Blizzard announces plans to release FACTION CHANGES

Quote from Nethaera:

''We wanted to give everyone a very early heads-up that, in response to player requests, we?re developing a new service for World of Warcraft that will allow players to change their faction from Alliance to Horde or Horde to Alliance. There?s still much work to do and many details to iron out, but the basic idea is that players will be able to use the service to transform an existing character into a roughly equivalent character of the opposing faction on the same realm. Players who ended up creating and leveling up characters on the opposite factions from their friends have been asking for this type of functionality for some time, and we?re pleased to be getting closer to being able to deliver it.

As with all of the features and services we offer, we intend to incorporate the faction-change service in a way that won?t disrupt the gameplay experience on the realms, and there will be some rules involved with when and how the service can be used. The number of variables involved increases the complexity of implementing this service, but we plan to take the time needed to ensure that it lives up to expectations before officially rolling it out. We?ll go into much more detail on all of this here at http://www.WorldofWarcraft.com as development progresses. In the meantime, we wanted to let you know that because this type of functionality requires extensive internal testing well in advance of release, you may be seeing bits and pieces of the service in the test builds we use for the public test realms moving forward.''

Wow. Just, wow. That is massive. Does this mean they’ll also allow race changes of the same faction? E.g. If I rolled a Troll priest and I decide I want an Undead priest instead?

Thinking about some of the outcry from racials in arena, I can see this being pretty interesting, depending on the cooldown.

Pretty much speechless at this point.

Your guide to healing Ulduar (Healer, Holy Paladin POV)

I will start posting this strats for paladins only, as i am not familiar with other that shamans and paladins healing.

The original post was from Ferrero blogspot, which she stopped posting, and i took her format and way of explaining things, and started doing it on my own.


Your Guide to Healing Ulduar: Kologran



Positioning: 9 ► Healing Intensity: 7 ► MT/OT Damage: 9/4/6 ► Raid Damage: 6

Difficulty: Moderate



This fight is a little bit hard for Paladins since it requires alot of changing positions due to people getting hit with his mighty eye beam (BEW BEW).

MT: Target and attack the main body. He will do an Overhead Smash on you, reducing armor by 25%. He casts it about every 15 seconds and it can be dodged/parried.

OT: Back up the MT and taunt off if they get 2 stacks of Crunch Armor until their stacks fade. Tank the 5 rubble that spawn when the Arms die.

DPS: Kill Kologarn's Right Arm. Kill the Rubble that spawns after it dies. Then DPS the body until the Right Arm respawns. Repeat by killing Kologarn's Right Arm again. After the Right Arm dies 3 times, you may consider killing the Left Arm to help finish off Kologarn if it's low from AoE. Note that his Arms' hit-boxes are centered around his main body. Example: you can be facing the body with the Right Arm behind you and still hit his the Right Arm, but if you stand with the body to your back or side and face the arm, you will have trouble attacking it.

Healers: Heal Kologarn's tank at all times. Heal the person who is gripped by the Right Arm (when you hear "I will squeeze the life from you"). Heal the raid from Shockwave damage (when you hear "Oblivion"). Heal the tank who is picking up the pack of 5 rubble (when you hear "Just a flesh wound" or "Only a scratch").


RECAP:
1.) Keep the MT and the OT topped off (beacon of light is very helpful for both of them), keep your eyes on raid warnings for the people getting squished in his arms.;
2.) Run out of the big, bad, eye beams.
3.) Spread out.
4.) Rinse and repeat.

3.2 And me

3.2 news was all over the Paladin blogging world, a lot of people were saying that it’s bringing a big nerf to us; some of them said it’s a huge buff.
I have to disagree with both, I don’t see us getting nerfed at all, yes Illumination will get nerfed big time, but we are going to have more MP5.
Now I know that Paladins say to MP5 to go kill itself, since we depend on our crits to get mana back, stacking int for Divine plea, that’s true, but its something that most of you people need to think about for a little bit of time, we brought this to ourselves, more like forum trolls brought it to us, but we believed them, we stacked int too much, therefore we had an insane amount of mana pool (I saw one guy on Darkspeer-EU with 32k mana)
That’s too much even for holy light spamming for half an hour, with all of the raid buffs and mana regeneration, it’s just too much, he had like 1900 spell power, but he was able to heal all of the fights in 25 Ulduar. including 2 hard modes.
Divine Intellect will get a nerf too, yep, we brought this to ourselves too.

What I think will happen to my playing style in 3.2? Nothing.
Yes, nothing, well other than healing the tank with a single FOL every 11 secs to get the hot work on him when its almost over, that’s pretty much it.
Beacon of light change is a big buff, not only for PVE, also for PVP, in fact, also sacred shield with the FOL hot thingy is a big buff to PVP.

