 | Monday, 15 December, 2008 - WoW Vault News |  |
 | |  | | | Winter Veil Is Here! Print NewsWinter Veil has arrived! Bringing with it Smokywood Pastures, ginger bread cookies and presents! Join the hustle and bustle around Azeroth as everyone takes part in the festivities! Go visit Greatfather Winter and open some presents. Take a moment to transform yourself into a festive gnome by using a Winter Wondervolt Machine! Check out Rill's Merry Maker Achievment and the Winter Veil page of our Wiki! We'll be adding more goodies as the holiday gets underway!
And check out our Winter Veil Screenshots! You might even catch a glimpse of a tauren in his green Winter Veil festival garb!
/raises a glass of ice cold milk
Cheers! |  |
-- PallyDog @ 13:21 PST Dodge! Print News | Category: World of Warcraft News
I'm not sure where this came from, so I can't give credit where credit's due, but this had me cracking up:
Kudos on the timeliness!
-- NextWeek @ 16:33 PST
JaconKin Interviews Pongmo Print News | Category: Site News - Wrath of the Lich King
Sit back and read as JaconKin, the newest staffer on the WoW Vault, interviews Pongmo, an IGN and Vault Network board poster who plays a Shaman. Pongmo earned two server firsts as the first Dranei and Shaman to reach the level 80 achievement on the high population server of Whisperwind. Get behind the desire to rush to 80 and gather some insights into what it takes to tackle such an achievement.
Keep your eyes open for more from JaconKin! This interview is just the beginning!
-- PallyDog @ 12:58 PST
Winter Veil Achievement Guide! Print News | Category: Site News
| We've added a full guide for the Merry Maker Achievement. It covers all the small achievements that contribute to the title Merry Maker. Rill lists each achievement and tells you all the requirements needed to complete the Merry Maker. |  |
-- PallyDog @ 10:47 PST
 | |  | |  |  | Sunday, 14 December, 2008 |  |
 | |  | | | In-Game Cinematic: The Wrath Gate* Print News | Category: World of Warcraft News - Wrath of the Lich King
One of the design goals for Wrath of the Lich King was to elevate storytelling in World of Warcraft to new heights. Northrend is brought to life by engaging quests, memorable characters, beautiful environments, and the introduction of a brand-new feature: in-game cinematics. The first of these cinematics, The Wrath Gate, is now available for viewing and download on the Wrath of the Lich King website.
Check it out now!
-- Sprawl @ 13:42 PST
WoW Test Realm Patch Notes Print News | Category: World of Warcraft News - Wrath of the Lich King
Extensive public test realm patch notes have been released for World of Warcraft. There are tons of class related updates happening, along with PvP, Quest updates and much more. Thanks GameSpy.
General
- Players may now create death knights on any realm once they reach level 55.
- Bonus Armor: The mechanics for items with bonus armor on them has changed (any cloth, leather, mail, or plate items with extra armor, or any other items with any armor). Bonus armor beyond the base armor of an item will no longer be multiplied by any talents or by the bonuses of Bear Form, Dire Bear Form, or Frost Presence.
- Racial restrictions on mounts have now been lifted. Night elves on mechanostriders? Tauren on raptors? You�re not seeing things.
- Tapping: All player spells which cause a creature to become aggressive to you will now also immediately cause the creature to be tapped.
- A new mailbox is now available at the Crows Tavern in the Dalaran Sewers.
- We have added over 60 new graveyards to Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms.
- The run speed in spirit form has been increased by 50%. Night Elves in Wisp form will now move at 75% speed.
 Read More...
-- Sprawl @ 13:34 PST
 | |  | |  |  | Thursday, 11 December, 2008 |  |
 | Wednesday, 10 December, 2008 |  |
 | |  | | | Glyphs and Swapping Talent Specs Print News | Category: World of Warcraft News
Wryxian over on the Euro forums gave us a little more details on whats to come with regards to swapping talent specs.
Well we agree that swapping talent specs isn't quite enough. No use having a whole load of glyphs for your tanking spec that are almost useless when you're dealing damage, for example. We'd also like to swap over action bars too -- it'd be a pain if you're trying to Mind Flay and you end up trying to Flash Heal!
So yes we have taken these kind of considerations into account and we'd like the feature to do more than "just" swap talent specs.
Because it is a bit more featured than originally mentioned, we'll be needing to do a bit more work on it before we can share it with you. So we're hoping to bring this feature to you in our next major content patch, but only if we're happy enough with it to make it live.
-- bobsoji @ 15:02 PST
Upcoming Death Knight Changes Print News | Category: World of Warcraft News
Ghostcrawler has been busy updating us on more class changes. Have a look at what's in store for Death Knights!
We have talked about making some of these changes and wanted to provide more details. You should be able to try these out yourselves on the PTR before they go live.
Our reason for most of these changes should be obvious, but some common themes are:
-- Making tanking still rely on cooldowns, but rely on them a little less.
-- Make Blood a more attractive spec, and particularly for tanking.
