Cross-Realm groups can now queue for Ashran!

One of my guild-mates pointed this out to me today, something I missed in all the frenzy to actually log on to WoW:

"Cross-realm groups are now able to enter Ashran together"

That has literally made my day. Since I run with TBT half of our group is on a different server. I'm really looking forward to queuing for Ashran with TBT.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/16561637/603-hotfixes-december-2-12-2-2014

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The Raid that never was...

Today was supposed to be the day that Highmaul, the first raid in Warlords of Draenor, opened up. Our group was going to down the first 3 bosses and call it a night... at least that was the plan.

Instead, Kel'Thuzad went down. It appears to have been the result of another DDoS attack as well as an issue with Blizzards' Authentication servers that affected multiple realms. The result was that, instead of logging in and raiding at 8 PM Pacific my guild couldn't get in until closer to 10PM Pacific... at least about 5 of us did. The others... well they never were able to log in.

Oh well. We pugged it... with minimal success. We'll try again on Thursday I guess.

On the plus side, I'm liking the feel of Highmaul. The first bit of trash is a nice mini-boss, and then you're thrown right up against Kargath. Nice introduction to the raid - I hope it continues to go well, assuming I can actually get into the game on Thursday...

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Ziri'ak

Almost everyone in my guild, when they reached the Spires of Arak, chose the Brewery Garrison Outpost, which rewards (among other things) a passive 20% increase to XP while in the zone. Pretty good deal, right?

Well, maybe not. After a bit of research I chose the Trading Post building, which allows you to summon an NPC called "Honest Jim" every 10 minutes while in the Spires of Arak. What's so good about Honest Jim you might ask? Well, in addition to some nice potions and other consumables (a 28 slot bag for 2200 gold), Honest Jim will sell an item called Inactive Apexis Guardian, which allows you to add a follower named Ziri'ak to your garrison.

Ziri'ak is an Apexis Guardian, and the reason why I'm glad I got him is because he comes to your garrison as level 99. You are eligible to enter the Spires of Arak at level 96, so that means you'll have a high level follower for your garrison.

There are benefits (and some hindrances) to this. First, it means that you have 1 heavy handed follower to send on some missions, thereby slightly increasing the success rate. However, adding this guy to your garrison opens up level 99 missions, meaning you have fewer missions to choose from where you'll have a 100% success rate. That being said, I didn't notice myself failing too many missions after I added this follower to my garrison.

I think that most players probably chose the 20% XP boost, and to be honest I'll probably be choosing that option for all of my alts. However, since I was leveling up my main first I wanted to give myself what would hopefully be a long term boost with an extra Garrison follower. 

So far I'm happy with the selection. As you can imagine he was my first follower to reach level 100, I'm actually a little annoyed that he reached level 100 before I did,

I haven't leveled my Garrison enough to get any other noticeable benefit from having this fall around, but it is nice to have an extra follower. I highly recommend that everybody choose this option for your main account, when you reach the Spires of Arak. 

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WoW's 10th Anniversary

It's that time of year again, time for us all to gather around and be thankful for everything we have. Especially World of Warcraft.

10 years ago I was playing Warcraft III, and still tinkering around with StarCraft and Diablo II, when Blizzard announced that they were going into MMO business.

I played a little bit of EverQuest, and didn't really enjoy it that much. And I certainly didn't like the idea of paying a monthly subscription just to play a game that I already own. I mean if I wanted to play an RPG I could just log on to Diablo. (Yes I know Diablo isn't a true RPG, but I still had Baldur's Gate II to play around with at the time - which on a side note, man wasn't that just a great game?)

But I've been a Blizzard fan since I was in... oh I don't know about eighth-grade, so I signed up for the beta. And then I got into the open beta. And by that point I was hooked.

Ten years later and World of Warcraft is still going strong. Warlords of Draenor is looking to be the best expansion the game has had in years, and to celebrate the 10th years of the game Blizzard is having the biggest anniversary party ever.

In years past players have gotten a free pet for logging in during the anniversary, or an XP boost, which was nice, but nothing on the level that Blizzard has released for this anniversary.