I managed to have 21k unbuffed mana pool, I managed to get 10k HPS (heal per second) at Instructor Razuvious once before, I always managed to be the 1st of the 2nd at healing in both 10 and 25 man Ulduar, knowing when to use your Divine Plea is a major help, I don’t remember running out of mana since I was under geared for Patchwerk, except the first time I did Hodir on 10 man ( man I was afraid in that fight, ZOMG FROZEN BLOW ZOMGWTFBBQ).

IMHO, nothing will change for my play style, a paladin is a paladin, and I don’t think that Blizz will change us to anything near Priests or Druids with their mighty HOTS, if you have a problem with healing as a paladin, in raids or instances, something is wrong, you might need to look at your rotation or your spec/glyphs.




The “fun factor” has always been my biggest motivator when choosing to raid heal as a Holy Paladin. If the game isn’t fun for me, then why play? That’s the main reason I’ve been in support of the changes in Patch 3.2. We can argue all we want that the changes are a nerf or that the content will be too difficult now. But its difficult to argue that playing a Holy Paladin in Patch 3.2 won’t be more involved, require more decision-making (which targets to heal and what heal to use)… and yes… be more fun.

How to: Midsummer Fire Festival 2009

So i logged on today and i was bored, i decided to go through Azeroth and pay my respect to the fires.

i ended up like this.



In 4 hours, almost 750g richer!

You want to be that cool too? here is a how to guide:

The main Midsummer Festival bonfire camps can be found at the following locations:

1- Alliance:

• Darnassus, Ironforge, Stormwind or The Exodar

2- Horde:

• Orgrimmar, Silvermoon City, Thunder Bluff or Undercity

I will start with the bonfires that you need to extinguish and the other bonfires that you need to pay your respect for.
It goes like this:

First, make sure you are in Dalaran, with your hearthstone not on cooldown, and you have to empty most of your pags from the gear, since you are going to get to Major Horde citys you will most likely be killed, and whenever you are killed, you need to spirit rez, it will save you much time, and having many kind of gear in the bags will get you a big repair bill, you can avoid that and get the gold you get from those things to be your own! not for a weakling NPC!.
here it goes:
go to the Exodar and walk out of the City to Azuremyst Isle, head to Azure watch, then walk up to Bloodmyst Isle, Blood watch, port to Dalaran, go to Darnasus, Teldrassil: Dolanar.
Go back to Darnasus, take the flight to Darkshore, Auberdine.

Fly to Ashenvale, Astranaar, and while you are there, extinguish the fire in Splinter tree post, and finish up the quest you take from the quest camp in a Major city Earthren ring elder, The Elder will offers a short quest chain starting with Unusual activity, for which you must travel to the Zoram Strand of Ashenvale and slay level 20+ Twilight Firesworn until the Twilight Correspondence drops. Once you receive it, use the Totemic beacon to summon an Earthen Ring Guide to complete the quest.
The Guide will then give you the next part of the quest, An Innocent Disguise for which you are given an orb that changes you into a Crawler for three minutes. In your new disguise, you must travel northwest of the entrance of Blackfathom Deeps - you will know you're going the right way if you periodically find blue-flamed torches, and eventually a small encampment on the shore. While disguised, witness the exchange between the naga and the Ice Caller Briatha until the quest completes. When it is finished, you can move out of range of the mobs and cancel the disguise, and summon the Earthen Ring Guide once again. This time, upon relaying the information, the guide will give you the quest Inform the Elder, and report your findings.
(when you finish that quest, talk to the NPC again, Make sure you have track low lvl quests because you will take that quest to Kill Ahune in Slave Pens later)

Once you have returned to an Earthen Ring Elder, the quest chain will complete and either one or two quests will become available, depending on your level. For characters level 22 and above, a repeatable daily quest will open up. The quest is called Striking Back, and depending on your level range you will be given a single objective at a location in Azeroth or Outland.

after you've done that quest, you get back to the bonfire fun, get back to the camp, and fly to wintergrasp, you can easily find the 2 tents at Everlook.

Now there is a trickey part here, you need to fly back to stonetalon Mountain, to Sun Rock Retreat. walk to The Barrens Crossroads, then to Durotar Razor Hill, walk all the way to Orgrimmar, and steal the fire, walk all the way to Mulgore Bloodhoof Village, get Thunderbluff's fire, and walk to Dustwallow Marsh Theramore, and Brackenwall Village.
Then you'll have to fly to Desolace Nijel's Point, and Shadowprey Village, fly to Ferales Fearthermoon Stronghold, walk to Camp Mojache, then you'll have to walk to Thousand Needles Freewind post, walk to Tanaris where you can easily find the 2 flames at Gadageztan almost around the horde flight master and the Alliance flight master.
Fly to Silithis where you also can find the 2 flames just east and west of Cenarion Hold.

