myself. Like Auntie Onyxia. Get things DONE.
Tong the Fixer says: Enough!!
Wrathion says: Uhh... wha?
Tong the Fixer says: Talk! Talk! Talk!
Tong the Fixer says: Always you speak. Never do you listen! You ignore the lessons of Pandaria!
Tong the Fixer says: You see, there is balance in all things. Wisdom etched in our very fur: Black and white. Darkness and light.

Tong the Fixer says: When the last emperor hid our land from the rest of the world, he also preserved the homeland of our ancient enemy, the mantid. Why did he do this?

Tong the Fixer says: He did so to keep the land whole. Living with the mantid for ten thousand years has made us both STRONG.

Tong the Fixer says: So it is with your Alliance and your Horde. They are not strong despite one another; they are strong BECAUSE of one another.

Tong the Fixer says: You mistake your greatest strength for weakness. Do you see this?

Wrathion says: ...you ...you're just a WAITER!

Wrathion says: I promise you this: I will stop at nothing to prepare this world for the battle to come.

Wrathion says: Next time, I will leave nothing to chance.

Wrathion says: NOTHING!

Tong the Fixer says: ...He destroyed my inn. He left no tip. He is not nice.

Wrathion's agents whisper quietly to one another.

The End is Nigh ...

So tonight I finally logged back on and went to Timeless Isle and handed in "A Timeless Discovery" and then picked up "Secrets of the Timeless Isle" and then handed it straight in! Then some twats trained some Blazebound and Flamecore elites straight to the quest giver area and killed me! Thanks kk!

Then I picked up "The Emperors Way" and joined the raid browser with /rb

Within a few minutes I was transported to another realm (eek Scary!) and into a Yu'lon fight and then straight into a Niuza fight afterwards. Then people left and I was left standing there with only a few people in the raid.

Then the horde attacked. I tagged Chi'Ji and then died a few times, including to a horde attack. I didn't know if I got credit for it and then I sat there trying to find the Celestial Challenge achievement in my achievement pane.

Then Xuen got pulled and I tapped him and he died and I got the achievement! Woot!

So back to Wrathion and all the dudes start talking to me ...

Wrathion says: Champion... you've done it...
Wrathion says: Few mortals possess such spirit, such power. Believe me - I have tested many!
Lorewalker Cho says: A legend is born!
Anduin Wrynn says: This is history in the making...
Kairoz says: ...Interesting.
Xuen says: Hero, you are an inspiration!
Chi-Ji says: I knew you were destined for greatness.
Niuzao says: Not bad.
Yu'lon says: The pandaren will sing your praises for ages to come.
Wrathion says: To complete our great work, we will need a sacred place.
Wrathion says: Travel to the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, and meet me at the Seat of Knowledge.

Once back at the seat of knowledge I let Wrathion tell my story and then handed in "A Pandaren legend" which rewarded me with Timeless Essence of the Black Dragonflight - use it on your cloak to make it ORANGE!

Then you can take the quest "Judgement of the Black Prince" which requires you to complete the Siege of Orgrimmar raid and kill Garrosh.

It doesn't matter if you have already killed him. You need to do it again!

I had heard that it takes 10,000 gold to get a new cloak and loads more to upgrade it. Well it cost me 7,000 gold and 87 gold for the upgrade to get my retribution version.

Beware, if you have 2 epic cloaks in your bag and use the timeless essence it only gets applied to the first cloak in your bag(the lowest slot number) not the first cloak you acquired..

Patch 6.0.2

October 15th Baby!

WoW - Legendary Quest Luke - Darth Vader Rip Off!

I logged on tonight. Dumped a load of crap out of my bags and then bought up the mercenary contracts from Lion's Landing that a comment on Wowhead had suggested would help, then it was off to the Red Crane's Tai Chi Lapsang Souchong Temple to have another go at the Wrathion-Deathwing fight.

Wrathion, I am your father!

So, I pop the spectral brews and get my 3 minions rolling for 10 minutes then I try and pop the contracts. Uhuh! You have to be in Lions Landing!! WTF???

OK, F**k you - I'll do it without you.

BONG!! Not! You are in the wrong spec ... tick tock tick tock, buffs ticking down whilst I drink mana juice.

BONG!

