Filed under: Cataclysm

A couple of weeks ago, I did a Know Your Lore about Varian Wrynn. This is guaranteed to get you guys worked up, by the by. Varian is one of those characters that sharply divides the player base. Some think he's an unthinking racist, others a brutal savage, still others an interesting character -- and yet again, some like him and think he's an excellent king for Stormwind and leader for the Alliance. In that post, I pointed out how active Varian has actually been since taking the throne of Stormwind, and a few of you made a good point.

A great deal of that activity has taken place in books or short stories or the comic. In game, he's only really left Stormwind three times. Granted, one of those times was the Battle for Undercity, where he and a dashingly handsome draenei warrior carved their way through tunnels full of undead. Still, it's a fair point. If you really want to know Varian, you have to do a lot of homework. Some players play WoW and that's it. If it doesn't happen in game, it doesn't happen. I can relate, as I'm still bummed that Cairne died offscreen, in a book. I wanted to be there to say goodbye to the character, and I still feel a little cheated.

On the flip side, of course, some people ignore things like quest text, flavor text, and cutscenes but will actually sit down and read a leader short story or a book. I know that I've had spirited lore discussions with folks in my guild, yet every time we jump down from the airship onto Deathwing's back, we're escaping out to get to the fighty bits. So having lore in a form disconnected from the gameplay gives those folks a chance to experience it without feeling like they have to choose between them.

So which do you prefer? Do you want it to happen in the game, or are you happy with tie-ins?

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.

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Throughout Cataclysm, the arcane spec has been a strange beast. At the beginning of the expansion, it was solidly the worst mage spec due to the absurdly high cost of Arcane Blast. After some quick patch 4.1 fixes, it became our top-performing spec, especially if we had access to Shard of Woe. From that point on, arcane was a source of potent damage. While fire has become the vogue spec for Dragon Soul, arcane still is a very viable and desirable spec. Going forward into Mists of Pandaria, that all could change ... or the spec could be made even better.

Part of the source of arcane's potency this expansion has been due to how incredibly well the spec scales with intellect. While intellect provides the same spellpower to arcane mages that it does to every other caster, arcane mages' Mana Adept mastery makes the mana increase from intellect critical. Arcane Blast, the pivotal spell in arcane's rotation, has a static mana cost that is only based on mage base mana and not their mana after gear. Because of this, the more intellect you have means the more Arcane Blasts you can fit in at higher mana levels, meaning more damage through mastery.

Technically, as I write this, the Dragon Soul isn't actually dead yet, nor do raids really die so much as either become outdated or revamped. (Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman stand as examples of raid content that died to be reused, while Naxxramas was used again as an introductory raid.) But since we're closing in on our fourth month running the raid instance, I thought this was a good time to examine it critically. What were the Dragon Soul's main themes? How did it function both as a raid instance and as a platform to end Deathwing's story arc? And most importantly to me, did I enjoy the ride?

Dragon Soul as an experience was fascinatingly diverse compared to previous raids. It eschewed the static finding of some dark cave or towering fortress to instead create a raid wherein we traveled the world, with different environments for the bosses to suit the locations and set pieces for our transitions. One complaint I've seen is that by reusing the Dragonblight and Wyrmrest Temple, Blizzard's design team was cutting corners -- but frankly, I don't find that criticism very accurate. First off, Wyrmrest is where the dragonflights typically meet, as demonstrated by Malygos' assault during the Nexus War, so it makes perfect sense for it to be where Deathwing sends his full Twilight's Hammer forces to try and crush them.

The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

The King of Stormwind wears the crown on a troubled brow. He inherited the mantle as a child, not through a peaceful succession but through bloody violence and the destruction of his home. He wore it in exile and only came home with the death of the man who saved him and carried him away from the sight of his entire world burned to the ground. His entire life has been shaped by violent loss, by tragedy and death -- his mother dead before he even knew her, his father murdered and butchered in front of him, his replacement fathers cut down, his wife taken from him in a moment's passing by an errant rock thrown from a mob.

His early rule was most notable by his lack of desire to actually do much rulership, busying himself by riding the land in search of his father's killer or drifting though a haze of loss after his wife's death, a haze seized upon and manipulated by someone who was supposed to be a close advisor. The circumstances of his disappearance from the throne and his return have been discussed in detail. For now, all we need to do is accept that they did little to encourage him to view the throne as anything but a responsibility to be maintained in the face of constant peril.