1 - Molten Core

First off we have the return of Molten Core. I'm going to write a post specifically about Molten Core in a little bit, but let's just say that this was the first 40 man raid ever, in the history of World of Warcraft. This was where all of the Tier 1 dungeon pieces dropped; this was where players got their first taste of what raiding would be. I'm extremely excited to run the 40-man Molten Core raid, especially because I never raided in Vanilla. Yep that's right, although I love raiding now I didn't really start raiding until BC; during Vanilla I was mostly a PVP Hunter, and not a particularly good one. And I don't even play my hunter anymore…

Molten Core is a massive cavern where players face Core Hounds, giant Fire Elementals, some big Naga dudes and... oh yeah, Ragnaros. Raggy's basically a giant Balroc and well... you see the picture above.

The raid itself is mainly for nostalgia, although it does drop a few good items as you can see below. 

2 - Tarren Mill vs Southshore

The next thing that blizzard is announcing is Tarran Mill vs Southshore. Now that is something into which I can sink my teeth because, I actually did run Tarren Mill vs Southshore. A lot. Especially back in the days where hunters had one of the best AOE spells in the game, it was a lot of fun.

The BG itself is currently a bit hard on melee - it's basically a team death match that typically devolves to ranged vs ranged as any melee that run toward the enemy team get killed in about 2 seconds. Which is a shame as I play a Paladin right now but... it's still fun. 

3 - Molten Corgi

Of course, there's the free in game pet that everybody gets, the Molten Corgi which coincides with Molten Core. There's nothing particularly awesome about getting a battle pet for an anniversary, we've seen it before, but man the Molten Corgi does look awesome. 

4 - Core Hound Mount

Core Hounds are some of the coolest looking creatures in World of Warcraft. I mean, it's a gigantic rock monster that's a dog with two heads and it breathes fire. When Wrath of the Lich King was released BM hunters were able to tame them, I practically lost my mind. But now we get to ride them as mounts. Which is totally freaking awesome.

5 - 640 Helm

There is actually one more thing I forgot to mention, Which is the really cool looking helmet that you get for killing Ragnaros in Molten Core. It's a 640 item level piece, which is currently the highest item level headset you can get for PvE, and other than the item level 680 Ring, is the highest in game until Highmual opens up and starts dropping better gear. And plus, it looks amazing. It's basically A halo made of fire. I'm definitely going to be changing my transmog when I get that piece.

Both the Corehound mount and the helm only drop from Ragnaros, so you have to sit through the entire LFR in order to complete it.

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Blizzard apologizes for worst launch ever - and it is totally acceptable

About ten hours ago, J. Allen Brack, Executive Producer of World of Warcraft, posted a rather long thread on the WoW forums, which you can read here. In it he explains the issues that were involved in the launch, and how the WoW team worked to fix those issues. I won't go into detail here, and he doesn't express all of my concerns, but in the whole I'm satisfied.

He also explained that Blizzard is giving everyone 5 days of free game time. This is to off set the 3 or so days when it was practically impossible to log into the game for many players, myself included.

Already there are some QQ posts on the forums, but most of what I've read has been positive.

I personally am totally satisfied with Blizzard's response. The game was pretty much un-playable for me for the first three days, and it was not until Saturday morning that I was even able to start leveling. It's now Tuesday night and I've just dinged 99... but if I'd been able to play those first three days I would be well into grinding heroics by now.

Having lost three days of game time, Blizzard has given me 5 days in compensation. I call this a win/win. Of course Blizzard did drop the ball on a few areas, but coupled with a massive DDoS attack I think that Blizzard has weathered the storm well and has responded in a satisfactory way.

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World of Waitcraft: The most anticipated disaster of the year.

Now don't let the title fool you - I love Warlords of Draenor. I love it far more than the tolerable Mists of Pandaria, more than my apathy allowed for Cataclysm, and I even like it more than Wrath of the Lich King, which up until this point was the last expansion that I pined for.

So let me be clear that I love Warlords of Draenor so far - when I'm able to play it.