Congrats, you stole 2 of the Horde's Major city flames, and finished 2 the flame warden of Kalimdor.






Port back to Dalaran, and go through the portal to The Outlands, fires are easy to see in the Outland, and you can easily spot them outside of the Horde/Alliance camps, start with Terokkar forest at Allerian Stronghold and Stonebreaker Hold.
go to Shadowmoon vally, right outside of Wildhummer and Shadowmoon Village you can find your fires.
Fly to Nagrand, at Telaar and Garadar.
Fly to Zangarmarsh, at Zabra'jin and Telredor.
Go into Slave Pens, you cant solo this unless you are a geared holy Paladin (Like me =P) or a geared DK (Like my alt =P) otherwise you need 2/3 people including a healer, Ahune himself isn't hard, its his adds that makes the problem.
The quest i said you needed to take from the Loremaster in the Major city is Ahune, The frost lord, you need to enter SP and talk to a tauren inside, She will give you another quest to go to another Tauren Druid inside the instance, Ahune is here, is the quest you need to summon him, i'll quote from Wow head his strat:
''his boss consists of two phases. You should clear most of the area around him so you don't aggro Nagas. You can do this on non-heroic. The NPCs that start the quest are right after zone in, then in the cavern area before the double Defender pull.

During both phases, he'll create a frost animation on the ground and after 3 a spike will be made, shooting the player into the air for a few seconds. Its important to move if this spawns. Also, the ice around him will cause people to slip and be stunned for 2-3.
Phase 1:

He will spawn an elite with an aura that does a debuff causing frost damage every 2-3s, I believe 500 damage, that stacks and can not be dispelled. This has to be tanked by the tank. He'll also spawn a lot of low health non-elites every few seconds (~2000 health) that shoots a frost spell at people. He'll spawn maybe 20-30 of these elites, and 2 of the large elites before he'll switch to phase two. This phase lasts around 1 minute. He'll also summon cyclones after the first phase 1 which has a pull ability, but are also weak.

Phase 2:

After all the adds are dead you can safely focus dps on the Frozen Core. According to my ui, this has about 125k health, and you have about 20s (rough estimate) to dps him. You should be able to get him to under 60%. With a full tier 6 group, we got him to 33% the first time.

Repeat phase 1 and 2 until he dies. Its very important to control all the adds and avoid the ice spikes.''

its a straight forward fight, easy with more people at lvl 80, so you might want to have them all, when you kill him, he will drop Shards of Ahune , that will begin a quest you give back to the Tauren, and will get you one of the two awesome tabards, Tabard of Summer Skies, and Tabard of Summer Flames.
you get your 2nd achievement, Ice the Frost Lord.


back to your fire grinding, time is for Blade Edge's Mountains, you will get your flame east of Sylvanaar and south of Evergrove.
Fly to Area 52, and you'll find the 2 fires easily.

Then Hellfire,Thrallamar and Honor Hold,just outside of the camps.

Gongrats, you got your Outland Achievements.



now is the easiest thing from all of those achievements, Go through the Dark portal to the blasted lands Nethergarde Keep, Fly to STV, you'll find the 2 fires right outside of Booty bay, after you go out of the tunnel, go straight forward to the sea, and you will find the 2 tents at your left and your right.
Fly back to Nethergrade keep in Blasted lands, and walk to Swamp of Sorrows at Stonard, bacl to Nethergrade keep, and fly to Darkshire in Duskwood.

When you are done, Fly to Westfall, Sentinel Hill.
Then its up to you, if you want to walk to Goldshire in Elwynn Forest, or you can fly to stormwind and go there.
When you are don with goldshire, mount up and go to Stormwind, fly to Lakshire in Redridge Mountains.
Then Fly to Morgan's Vigil and Flame Crest in the Burning steps.
Fly to Searing Gorge and walk to the Kargath in the badlands, and walk all the way to Thelsamar in Loch Modan.
Fly to Menethil Harbor in the wetlands (PS: i left the Kharanos one till later, since you have other quests to finish there).
Fly to Refuge point in Arathi Highlands and mount up to get to Hammerfall.
Here were it gets a little trickey, you can either Fly to The hinterlands or to Hillsbrad.
I went to Hillsbrad Foothills Southshore, and Tarren mell (where the real PVP happened back in Vanilla wow).
Then i took the flight to the Hinterlands where its really annoying since the 2 camps of the horde and the Alliance are really, really, really far apart.
Aerie Peak, and Revantusk Village.
Fly back to Hillsbrad and mount up for the long ride, you'll have to go to Silverpine Forest Sepulcher, then go all the way to Brill in Tirisfal Glades, go into Undercity, right infront of the gates you'll find the flame you need to steal, get them and go back to the road to Chillwind Camp in Western Plaguelands, and fly all the way to ZA, mount up and go to Tranquillien of the ghost lands, and at the gates of Ruins of Silvertmoon you'll find the fire.
get in Silvermoon and get te capital city fire there.
port to Dalaran, then to IF, in Kharanos you'll find the last one.