Following the Northrend campaign and its heavy cost both to King Varian and the kingdom as a whole (Bolvar's death, as well as the many deaths at the Wrathgate; the invasion of Undercity and the destruction of Putress; Horde troops ambushing Alliance forces engaged with the Scourge; the astonishing cost in lives and resources), it would have been difficult for either the King or the kingdom to quickly recover. The eruption of Deathwing and the Cataclysm he caused did not allow the luxury of time. Reeling from one blow, they suffered another and another.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host.

This week, in a discussion of War Banner, some interesting points were made. In his response to the discussion, Daxxari said something that really made me think about the warrior class and where it is going -- more importantly, where it can go.

Daxxari - War Banner

Ultimately, we wanted to try and expand the design potential for warriors a bit. Increasingly, it seemed that any new ability had to be another type of movement, a weapon strike, or shout, or it wouldn't feel like a warrior ability. We wanted to try something new, and we're hoping that warriors will give them a shot once we're in beta and let us know how it feels.

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What I really found worth examining is this idea of what feels like a warrior ability, exactly. So many people objected to War Banner based around the idea that it's a totem, and totems are shaman-only. War Banner isn't going to be implemented like a totem. But the idea of trying to design new abilities that broaden the feel of warrior abilities leads us to ask what, exactly, does feel like a warrior ability. Should all warrior abilities be shouts, movement-based abilities or weapon strikes?

Blizzard has posted a more detailed explanation of the revamped Scroll of Resurrection feature, allowing current players to send their friends seven free days to come back to the game, a free bump for one character to level 80, and a free server and faction change to your friend's new server. For the current player, you'll be given a faction-specific spectral mount if your resurrected friend pays for a month. All in all, it's an ambitious package to entice old players to return to Azeroth.

These new clarifications make sure that players understand the rules of the promotion and that this is a limited time deal. Blizzard will be letting everyone know with ample time before the promotion ends, but if you're interested in the mount, it might behoove you to get your Scroll of Resurrection out of the way early. What that says to me is a potential for rotating rewards for the Scroll of Resurrection. Multiple rewards or a new reward each year is a great way to get players to do their own grassroots advertising to get old players back into the game to sate their collector compulsions.

Hit the jump for the full list of clarifications.

WoW fishermen out there should take notice that Winter Squid, the seasonal winter catch that is part of The Oceanographer achievement, will likely be disappearing from Azerothian waters on March 19. If you still need to catch this fish for your achievement, you had best get it completed as soon as possible.

El's Extreme Anglin', long held as the source for all WoW fishing-related information out there, has a wonderful guide for helping you catch the Winter Squid. If you're not a fisherman, you can easily get your skill up to Winter Squid level by fishing in the same place and using some of El's guides to power through that skill. Nonetheless, don't miss out on this fish or you'll be waiting until September.

[Thanks to Xabidar for the tip!]

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You know me, always looking to kill stuff.

Hear me out, though: I'm not saying we should kill repeatable questing here. Repeatable questing, first given to us in World of Warcraft with the inclusion of the Skyguard and Ogri'la questing hubs, was later expanded upon with the Isle of Quel'Danas as part of the Sunwell patch and has been with us ever since. Throughout Wrath of the Lich King and into Cataclysm, we've seen new daily quest hubs come and go. (Cataclysm currently has both Tol Barad and the Molten Front as hubs, plus other dailies for reputation factions such as the Therazane ones.) I'm not specifically arguing against the concept of having questing hubs that offer repeatable quests for a reoccurring reward.

I'm asking why must they be daily?

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Seasoned ret paladin Dan Desmond is here to answer your questions and provide you with your biweekly dose of retribution medicine. Contact him at dand@wowinsider.com with any questions, concerns, or suggestions!

I have always been a staunch supporter of the Ret Paladin DPS Equality movement. Ever since my male blood elf first picked up a two-hander and started swinging, I've been quite fixated with the entire meter-chasing DPS subculture that manifests itself in at least a small handful of raiders in each and every guild. There were a few tricks that felt too dirty to use (I'm looking at you, agility gear during Wrath), but for the most part, I have enjoyed the process of milking as much delicious damage from my character as possible.

Lately, however, I have found myself examining this philosophy in a wider scope. Sure, battling for the top spot on Skada has been fun, but is that truly what we should be aspiring to? Is there more to being a ret paladin than golden combo points and a big weapon? Clearly the answer to this question is, "Of course, Dan, are you mental? We have so much utility -- get the net!"

Well ... chyeah, right! Actually, you are right -- our utility spells are among the things that set us apart from other classes and keep us from being just better-looking rogues. But is their mere existence enough, or should our playstyle involve some form of active utility? What would this look like, and is it even feasible?