But that's the real problem with WoD right now: you can't play. Let me take you back about half a week. Midnight on Thursday, November 13. I'm sitting in game, listening to my guild in vent, and getting ready for the launch. Then suddenly it happens: WoD is now live. I recieved a quest telling me to talk to Khadgar right at the Dark Portal. Enter problem 1: The Bottleneck. 

This might not be much of an issue in a few months when most of the regular players will have reached 100, but during the midnight launch it was a disaster. Without giving away too many spoilers, the quest line at the beginning of WoD is linear: players cannot skip parts of the quest line until about 15 quests in - basically until you found your garrison. This means that the server is literally clogged with hundreds of players standing on top of the quest giver, ninjaing quest items and lagging up the entire server so that it crashes almost continuously.

This leads to my second complaint- The server cap. Blizzard lowered the maximum server cap drastically in order to not overwhelm their hardware (also possibly in response to a massive DDoS attack) which means that during peak hours almost all servers are locked. As you can see above, this results in massive wait times to even log in (6 hours is my personal record, but some guild mates waited almost 10 hours). If you combine these factors, added with the fact that the servers were constantly crashing most of Thursday and even for a good chunk of Friday, it made the game pretty unplayable.

Now of course I need to add that when I was able to play the game it was fantastic. Once you get out of the overpopulated starting zone, and progress toward your Garrison, the game becomes far less laggy. Blizzard will probably increase the server cap over the next few weeks until it gets back to its normal maximum, and at that point there shouldn't be much of an issue with logging in. I'm on the Kel'Thuzad the server, which is one of the most populated alliance servers, and up until today I haven't really had to sit in the queue in order to log in it. Last time I really had to wait to login was during the heydays of the Burning Crusade, back when wow was able to boast a good 11 million subscribers, rather than the 8 million that has now.

I am going to be writing a more detailed review of the game a little later. This post is mostly just an opportunity for me to vent about how terrible the rollout was. Really, really terrible, worse than Mists of Pandaria was. For those of you who played MoP, the opening quest line was unplayable. It's actually still pretty unplayable, from my own personal opinion, but at least you don't have to deal with about 500 other players on their gyrocopters trying to blow up the one barrel on one ship all at the same time.

In summation, here's a bullet point list of what is, and what isn't, Blizzard's fault relating to this disaster of a release.

What IS Blizzard's fault:

• Linear, obligatory quest progression
• Single zone bottleneck
• Reducing the server cap
• Tapped, single spawn quest items
• Various bugs (including the infamous character not found bug, hearthstones randomly hear thing you home and then locking you out of WoD, etc...)

What ISN'T Blizzard's fault:

• The massive DDoS attack

Basically, Blizzard got hit by a massive DDoS attack and weathered it as best as it could, but any attempt (as some have tried) to shift all of the blame on the launch of WoD onto the DDoS attack is facile at best. 

Joystiq has an excellent article on this subject that goes into far more detail than I care to. In short, I love the game, and I'm sure I will continue to love it if I can ever actually get in game. 

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WoW - Why Engineering should be your Main's Profession

I love playing an engineer. It is by far the most fun profession to have in WoW. For starters, engineers now have access to by far the coolest mount in the game, the Sky Golem, which has become available to engineers in patch 5.4. Here are just a few reasons why I think that your main character should be an engineer:

1: Get Your Mail Any Time you Want

With the MOLL-E device you can have access to your mail anywhere, any time you want. Ever been out in the wild and found your inventory was full? I have, even with starting the day's farming of ore with nearly empty bags. Ever get a mail from the auction house that you want right now? Well as an engineer you can get this mail any time you want. This doesn't seem like a huge benefit at the moment but after having my MOLL-E for a while I couldn't imagine being without it. Of course this is on a 1 hour cooldown, but other than that it's perhaps one of the best engineering benefits.

2: Glider

This is simply the best tinker in the game, particularly if you PVP. Although it's not usable in RBG's (and rightfully slow) I can't count the number of times having the Goblin Glider has saved my bacon in World PvP. Whether you need to escape or if you've just been knocked off a cliff, a good old Goblin Glider can save your day.

3: Thermal Anvil

This goes along with the MOLL-E device. As an Engineer you can fly around, harvest your ore and then smelt it right then and there, no need to fly or port back to town to drop items off in your bank or find a forge.