Congrats!


you got 4 achievements in the same time! you must be really good!

Now, the easy simple achievements to finish this is


which is easy, buy 15, i repeat, 15 torches from the NPC in any major city, (not Dalaran or Shatt) and bind them to your 1 key, spam 1 with your other hand out of your pants and on your mouse, throw them and make sure you are collecting them too, you can throw them just at your self, and you'll get this part in like 6 secs.


is also easy, with all the blossoms you got from all of the fires areound Azeroth, buy the 3 pieces of the set from the vendors in the major city, and dance at the ribbon pole for 60 secs (i went and made me some Vodka while my char showed them how to dance!)

Edit: as my awesome guild mate said:
''Just a heads up, today all the honor the flame, exinguish the flame quests reset. So anyone that did them last year and needs the blossoms can do them, and if you have already done them this year, you can do them again too. MORE MONIES!'' - Cocoknutt of Lux Legis!


Edit2: it appears that there are also some fires to respect and steal in Northrend, you might want to do them to access the pets.

Borean Tundra: fizzcrank airstrip, and bor'gorok outpost
Dragonblight: wintergrade keep, and agmar's hammer
Crystalsong Forest: windrunner's overlook and sunreaver's command
Grizzly Hills: Amberpine lodge and conquest hold
Howling Fjord: fort wildervar and camp winterhoof
Sholazar Basin: river's heart for both factions
Storm Peaks: K3 for both factions
Zul'Drak: The argent stand

Items you can get from all of this:

1-Mantle of the Fire Festival for 100 Burning Blossom
2- Vestment of Summer for 100 Burning Blossom
3- Sandals of Summer for 200 Burning Blossom
4- Brazier of Dancing Flames for 350 Burning Blossom
5- Captured Flame for 350 Burning Blossom

i hope this helps people out.

Happy achievement haunting!

Argent Tournament Updates for Patch 3.2

Blizzard has updated their Under Development page to highlight some of the additional updates they’ll be making to the Argent Tournament in Patch 3.2. It sounds like there’s going to be a ton of new content with even more prizes to spend our Champion’s Seals on. Those Champion’s Seals are hard to come by. I know for me with raiding and pvp, finding time to complete these quests is difficult. I’d like to be able to collect all the pets and mounts, but there’s just so much to buy! I love it when Blizzard forces us to make these decisions to customize our character because there’s no possible way you could achieve everything by yourself (although I’m sure some people will).


There’s a lot of exciting new things coming out that I’d like to purchase. Some of the most exciting developments:

* A new Paladin-only charger!
* A portal bank, mail-box or vendor that you can spawn once every 8 hours and costs 150 Champion’s Seals. Blizzard says the squire will only offer one of the three services. I wonder how you choose which one the squire is… bank, mail-box or vendor… and can it be different with each spawn? The portable bank is definitely the most appealing.
* A new tabard that will port you directly to the tournament grounds. This would save me a lot of time and make doing these quests a lot easier.
* New dailies to help us earn those seals, including 2 new quest hubs and dailies exclusively for people with the Crusader title.
* Other new tabards, pets, and mounts for people Exalted with their Argent Tournament faction.
* Return of the Black Night.

Sounds like I need to start saving up those Champion’s Seals. No more new pets for me!

Wordpress > blogspot

Going to transfer to Wordpress tomorrow when i am back at work, wish me luck!

WTH, how did i die?

An awesome Topic was opened on blog Azertoh.

When it comes to me, first thing i'd think of is UI and your screen, if you had too much things in the sides of your screens, you won't see the lava walls coming your way, even though DBM yells at you ''Run away little girl, run away!'', and you won't see the big void zone under your feet.

As a former tank, i learned to be aware of my surroundings since Magmadar days back in Vanilla wow Molten Core, he used to put a Conflagrate on the ground, and i used to get away from it so neither me or the melee could get into it if we got feared.