Blizzard's Cataclysm post-mortem blog series has seen Dave "Fargo" Kosak discuss quest design and Scott "Daelo" Mercer discuss dungeons and raids; today, Blizzard wraps up the series with a look at Cataclysm's game systems. As with Fargo and Daelo, Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street, WoW's lead systems designer, talks about what worked (the 1-to-60 revamp, choosing a spec at level 10) and what didn't (a long list of other things). GC is surprisingly candid in this particular blog entry, and it's definitely worth a read to get a bead on what Blizzard learned from World of Warcraft's third expansion.

The full interview is after the break.

Blizzard recently released a blog from Dave "Fargo" Kosak that acted as a post-mortem for Cataclysm's quest design. Following on its heels is this entry from Scott "Daelo" Mercer, the lead encounter designer for World of Warcraft. In it, Scott talks successes (Dungeon Journal, Raid Finder) and failures (difficulty level of launch heroics) in the dungeons and raids portion of the game's third expansion and shares what he's looking forward to with the release of Mists of Pandaria. I'm definitely with him in anticipating challenge modes and PvE scenarios.

Read the full interview after the break.

Mastery is my favorite stat in World of Warcraft because it's the only stat that actually changes function from class to class. Haste might speed up rune regeneration for death knights, or fire mages might view a huge critical strike chance more happily than an affliction warlock, but those stats do largely the same thing across classes. On the other hand, the mastery of an elemental shaman is incredibly different than a holy paladin, which is a big change from a protection warrior.

Lucky for me, this patch gave rise to mastery as elemental's key secondary stat after hitting the spell hit cap. It's been a good stat all expansion but sat solidly behind haste through all of Firelands and much of tier 11. With Dragon Soul out and most ele shaman who have been playing the past few months now wearing their tier 13 sets, it's mastery's turn to shine.

The reason for mastery's newfound glory is the Spiritwalker's Regalia four-piece bonus, which gives you 250 haste rating every time your Elemental Overload procs, stacking up to three times and lasting four seconds. At a full stack, this is effectively 750 free haste rating that you get just for gearing for mastery. However, this stack falls off quickly, and chances are you'll only get one or two spellcasts off before it drops. As a result, you want a lot of mastery, to give the two casts you do get a fair chance at keeping the buff up.

Forum poster Breccia put a lot of thought into his list of the top 10 winners and top 10 losers of Cataclysm. I don't agree with all of his choices, but I definitely agree with what he has to say about Neptulon being one of the losers -- we need a resolution of that storyline and soon. It got me thinking about who I'd consider the winners and losers of this expansion. The status quo got a pretty serious shake-up in Cataclysm, and a lot of fortunes were changed for good or ill.

Personally, I really think the worgen took it on the chin this expansion. Not only is the female model lacking (in my opinion) compared to the original preview (that semi-permanent snarly and atrophied muzzle needs to be redesigned badly), but worgen players got to see their cool storyline concluded Horde-side while they were traipsing around in the night elf starting zones. Even today, most of Gilneas is a ghost zone. I love the worgen, and I really hope we get to see them get more involved in Mists.

As for winners, I'd definitely put Velen up there as a stealth winner. While the draenei still haven't been as active as I'd like, the quest in the Swamp of Sorrows where Velen appears is a huge lore goldmine for the future. Not only does Velen spell out the true nature of the conflict at hand, he sets the stage for a war so vast and terrible it makes all previous struggles on Azeroth pale to insignificance. He also flat out corrects the idea that the Light hates the broken, showing that it's the draenei themselves who have a touch of bigotry in their souls to conquer.

I could go on all day, but it's more interesting to see what you think. Winners and losers of this expansion? What are your choices?

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.

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Scrolls of Lore poster Curll has just linked to an interesting series of answers from the Blizzard Taiwan and Blizzard China forums about Mists of Pandaria and future developments coming to World of Warcraft. Do note that these translations may be questionable, but Scrolls of Lore hasn't steered us wrong on these things yet. Some of the highlights include:

• 4.3 content is not expected to last a full year.
• Focus is definitely on the mortal races, the Horde vs. Alliance conflict, and trying to get back to the feeling of Warcraft: Orcs vs. Humans.
• Outland and Northrend revamps are not coming any time soon. Blizzard wants to fix the timeline issues, but that's not on the top of its lists.
• For lore enthusiasts, a new faction called the Lorewalkers will be introduced, allowing players to travel the world to find and bring back historical artifacts to found a historical archive. The faction will be story- and lore-focused, not a means to grind rep for gear.

If you want to take a look, the forum thread has plenty of details. It would be very interesting if these things came to pass.

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World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria is the next expansion, raising the level cap to 90, introducing a brand new talent system, and bringing forth the long-lost pandaren race to both Horde and Alliance. Check out the trailer and follow us for all the latest MoP news!

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