US PC Software Sales Charts for Week of 9/7
More
It will be interesting to see how the upcoming weeks turnout with the release of Warhammer, but these numbers typically run a few weeks behind. The…
Read More…
Archive for September, 2008Brewfest tip for casters: Get both spell trinkets Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Events
If you’re like me, you’ve been madly farming the elusive Great Brewfest Kodo since Brewfest began. Even when I was having a bit of hand trouble, my little dwarf found his way into Blackrock Depths to do beer-laden battle with the big, bad, belligerent brewmaster. But there’s an important tip that you should remember while Brewfest continues. The two spell trinkets are both useful to all spell casters (who don’t out gear them) after the content patch unifies spell damage and spell healing into Spell Power. Right now, the Dark Iron Smoking Pipe is a spell damage trinket, and the Direbrew Hops is a healing trinket. But in the content patch, both will be turned to spell power — the Pipe has 43 spell power and 155 on use, the Hops have 44 spell power, 153 on use. Of course, this begs the question about how the Pipe and Hops will compare to other trinkets when the patch hits. Timbal’s Focusing Crystal from Heroic Magister’s packs 44 spell power. You’ll have to decide whether you want an on-use bonus 154ish spell power from the brewfest trinkets, or Timbal’s on-use proc for 285 to 475 extra damage. The Hex Shrunken Head from Zul’Aman is a clear upgrade from the Hops and Pipe, since it has more constant spell power and high on-use spell power. Coren’s dropped trinkets are equivalent to the 41-Badge trinkets purchaseable from G’eras. The Essence of the Martyr and Icon of the Silver Crescent are both slightly better than either Hops or Pipe since they have 44 spell power, and 158 spell power on use. But for 41 badges each, I’m probably not going to lose any sleep over 5 spell power every 2 minutes. [Thanks Rikitiki for the tip!] Caption This: Vote for winners! Filed under: WoW Insider Business, Contests
A new month … a new start … a new opportunity to pick the winner of this biweekly period’s Caption This! contest. Members of the WoW Insider staff have chosen their favorite captions from the original post. Now you get to decide who goes home with a 60-day game card, an Eastvale Logging Camp or a Camp Taurajo ringer shirt from J!NX, or nothing but a sock full of tears. Just pick the best caption for the above picture. Voting closes tomorrow, Wednesday, October 1 at 11:59 PM EST, and winners will be informed shortly afterward by e-mail. Remember, entrants must be U.S. or non-Quebec Canadians at least 13 years old. If you’d like to check out the contest’s official rules, they can be found here. Happy voting! Again, we have a couple of entries that don’t fit into our polling software. Here they are! You can vote for them under “Syll’s poem” and “Debricashi’s lawsuit” above. When the Flesh-Elbowed Sneetches had frankfurter roasts, “Good afternoon, gentlemen. I represent the citizens of Lordaeron you see behind me. I am here to inform you that we will be bringing a class action suit against you for malpractice regarding treatment of plague victims. Expect the documents in your office by Monday.” — Debricashi
Gallery: Caption This!
Death Knight tanking overhaul Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, News items, Instances, Expansions, Raiding, Buffs, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King, Forums  The ever-helpful Ghostcrawler hit the forums late yesterday with a slew of changes to Death Knight tanking in the form of both bug fixes and buffs. The single biggest “buff” is actually a fairly significant bug fix; Death Knights had half the untalented, ungeared dodge of a Warrior or Paladin, and that was definitely never intended. Between that and a change to Blade Barrier (it’s currently activated with all runes on cooldown; it’s being changed to activate with only Blood runes on cooldown), Death Knights should see a significant improvement to their avoidance. Threat generation is also getting a nice boost, as Blizzard recognized that Death Knights suffered badly whenever key moves failed to land. Rune Strike is becoming a reactive ability like the Warrior’s Revenge, and Frost Strike can no longer be dodged, blocked, or parried. Death and Decay has also been changed to be more competitive with Consecration and Thunder Clap, which is consistent with the overall trend toward AoE tanking effectiveness. I’ve healed a number of Death Knight tanks in 5-mans now (you’ll be hearing from my grumpy self about this soon) and recognized a few early versions of these issues, certainly in the form of Blade Barrier’s often-spotty uptime. While I’m glad that DK’s are getting more consistent threat generation, I have to admit that my real concern is the amount of burst they seem to take (something others have noticed as well), so I’m keeping an eye on the tweaks being made. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments WoW Moviewatch: Chronicle of the Annoying Quest, Episode 28 Filed under: Machinima, Humor, WoW Moviewatch It’s been so long since Moviewatch took a look at the Chronicle of the Annoying Quest that two more episodes have come out since then. I’ve decided to feature Episode 28 instead of Episode 27 because I feel it’s the much better of the two. The humor is better and the pacing is quicker. It’s interesting, though, that Bakasavant starts off both episodes very slowly, taking a bit too long to get to the point. In Episode 27, there’s some messing about with flying mounts that, although somewhat humorous, doesn’t add much to the story. And with Episode 28, there is a long intro as a tribute to the late Richard Wright which probably should’ve gone at the end of the episode. I disagree with the previous Moviewatch post on Episode 26 in that, if you’ve never watched an episode of Chronicle of the Annoying Quest, I