As a healer now, everything is deferant, I'm no more looking at the legs on the dragons and nothing else, my eyes are just going right and left trying to see those damn health bars going up and down, my main focus is this, and nothing else, especially when I'm healing the main tanks, i found myself dead a couple of times on OS+ drakes before i figured that i should have 100% awareness of whats happening around me plus the 100% watching those health bars.
It took me a while to get used to it, and when i became an officer i started doing all of this plus watching for other people to make sure they aren't on fire, void zones or anything else.

As a DPS, when i am using my 2nd spec, sometimes i feel that i need to break the 4.5K dps mark, and i focus on my spells and rotation, just to find myself dead, them void zones are a PITA!

For me, its all about the UI, if you fixed your UI the right way, you'd have the time to see everything around you, and of course, you need to want to see those things, you need to care about dieing to them, and most likely avoid the screaming on vent ''WTF, WHY TEH HELL DO YOU DIE EVERYTIME?!?!''

So here are some tips that you might need:

1- Don't fill your UI with Junk, fill it with things that you REALLY need, and nothing else.
2- Zone out your camera as far as you can, get used to it, because that's the best way to monitor everything going around you.
3- If you are a healer, use Grid, and forget about Healbot, its lame!, plus Healbot gives you the mini health bars, so it clears some space in your screen.
4- When the pull is done, place yourself in a place that you can see everything around you.
5- Try to either A) move every once and a while, or B) check out what is happening behind you every now and then, it really helps.

I wanted to make a screenshot of my current UI, since i worked hard on it for the last 2 weeks, but i'm at work, and i'm stuck with this UI SS that i made like 3 months ago, my raid health bars are covered with my friends list, yeah i dont have many friends!

press on the pic to get the full sized one.
please ignore the whispers, i only brought it up to take the SS of a young guy who was a guildie and we were teasing him for being so young, i told him on vent if he has hair in his private parts, and he didn't talk back in vent, he whispered me instead, BIG MISTAKE! LOL.

anyhow, back to the topic, a lot of wipes happens for even the best people who watch their surroundings, mistakes happens, we are only humans, so dont make it a big deal when its not, enjoy your gaming!

The Not So Useless Little Spell, After All!

In the past few weeks, i remembered a spell that most of the paladins have forgotten, i didn't actually think much to remember it, i was in an arena game with my best RL friend Headstab and there was a team of a ret paladin and a DK, they were both is PVE gear, but once they see my rogue friend, they pop everything on him and kill him before i can cast a spell, BOP him, or even say what the f...

I remembered back in the days when we were in Kara, on my troll warrior, just started that place, and we were stuck at Maiden of Virtue when we had our first Paladin to hit 70, he was asked by the GM to put Hand of Sacrifice on me before she do her Repentance.
so the next game we faced those 2 guys, i used it on Headstab before he jumps in, and WOW, alot of changes, while Headstab kills the ret Paladin, i was able to keep him up, of course with a big help of my Sacred Shield and Beacon of Light, healing him and i'm getting healed so i wont die from the Hand of Sacrifice.

After that, i started using it much more, on bosses who hits like a truck, either using it and using beacon of light, or using it and bubble, and it worked perfetly, so my advice to all those Holy Paladins out there, don't be a nub and forget all about it, i swear i didn't even have it on my UI, i had to search for it for 1 min to find it :(.

Maexxna's enrage at 30% is a good example for it, throw Hand of Sacrifice on the tank before the web spray and bubble = insta win!
Also it works perfectly with Mr. Patchwerk at 10%, but you need to be fast with the bubble becasue those hatefuls hit for a shit ton of damage.

the spell in Protection tree, Divine Sacrifice, is also usable as a way to mitigate raid damage, and can be put in a castsequence macro as well. While I think that it's a great way to mitigate dmg in 5 and 10 mans, it diminishes in a 25 man aoe raid situation due to the number of players taking damage. It does, however, beat Hand of Sacrifice if the tank is the only one taking damage at the time.

Mountin o' mounts

Leading the Cavalry

This is a fairly easy achievement. The reward is the Albino Drake, it requires you to obtain and learn 50 mounts. One possible way to obtain 50 mounts would be:

• 32 standard mounts from the Horde / Alliance races
• 7 standard flying mounts from Shadowmoon Valley
• 5 cheap mounts from the Argent Tournament
• 6 PVP mounts bought with Mark of Honor

This list is debatable, if someone prefers daily quests over PVP, the Netherwing and the Sha'tari Skyguard are a good choice. If someone prefers getting this achievement done quickly instead of easily, farming Kurenai / Mag'har reputation is a good choice.

Mountain o' Mounts

This achievement is considerably harder than the previous, though with each patch it will get easier. The reward is a Red Dragonhawk for horde players and a Blue Dragonhawk for alliance players.