4: Jeeves

Jeeves is probably the best item in the game. Unlike repair mounts (which can only be summoned in certain dungeons) Jeeves can be summoned any time, anywhere and allow your raid to repair. For you it also allows access to your bank, which is definitely a lifesaver if your bags are constantly running full. With a 4 hour cool down it's definitely something you don't want to drop randomly, however.

5: Blingtron

One of the more interesting and purely cosmetic perks, the Blingtron 4000 is simply an engineering perk that allows you to possibly get a few rare battle pets, and even a mount supposedly, though I've never seen it in one of the care packages.

6: Other Perks

There are a few other perks out there, such as bombs which are rather useful in low level PvP, Goggles, Gears, Speed Boosts (not usable in RBG's) and of course some really cool mounts. All in all at least 1 of your max level characters should definitely be an engineer, for these and many other wonderful perks.

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Quick Post - Bloodtooth Map

I'm writing a quick post for a map of Bloodtooth. I'm working on a post for him as well as videos for all of the new MoP tames but I really need to take a break and level my hunter.

SO....

Just to help anyone who might be looking for bloodtooth, here is a map, which I'll clean up and update later.

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Don't Patrannache Me!

Patrannache was by far the most challenging of the tames I've performed since MoP came out. With my early success with Savage I had thought that all of the tames would be as simple. They were not.

Patrannache is the pink crane, the only pink crane in the game. Unlike Savage (who is although unique is almost indistinguishable from the grey Pandaren Tigers) and Glimmer (who is also unique but its hard to tell the difference) Patrannache stands out as being quite different. And Pink. Very, very pink.

Maps and info after the break.

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Glimmer

Glimmer is one of two level 85 rare hunter pets tamable by hunters in The Jade Forest, the other being Savage. Unlike Savage, who does not appear to walk through any phased areas, Glimmer's path is heavily phased, adding another level of difficulty to the taming process.

If you are looking at taming Glimmer and have not quested in the area, there is a method of camping him which, although time consuming, is effective. Map and Coordinates below the break.

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Chromaggus: Taming Guide

Chromaggus. For some of us the name will induce terror filled nightmares of endless wipes, for others it will be the hours of grinding for transmog gear.

But, one change that came when Cataclysm was launched was that it was now a tamable hunter pet!

Chromaggus was the 2nd to last boss of Blackwing Lair (BWL). He was perhaps more challenging than the end boss, Nefarian, due to the debuffs he can cast on players.

As a hunter pet he is beautiful. Although there is a rare spawn pet that now shares his skin, the best way to tame this beast is to simply head into the dungeon.

Chromaggus is also a challenge tame for two reasons: first, being the second to last boss in a raid, you must be in a raid group (all members must be level 60 or higher) and second, you cannot get past the first boss without at least one more player to help you out. Although every other boss in the raid is easily soloed be a level 80 hunter with a good tenacity pet, the first boss is quite a challenge, making this pet rather hard to come by.

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Coming Soon: Glimmer, Patrannache and Videos

Hello all,

It's been a busy few days. Not hours ago I just tamed Glimmer (the 85 Rare Water Strider in the Jade Forest) after 2 days of trying. Unlike Savage, both Glimmer and Patrannache seem to patrol through phased zones, making the tames extra difficult if you haven't quested much in the area.

I highly recommend that if you're leveling and wish to tame one of the new rare pets you begin questing in the appropriate zone as soon as you can to prevent phasing issues.

Also I'll be uploading some video guides for the tames which I hope will be helpful.

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Taming Savage: Map and Coordinates!

Savage is one of the first new Rare Hunter Pets you'll experience in MoP and he is probably the only one I'm going to keep. Savage is the only White Pandaren Tiger (there are grey tigers which look similar but are not the same). Savage is also tamable at level 85, right when you enter the zone!
I tamed this pet on Luppin right after I completed the introductory quests. This appears to be the only phasing you'll have to go through to find Savage, I tracked him all through his path and he did not phase (although I lost a few of his tracks, so it may be that although Savage does not phase, his tracks do). Read past the break for more info and maps!