Wrathion says: I'm a black dragon. I won't need any help.
Chi-Ji says: Are you certain? You are filled with doubts and fears, young Prince.
Chi-Ji says: You have not fully reconciled with your past. Now is the time.
Wrathion says: What - wait - father!?
Wrathion says: Please - don't make me do this.

Wrathion dead. WTF?

... and again ... and again ...

Check gear ... OH FFS I am in Ret gear no wonder my heals aren't very good!

Please tell me I wasn't in ret gear when I was trying before, I must have switched to ret to farm the brews ... must I? Please tell me I didn't just spend days pointlessly grinding those brews!

OK, lets try again ...

... 2 minutes later Deathwing is dead and I have bags full of pointless contracts and brews!

Right, off to Mason's Folly - NOT the Inn to hand in and get my epic cape!

Wrathion says: Welcome back, champion!
Wrathion says: Excellent work with the celestials. Can you believe how chatty they were?
Wrathion says: I just wanted them to hand us our reward, but they were just, "talk talk talk talk talk."
Wrathion says: I'm sorry - where were we? Oh yes! I have something for you:
Wrathion says: The very spirits of Pandaria are supporting us in our grand crusade! Behold:
Wrathion says: The strength of the White Tiger.
Wrathion says: The wisdom of the Jade Serpent.
Wrathion says: The fortitude of the Black Ox.
Wrathion says: And from the Red Crane, a shining beacon of hope for a better world!
Wrathion says: Our world.
Wrathion says: There! It is ready.

talk talk talk - LOL!

Sod the talking, I haz item level 600 Cranewing Cloak!

So back to the Inn and Wrathion is now on his own, Anduin has buggered off and Wrathion want you to go to the Timeless Isle. Well that's enough for now.

to be continued ...


*Update: added cranewing cloak image (with patch 6.0.2 stats)

WoW - Legendary Grind Line on the Timeless Isle

Finally, after nights and nights of grinding those stupid spectral pandas on the Timeless Isle I have several of each type of Pi'iju (sic!) Brew.

I then flew MM over to the alliance fort in Krasarang to pick up the mercenary orders and realised I needed lots more bag space!

As it's approaching midnight I've decided it's probably not the best time to be dumping stuff out of my bags so I'll do that tomorrow and then head off and hopefully take out DW!

As a bonus I picked up all 50 of the epoch stones I needed for a quest and have many more timeless coins than I'll need. Yes, I only did a couple of days on the Timeless Isle when it first came out!

Really should farm more epix!

A Timeless Achievement

Last night as I was grinding crap for the legendary quest-line I got an achievement ding. It was for an achievement that I started just after the Timeless Isle became available. I thought I'd even achieved it. Obviously not!

WoW - The Next Stage of the Legendary Questline - Celestial Blessings

Wednesday has finally come round and I got to go and grab my last Runestone. I dropped into Halls of Flesh Shaping first, just in-case the RNG was not in my favour, and it wasn't. ZERO runestones.

So next I went into Vale of Eternal Shadows and luckily dropped straight into the Sha of Pride and a quick one shot there (with a death for me!) and I had the Runestone and didn't need to abandon group!

So a quick trip back to Wrathion and picked up the quest for the Heart and into the Pinnacle of Storms. Unfortunately this group was right at the start so I had to do all 3 bosses! But do them I did!

Back to Wrathion and now I have to go talk to the dudes in the temples before doing the Red Crane Challenge.

So first off I went and picked up the Celestial Offering which gives you a nice buff even if it's in your bank. (unless you're a Hunter apparently!)

Then I went over to Jade Forest and spoke to Wrathion outside the temple who took me on a cutscene adventure to get to the dude inside.

Then I headed over to Kun Lai and Townlong to get the 'speaking to the dude' credit before heading to Krasarang Wilds for the Healer challenge.

This I sucked at and failed about 5 times before deciding it's bed time.

There are two things that should make it easier.

1. The Healer trial being in Krasurang allows you to pick up a full complement of buffs by using the Mercenary Contracts available from Proveditor Grantley or Ongrom Black Tooth for 10 Commendations which makes things a bit easier. Only downside is you have to fly halfway across the map to rebuff if you fail.*

2. You can also now use  Misty Pi'jiu Brew  Thick Pi'jiu Brew &  Bubbling Pi'jiu Brew from Timeless Isle in any of the trials as well for yet another boost.**

I'll also look up strats before trying again tomorrow.


* Cut and pasted from Wowhead comments
** also ripped off from Wowhead.