To complete this achievement, you need to obtain and learn 100 mounts. Ok, technically 99 because at 50 you receive the Albino Drake via mail for completing Leading the Cavalry. So to get those 99 mounts, some classes have an advantage because of class specific mounts, others have to work extra hard to overcome this.

This is the list of all the factions you will need gain exalted reputation with:

• Kirin Tor - equip the Tabard of Kirin Tor and do WotLK heroics and level 80 normal dungeons. Reputation gain ranges from 1000 to 3000 in these dungeons.
• Cenarion Expedition - do all their quests in Zangarmarsh, Blade's Edge Mountains, Hellfire Peninsula and Borean Tundra. After that a couple of Coilfang Reservoir: Steamvaults run will be required. It can be soloed easily, one run takes 20 minutes and gives about 2000 reputation if you turn in the Coilfang Armaments. It will take roughly 10 clears to reach exalted.
• The Sons of Hodir - daily quests in The Storm Peaks for 27 days
• Netherwing - daily quests in Shadowmoon Valley for 29 days, but now that almost noone plays in SMV, it can be extremely easy to farm Netherwing Eggs as well. There's a good video with a path you can patrol to find eggs on Youtube
• Sha'tari Skyguard - daily quests in Terokkar Forest and Blade's Edge Mountains for 37 days, but with summonning Terokk and the minibosses, you can gain 2500 reputation in 25 minutes
• Wyrmrest Accord - equip the Tabard of Wyrmrest Accord and do WotLK heroics and level 80 normal dungeons
• Mag'har / Kurenai - farm Obsidian Warbeads in Nagrand. Laughing Skull Ruins and the Warmaul Hill are a good place. The whole ordeal shouldn't take more than a day
• Horde / Alliance - all the starting zones and the Argent Tournament's daily quests

It is also recommended to raise The Oracles to revered because the Mysterious Egg (available at their Quartermaster) requires no extra work and it has a chance to drop the mount once every 7 days.

In addition to these factions, you will need:

• a considerable amount of gold - over 50000g
• 525 Champion's Seal - 5 seals a day or on average 6 if you choose the Champion's Purses instead of the Champion's Writ as questrewards. Until you no longer need reputation for any of the Horde factions, you should choose the Writs.
• 300 Stone Keeper's Shard - 40 shards every week with the weekly WG quests, though you can do heroic dungeons (for the Kirin Tor and Wyrmrest Accord reputation you have to do that anyway) and obtain extra Shards while your faction controls the Wintergrasp.
• 200 Emblem of Heroism - the heroic daily quest rewards 2, raids drop a lot more (and don't forget that Emblem of Valor and Emblem of Conquest can be exchanged 1:1)
• 200 AV Mark of Honor
• 150 WSG Mark of Honor
• 150 AB Mark of Honor
• 170 Halaa Battle Token - these can be generated by partying up with a Warlock who left all his gear in the bank, going to Halaa when it is controlled by your faction, going to the Spirit Healer and having the warlock constantly kill himself with Hellfire and instantly resurrecting.
• 35 Halaa Research Token - very painful to farm them thanks to the 8% droprate, but you should get 20% of the required 350 Oshu'hun Crystal Powder Samples while farming the Kurenai / Mag'har reputation, after that Sunspring Post seems like a good way to finish the work.

If you have all of these funds and have the above factions completed, you can buy 86 mounts. You also got the Albino Drake, so 87. You can buy the Chopper, that's the 88th. The last 12 will get harder. You will need to work your way through a bunch of achievements and get your hands on random drop mounts as well, there's no way around them.

20 minute CoT: Stratholme run, Glory of the Ulduar Raider, For the Horde / For the Alliance, 10 man Sartharion hard mode should be easy to get for anyone. The more of the Achievement mounts you can obtain the better, but sadly, it still won't be enough.

There are a bunch of random drop mounts that are easy to get, despite being... random.

• the 4 AQ mounts can be obtained by pulling the first 4-pack in AQ40, killing 3 of them, looting them for the mounts and running out of the instance. When you go back in, the pack is reset and you can kill 3 of them again for a chance to drop the mounts.
• Kael'thas has a 2% chance to drop the white chicken and by now MGT can be soloed by a lot of classes, if you're not one of them, ask a friend to help out with the tougher trashpacks
• even though the ZG mounts have a low chance to drop, there's 2 of them and it takes only a half an hour to kill Bloodlord Mandokir and High Priest Thekal every 3 days (and you can skip every other trashmob and boss in the instance). Again, it can be soloed by a lot of classes, if you're not one of them, ask a friend to help.
• both bosses in the Vault of Archavon have a chance to drop the Grand Black War Mammoth in the 10 and 25 man version as well. If you're in Wintergrasp for the weekly quests (which you are doing anyway because you need 300 Stone Keeper's Shards) kill them with as few players as possible, it takes almost no time.
• the first couple of weeks you probably won't have free daily quests, but as soon as you do, you should start doing the Brunnhildar daily quests in The Storm Peaks for a chance to get the White Polar Bear

If at this point you still don't have 100 mounts, the next easiest would be to drop one of your professions and raise Tailoring for the 2 flying carpets and after drop it for Engineering to craft the 2 helicopters. You probably don't have any trouble raising a lot of money for chopper and the 40000 golds worth of other mounts, so these are good choices.

