Druid of the Moon

Posts Tagged ‘Patch x.x’

So I have been really busy as of late and finding it hard to get time to post. Hopefully people are still finding old posts on ArP or what not useful.

When I finally do get a chance I take a look at MMO Champs forums and read the multitude of changes coming… well tried to read them all… LFG, LFD, getting ported right into a dungeon, need, greed, gear rankings dungeon limitations… on and on… geesh, and this is just a content patch not the expansion.

So I read the juicy part about tanking in Icecrown, raid wide debuff, less mitigation, some stuff about boss attack scaling or something…

All I know is I am glad I am not tanking anymore and I don’t have to worry about it… but I would think Bears will be Stam stackers and have a big place in some fights.

Top-level helm and shoulder faction-related enchants are now available as Bind-on-Account items that do not require any faction to use once purchased.

I hope a move like this is a sign of more BoA items which will allow further alt upgrading without the dreaded grind. Would do nothing but improve your subscribers to have a little more wiggle room selecting a class they want to play.

Lets look at some changes that effect all races and classes…

Let me start by saying that there are no longer any quests or books needed to level your secondary professions of cooking, fishing, and first aid. All 3 can now be leveled just by visiting the appropriate trainer.

Second, Ulduar will be dropping new epic crafting recipes for the armor/weapon crafting professions and they are BoE not BoP.

* Ground mounts now swim through water – They are no faster than players are swimming but not having to remount is nice.

* The new Argent Tournament - See representatives in Dalaran near the flight master for a lift to the new area. Make sure to grab the new FP once you get there. Be prepared to do some traveling in Old Azeroth to complete some quests.

* Brew of the Year has been removed from the event achievement – YAY! Thanks for listening Blizzard.

* Applying a glyph no longer requires a Lexicon of Power – Thank Goodness.

* Flasks only last 1 hour now. The old mat costs will now generate 2 flasks when they are created.

* You can now sometimes find Alchemist’s Caches from bosses in Ulduar. Only players with an Alchemy skill of 425 or higher can loot these secret caches – Don’t ask, I have no idea what is in the caches, I am guessing Flasks for the raid.

* Flint and Tinder is no longer necessary for creating a campfire - This is a huge deal for me being a druid,I have NEVER had bag space to carry these items.

* Grub now sells the Dig Rat Stew recipe to players who completed the quest.
* Ingredients such as Spices, Apples, and the like have been removed from most cooking recipes.
* Players no longer need to complete the Clamlette Surprise quest to gain Artisan cooking. The quest now offers the unique recipe, Clamlette Magnifique. If you already completed the quest, you can visit Dirge Quickcleave in Gadgetzan to learn this recipe (for free).
* Prospector Khazgorm, found in Bael Modan in southern Barrens, now sells the recipe for Dig Rat Stew to the Alliance.

* Several Northrend recipes were given greater skill up ranges to make it easier to reach 450 cooking skill – This is why I have waited to get to 450 and it was really a needed change.

* Added two new recipes for enchanting staves with spell power, available from Vanessa Sellers in Dalaran City – Maybe it’s just me but I only see one as of last night.

* Greatly increased the drop rate of Enchanting recipes found in pre-Lich King dungeons and raids - Awesome, as if I needed another reason to solo old content… ok, so maybe I did… and I prob still won’t.

* Engineers can now obtain the schematics for Lil’ Smoky and the Pet Bombling from certain creatures found in Gnomeregan - Thank God I am not an Engineer, the last thing I need is a reason to go back into Gnomer.

* A new (and very rare) special mount can now be caught from Northrend fishing pools – Don’t think I care as a druid just like I don’t care about flying mount drops either.

* New fishing dailies are now offered from Marcia Chase in Dalaran City! – WooHoo, my guess is the reward bags she gives can drop the same or better stuff from the Outland fishing daily.

* Players are no longer required to do the Nat Pagle, Angler Extreme quest to gain Artisan fishing. The quest now offers a special superior-quality fishing pole instead. If you already completed the quest, you can visit Nat Pagle in Dustwallow Marsh to receive this new fishing pole.
* The time needed to catch fish has been reduced.

* You can now fish anywhere, regardless of skill. Every catch has the potential for fishing skill gains, but you are likely to catch worthless junk in areas that are too difficult for your skill. - This is great for those of you in Northrend that have 0 fishing as you can now fish and skill up while waiting around. No more going to SW or elsewhere to level the skill.

* You can now fish in Wintergrasp, and the fishin’ is good!

* You can no longer fail when Mining, Herbing, and Skinning.

* Northrend herbs now yield more herbs on average.
* The time it takes to gather herbs has been reduced.

* Added around 50 new glyph recipes. These new recipes can be obtained from Books of Glyph Mastery found as world drops on Northrend monsters. Reading a Book of Glyph Mastery randomly discovers one of the newly-added recipes.

* New Advanced features for quest tracking are now available. Players will need to activate this option within the Interface panel.

* Added new Video Mode Ultra (should only be used on the highest-end systems). – Nothing new, just maxes out every video option.

* A new feature has been added allowing players to allocate talent points before confirming they’d like to spend them. This feature must be turned on in the Interface Options. - I wish I would have done this before messing up my DPS spec and having to pay 20 gold to start over… lol

* On-Use items will display in the Objectives Tracking when tracking a quest that uses them. No more searching through your bags for that on-use quest item! - I like this.

* Badges and Emblems looted off of any dungeon bosses by a member of the party or raid will automatically be given to all eligible party or raid members. Party or raid members must still be inside the instance to receive Badges or Emblems. - Awesome way to speed up looting and raiding, long overdue.

* Hearthstone: Cooldown has been reduced to 30 minutes down from 60 minutes. - Another great change.

* Tiny Emerald Whelplings: May now (very rarely) drop from Adolescent Whelps in the Swamp of Sorrows.

So a bunch of changes that most likely will get missed in Druid blogs that I figured I would highlight here.

Yes folks, we should have seen this coming. Any patch of this magnitude was bound to keep the servers down for an extended period.

So what does one do while checking every so often to see if their virtual world is back online…

1. Eat Dinner – Get it out of the way, and never buy the Mac and Cheese with 2% milk cheese ever again… it’s just not right.
2. Do Dishes – Going to need the sink empty for when the servers are back, heck empty the trash while you are at it. Narrow any honeydo list as much as possible.
3. Give the son a bath – Mac and Cheese with 2% milk is still a sticky mess… especially when followed by unhealthy Cheetos puffs… and when used as a hair product.
4. Watch last nights House – Again, scratch things off the wardens list for when the servers return.
5. Play with the son – Wear him out. Don’t watch T.V., run him around the house we need him to fall asleep before the servers return.
6. Take pictures off the digital camera from Easter – Hopefully the last thing on the Honeydo list.
7. Check the blog, respond to comments, check the guild forums to watch the truly addicted squirm… fun stuff.
8. Put the son to sleep – I was typing all this listening to him cry as the Warden tries to make a point of a 2 year old following a bedtime and he is crying my name.

Let’s hope in about 30 the servers are back up.

Well along with the good news of 3.1 going live today we also get some bad news to go with it.

WowMatrix will no longer be functional. Curse has made a change so that addons hosted can no longer be used by WowMatrix for delivery. Can’t say I blame them since bandwidth costs money.

You can read all about the Curse V.S. WowMatrix feud HERE.

Hey WowMatrix, host the addons yourself and find an ad scheme that will compensate you for your bandwidth… Please. I am not looking forward to all the manual addon work I will now have to do over the next couple days/weeks after 3.1.