don’t think you need to watch the entire series to enjoy these last two episodes. (I haven’t watched more than 8 of these episodes total.) The comedic timing alone in Episode 28 stands by itself. I think, also, that the series doesn’t necessarily need an ending point. In that way it reminds me not only of an American soap opera, but also of WoW content in general. In fact, the title of the series itself suggests that its part of the reason the quest is annoying is due to its unending nature. Bakasavant Productions says that Episode 31 will be the season finale. What the filmmakers mean by a “season,” however, is beyond me. How long is a machinima “season”? How long will they be gone? Will they merely be taking time away from CotAQ to do other films or will they drop off the radar entirely? I hope it’s not the latter. [Via Warcraftmovies.com] If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments Launcher updated again, 3.0.2 soon? Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Realm Status, Blizzard, Expansions, Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Hardware
Today’s downtime is all about hardware upgrades, apparently, so Blizzard is definitely gearing up for Wrath. We saw lots of hardware upgrades in the months before the Burning Crusade launch (people who were playing back then will remember all of the horrible queues and population issues before servers got expanded), and while Wrath probably won’t be as big a jump, Blizzard is still getting ready. Which just leaves the question of when we’ll see patch 3.0.2. Considering the BC content patch came just about a month before release, we’re still looking for it in mid-October (likely after all the ruckus of BlizzCon has died down). Announcing the second annual WoW Insider BlizzCon meetup Filed under: Fan stuff, WoW Insider Business, Virtual selves, BlizzCon  Yes, folks, it’s almost October, and that means it’s time to start making those big plans for BlizzCon. And when you do, don’t forget to include us — just like last year, we’re having a blowout reader meetup right near the Convention Center in Anaheim. Save the date for the second annual WoW Insider BlizzCon Meetup: Thursday night, October 9, at 8pm PST in The Lost Bar near the Disneyland Hotel (1150 W. Magic Way, same place as last year). If Blizzard does things the same way they did last year, badges will be pick-up-able that Thursday, so we’ll all be awash in our goodie bags and passes already, and excited about what the rest of the ‘con holds. Just like last time, we’ll bring lots of prizes (and you may even get another round of trivia questions from me), plus you’ll get the chance to meet and greet all your favorite WoW Insider bloggers (and commenters). And as you know if you were there last time, The Lost Bar has lots of great food and drink. And little boats to race! So if you’re headed out to BlizzCon and will be in town on Thursday night, October 9th, at 8pm (or are in town anyway and want to come say hi), definitely come by our second annual reader meetup. And stay tuned for more — we’re planning on having at least one more live event at BlizzCon (we have to record the WoW Insider Show sometime that weekend, right?), so we’ll let you know more about our schedule there soon. Around Azeroth: Out of the darkness and into the light Filed under: Screenshots, Around Azeroth, Galleries  What’s a nice undead like you doing all the way out in the Wetlands? Unless you’re a warlock looking to get a succubus, or a level 60 acquiring your Onyxia key for some reason, the Horde has no reason to be there. Alazor of <Ubiquity> on Defias Brotherhood-EU describes his journey: “This screenshot shows Stilva, a forsaken rogue. He walks through the Wetlands following the rising dawn, seeing the new day as a new fate for him, as he considers the murderous deeds of his past. Who knows if he looks back at them in regret, or sinister joy?” Not sure, Stilva, but I’ll note that “following the rising dawn” in the Wetlands is going to lead you into a big nest of angry elite dragons. I suppose that if one was an optimist, you could call that “a new fate.” It’s certainly some kind of fate. Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We’d love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next! Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing — use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards. Gallery: Around Azeroth
Ghostcrawler reveals warrior DPS changes Filed under: Warrior, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Expansions, Buffs, Wrath of the Lich King, Forums
Now this is very, very interesting to me. First off, not only does this make Sudden Death a lot easier to use, but the idea of Execute getting a 15% damage boost, and it’s not clear to me if that is part of the talent, or just part of Execute now… I’m very interested indeed to see what happens here. The rest of Ghost’s post is behind the curtain. Think about it, won’t you? Continue reading Ghostcrawler reveals warrior DPS changes Breakfast Topic: The last week of Brewfest Filed under: Items, Events, Blizzard, Breakfast topics, Lore, Bosses, NPCs
Don’t know how to drop Coren or do a keg run? We’ve got you covered on both. Personally, I got everything I needed (picked up two epics from Coren and joined the BotM club) save for the mounts, but those are so rare (and finding a group as DPS is so tough on my server) that I’m probably not going to bother. Fortunately, I’m looking forward to that other popular holiday that is just around the corner… How you doing on Brewfest? Finished early or just now realizing that the holiday ends on Saturday? Downed Coren every single day with no mount to show for it, or went in there once and are now riding around on a kodo? |
The Launcher “and its related tools” have gotten another upgrade today, even though 
You remember a few days ago when 
Yes, counting today, there are just five more chances for you to down 
Entries (RSS)