After that, you should head straight to Stratholme for the Deathcharger's Reins.

Good luck!

New Battleground - Isle of Conquest details

Blizzard Poster Vaneras on 12/06 The Isle of Conquest Preview

An island somewhere off the shores of Northrend. A rock, hardly worth a second look. But as insignificant as it may seem, this is no ordinary place. A sound of thunder as waves crash endlessly against rocky cliffs; a sound of fury as swords clash on the blood-stained fields of this island on the edge of forever.

Welcome to the Isle of Conquest.

The ongoing struggle between Horde and Alliance has turned many once peaceful (and some not-so peaceful) places into theaters of constant war. The Isle of Conquest is the latest such place, set to be the location of a battle of epic proportions over the island's precious resources.

An Alliance and a Horde general are fighting for dominance, overseeing the action from the safety of their keeps. Whichever side manages to eliminate the enemy general first will triumph on the island; failure to protect your leader will bring shame, dishonor, and defeat. There is no peace accord here, and it’s an all-out war between the factions.


Once More into the breach...

Isle of Conquest, a new battleground scheduled to make its debut in the upcoming content patch, Call of the Crusade, will pitch teams of up to 40 players against each other in a massive battle over this small island off Northrend's northern coast. To win, your team will need to make use of the island's unique strategic locations including an oil derrick, a siege workshop, and a fully equipped airship hangar. You will deploy devastating siege weaponry on the field; Light have mercy on anyone caught between you and your ultimate target, the general holed up in the enemy keep.

There are five points of interest on the Isle of Conquest for the factions to battle over. Each one offers its own benefits and strategic value. Which one will you claim for your side, and will it be enough to ensure victory?


Capture Locations

Consider your options before storming out of your keep to confront the enemy head-on. Spread throughout the Isle of Conquest are several capturable locations (as seen on the map), each granting a unique strategic advantage to your team.

The Oil Derrick: Located on the northwestern end of the island, this smudge in the Frozen Sea produces enough black gold to run a thousand siege engines. Taking this resource garners precious reinforcements and a continuous flow of honor to the side that controls it.

The Cobalt Mine: This snow-covered assembly, located on the southeastern end of the island, hides untapped supplies that must be harvested. Taking this resource grants reinforcements and a continuous flow of honor to the side that controls it.

The Docks: The western shore's docks will further expand your selection of siege weapons with the devastating new Glaive Thrower and the Catapult. Unleash the destruction of the Glaive Thrower upon the walls of the keep, or launch your invading party over the walls to assault the keep from within.

The Airship Hangar: This sturdy steel structure stands on the peak of Mt. Conquest overlooking the eastern side of the island, allowing players to board the airship docked there. This devastating weapon of war is capable of raining death upon the heads of your enemies and destroying enemy defenses. Once onboard the airship, players will find it comes equipped with parachutes enabling a strike team to drop into the enemy keep from above.

The Siege Workshop: Situated right between the Alliance base and the Horde base, this siege workshop occupies a strategic hot spot. Seizing it grants the controlling party the ability to utilize an arsenal of siege vehicles perfectly suited to reducing the enemy keep’s walls to dust and ashes.

Graveyards: There are five graveyards in the Isle of Conquest that are attached to different points of interest on the map: the Horde base, the Alliance base, an oil spill island in the center of the map (attached to the siege workshop), the northeast corner (attached to the airship hangar), and the southwest corner (attached to the docks).


Main Objectives

The Keeps: The Horde and Alliance keeps sit at opposite ends of the island. These citadels host four easily accessible defensive cannons set on the ramparts, capable of unleashing hot fury onto oncoming attackers. Additional explosives sit safely stowed in the base of the keep along the back wall. At least, they’re safe as long as they don’t fall into enemy hands. If they do, though, they can be employed to bring the stone walls down from within.

The General: Holed up behind the keeps' massive walls, the generals command their forces from a position of relative safety. Should the keep fall and the general be slain, the Isle of Conquest will fall to the victor.