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A Good Day: Savage & Patrannache!

Today (technically yesterday, but I haven't been to sleep yet) was a big day for me. At about 2 A.M. I snagged Savage, the only White Siberian Tiger in the game, and about 26 hours later (i.e. 4 A.M. the next day) I snagged Patrannache, the only Pink Crane in the game!

I'll be writing guides for both of these but the process is fairly simple. As I've written before, each rare pet drops very hard to see tracks on the ground. You must follow these and make your pet visible via flair. Stay tuned for detailed guides for each pet.

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Taming Pets in Mists of Pandaria

Mists of Pandaria (MoP) is now Live!

With that comes many new changes, including one that I absolutely love, and another that I'm starting to warm up to.

The first is that each pet is capable of learning all three Pet Classes, Tenacity (Tanking) Ferocity (DPS) and Cunning (DPS/PvP)! What's even better is that you can change this very easily by selecting the specialization you wish in your pet's talent interface. Changing your pets' specializations are free (as apposed to changing YOUR specialization which can only be done at your trainer and costs gold each time) and can be done anywhere, in the field.

I can't describe how happy I am to finally be able to use Arcturis as a grinding pet in Tenacity spec. Or to have my Ban'Thalos be a Cunning Pet in Battlefields. Thanks Bliz!

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Ghostcrawler

Ghostcrawler is one awesome looking pet. As you can see, he's a spectral crab. I see very few of these guys on my server, probably because no one ever quests in the new underwater zones. But if you are leveling a hunter, I would highly recommend going to Vashj'ir to level as your first leveling zone, and staying there until you get the sea horse mount. Then, go wherever you like.

For those un-familiar with the Ghostcrawler handle, Ghostcrawler the NPC is named after Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street, the lead systems designer for World of Warcraft. Very popular on Bliz's (and other) forums, this little crab spirit beast seems to have been aded primarily as a nod to him. But it's still a cool pet.

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Olm the Wise

Olm the Wise is a great pet, and I hardly see any hunters out there with him. Although he shares almost the exact skin as Ban'Thalos (minus the green glow) he is not an Exotic beast and therefore can be tamed by any hunter of a sufficient level (48 or higher).

Interestingly enough, Olm the Wise didn't always look like this. Before Cata he was a white owl that was friendly to alliance and hostile to Horde. This meant that he was un-tamable to alliance, and was the first White Owl any Hord hunter would be able to tame until they reached Winterspring.

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Terrorpene

Terrorpene is a tricky character. There are actually quite a few creatures in the game with this skin but only Terrorpene is tamable. Although not technically a "Challenge Tame" I label him under Challenge Tames due to the damage you'll receive while taming him (see below). In addition, he is not a Spirit Beast so any hunter at a high enough level can tame him.

In the Wild Terrorpene has 111,561 HP and hits quite hard with his Burning Hatred Ability which does 10k damage every second. As an 81 Elite pet he is quite hard to tame if you are not 85. This pet appears to have been designed by Blizzard as something Hunters who were decked out in Epics from Wrath would be able to tame within their first few days of leveling.

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Sambas

I love this Lion. Being Alliance, he matches the Alliance Guild Mount so he's pretty much the perfect pet. At least on my server he appears to be the most sought after Cat, even beating Skarr.
Sambas is classified as a cat, and therefore can be tamed by any hunter, not just BM hunters.

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Karoma

Karoma is one of the most sought after pets in WoW right now. It was introduced with 4.0, is a Spirit Beast and appears to have a 6 to 12 hour spawn timer. He spawns in one of 6 locations randomly, and from what I've read he (along with all rare spawns) remain in his location until ether tamed or killed. He drops only the grey Tear of Loyalty, indicating quite clearly that he is meant by Blizzard to be a hunter pet only.

He is not technically a unique skin. He matches the skin of the Ancient Grimtotem Spirit Guide, a previously tamable pet that was made tamable, and then un-tamable during BC. Blizzard obviously never intended for them to be tamable, as they only existed for 7 seconds, too short for a normal Tame Beast cast. However, a few hunters found a way to tame them, and Blizzard allowed them to keep their hard earned pets.

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