-- Chill out some of the defensive capabilities all DKs have in PvP.
-- Avoid having to use Death and Decay as an out-of-combat runic power generator.
1) Rune Strike -- damage decreased from 200% to 150% but threat increased to 150% from 100%.
2) All multi-rune abilities generate 15 runic power.
3) Anti-Magic Shell -- cooldown lowered to 45 sec from 60 sec.
4) The healing of Blood Aura, Blood Presence and Death Pact has been doubled.
5) Bone Shield -- mitigation reduced from 40% to 20%.
6) Icebound Fortitude � now reduces damage by 20% instead of 50%. The amount of damage reduced increases with bonus Defense (to about 35% for 540 Defense, but it can go higher). The stun immunity is intended to be its primary role in PvP.
7) Frost Presence -- bonus armor increased from 60 to 80% and magic damage reduction increased from 5 to 15%. We wanted to reduce the effectiveness of cooldowns but bring up base mitigation to reduce damage spikiness.
8) Corpse Explosion -- damage increased substantially, added 5 sec cooldown, and changed cost to 40 runic power.
9) Heart Strike � we overhauled this ability. It no longer has a haste debuff but will now be able to strike two targets like a cleave. It still hits for more than Blood Strike, but you can still use Blood Strike if e.g. you don�t want to break CC.
10) Horn of Winter -- now has no cost and grants 10 runic power in addition to its stat buff, but has a 30 sec cooldown.
11) Night of the Dead -- now grants 40/70% passive area spell avoidance to your pet in addition to its current effects.
12) Outbreak � this talent no longer receive bonus damage from Pestilence. The bonus from Plague Strike and Blood Boil has been increased slightly.
13) Bloody Strikes � the bonus damage from Pestilence has been moved here to help Blood AE slightly.
14) Pestilence -- no longer has a 10 sec cooldown.
15) Raise Dead -- now split into two spells: Raise Dead now raises a ghoul or pet ghoul (if talented). Raise Ally now raises a fallen party member (at no reagent cost).
16) New runeforge rune -- Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle (two-handed only) now grants 25 Defense and 2% Stamina.
17) Shadow of Death -- duration reduced from 45 seconds to 25 seconds.
18) Unholy Blight, Dancing Rune Weapon and Hungering Cold � cost reduced from 60 to 40 runic power.
19) Vampiric Blood -- in addition to its current effects, also adds 20% health temporarily.
20) Will of the Necropolis -- now reduces the damage of any attack that takes the DK below 35% health by 5 /10/15% instead of boosting armor when wounded,
21) Many death knight glyphs have been changed. In many cases the negative consequences were removed.
22) New death knight sigils are now available, primarily from vendors, including a tanking-oriented sigil.
-- bobsoji @ 14:57 PST
Upcoming Mage changes Print News | Category: World of Warcraft News
Ghostcrawler posted some upcoming mage changes. Have a look!
The buffs here are designed primarily to make Arcane more competitive with Fire / Frostfire builds in PvE. Because they could end up buffing Arcane in PvP, we are prepared to adjust the damage of say Arcane Barrage if needed, but we want to see these in action on the PTR first.
Mage PvE damage in general is something we are keeping a close eye on. With the recent hunter changes, many of which were nerfs to PvE damage, we want to make sure mages now don�t break away from the pack of damage-dealing specs.
1) Evocation � cooldown reduced to 4 min.
2) Arcane Flows � now also reduces the cooldown of Evocation by an additional 1 / 2 min.
3) Arcane Blast � overhauled. Will now increase the damage of your next Arcane spell by 15%. However using Arcane Blast itself does not consume the charge, but instead increases the mana of your next Arcane Blast, up to a maximum of 3 stacks (and a 45% buff). You can alternate Blast and Barrage to keep buffing Barrage, or you can build Blast up higher for a heavy mana cost.
4) Torment the Weak � now works with Arcane Blast and does bonus damage to targets afflicted by any kind of slowing effect (e.g. Thunder Clap).
5) Elemental Precision � renamed Precision and now works on all spells.
6) Improved Blizzard � snaring effect reduced to 20/40/50%.
EDIT: We recently made the Arcane Blast stack 15/30/45% to your next Arcane spell.
-- bobsoji @ 14:51 PST
 | |  | |  |  | Monday, 8 December, 2008 |  |
 | Saturday, 6 December, 2008 |  |
 | Friday, 5 December, 2008 |  |
 | |  | | | December Calendar Print News | Category: Site News
Once again Wolfpaw has turned out a fabulous calendar for December. While it may be a day (or two) short it's certainly not a penny less!!
And of course as always we have it regular and widescreen. If you have any screenshots you think to be calendar worthy, submit them! Remember the higher the resolution the better!
-- PallyDog @ 10:45 PST
 | |  | |  |  | Wednesday, 3 December, 2008 |  |
 | Tuesday, 2 December, 2008 |  |
 | Monday, 1 December, 2008 |  |
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