Reinforcements: Isle of Conquest uses a reinforcements system similar to that of Alterac Valley. The clock is ticking and every individual counts. If too many of your comrades fall to the enemy the battle will end in defeat. Killing enemy players will reduce their reinforcements by one for each kill, Once your faction’s reinforcements reach their limit, so too does your bid for control of the island and the wealth of resources you’ve fought so hard over.

An island somewhere off the shores of Northrend. A rock, hardly worth a second look. A test of strength. A chance to prove your might, to crush your enemies, to make a difference, a chance for endless glory and conquest.

Will you seize it?

seems like fun! , but 40 man battles are gone after Blizz missed up with AV, it might be fun after all, who knows?

World-first Val'anyr formed by Avant Garde

If you're a raiding healer, you almost certainly know this already: Ulduar-25 contains a legendary healer mace, called Val'anyr. To craft it, you have to gather 30 Fragments of Val'anyr, which drop from both normal and hard-mode 25-man Ulduar fights (though they always drop on hard-mode, and only have a chance to drop on normal). You then have to throw the combined collection of fragments at Yogg'Saron while fighting him when he uses the "Deafening Roar" ability, which he only uses on hard mode. After that, defeat Yogg, and Val'anyr is yours.

Well, someone has now completed all of the above steps: Snuggleme, a resto druid of Avant Garde on Kil'jaeden. Congratulations on what appears to be the world-first Val'anyr! We know exactly what it does already, but I'm still curious what it feels like to use it in a real raid



here is a close SS of that sexy mace

Upcoming mount changes

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=17730154175&sid=1

A very big announcement this evening from Zarhym. In the "next major content patch" (which means Patch 3.2) the mount system in WoW will be having some significant changes to it. The highlights are as follows:

* Regular land mounts trainable at level 20 (was 30)
* Epic land mounts trainable at level 40 (was 60)
* Regular flying mounts trainable at level 60 (was 70)
* Regular flying mounts speed increased to a 150% gain (was 60%)

The costs for all the training and mount purchases has been decreased outright, with the exception of the artisan riding skill (epic flying mounts). For all mount costs, faction discounts now apply.

This means that when you hit 60 you'll be able to fly around Hellfire and finish all those quests. Leveling from 60 to 68 is going to become easier and more relaxed. You'll hit Northrend much sooner with this change.

The full details after the break.


Apprentice Riding (Skill 75)

* 60% land mount speed
* Requires level 20
* Cost: 4 gold
* Mount cost: 1 gold
* Mail will be sent to players at level 20 guiding them to the riding trainer

Journeyman Riding (Skill 150)

* 100% land mount speed
* Requires level 40
* Cost: 50 gold
* Mount cost: 10 gold
* Mail will be sent to players at level 40 guiding them back to the riding trainer

Expert Riding (Skill 225)

* 150% flying mount speed; 60% land mount speed
* Requires level 60
* Cost: 600 gold (faction discounts now apply)
* Mount Cost: 50 gold
* Can now be learned in Honor Hold (Alliance) or Thrallmar (Horde)

Artisan Riding (Skill 300)

* 280% flying mount speed; 100% land mount speed
* Requires level 70
* Cost: 5,000 gold (faction discounts now apply)
* Mount Cost: 100 gold

Call me an achievement whore!

Yeah, I don't know whats happening to me, i'm searching for any fast getting achievements just to get my e-peen points up.
Last night, after a fast 10 man Ulduar raiding day, i bought about 10 mounts, why? you may ask? just to get to 100 mounts achievement, i know the mount reward isnt that good, but i am doing it anyways.



almost there.

i got 5125 e-peen points now, and i keep thinking that i need more, MOAR!!
NOM NOMNOM






most of the general achievments i got already, half of raidings, all of exploring, half of World events, not so many from the PVP since we suck at it, working hard on the cooking and the fishings, also working hard on the rep rewards (since there are many mounts there), and still need to get the loremaster, i know it will be hard, but i am almost a loremaster of Northrend, the only problem is finding easy 500 quests to do in Kalimador.
Won't rest untill i get them all, i know myself very well (YARLY!) and i won't stop till i catch them all! errr.

First day in Heroic Ulduar, and 2nd week in normal.

Is 10 dead Bosses in normal and 3 on Heroic, had so much fun in there, the design is awesome.




those were in the Heroic 25 man, i always forget to take screenies of our kills, thanks Eleuth for taking Rezor's SS :P

I got my first item from there http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45252 i was excited.

Regarding 10 man Ulduar, we've been there for a while, got a bracers before, a chest piece that i dont use anymore because i still want my T7.5 2 pieces set bonus a lovely shield that got nerfed 3 days after i got it QQ.

got all keepers down, other than Mimiron, the fight is rediculously hard



stay tuned for more progression!