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Every story, article, column, piece, and so forth on World of Matticus ever published.

Everfrost Chip Locations and Coordinates

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Players working their way through Storm Peaks will eventually come across the Sons of Hodir faction. Quickly they’ll realize that the rep grind is a big pain in the derriere. For those of us that aren’t into Inscription, we need them because they offer us shoulder enchants.

And we’re all players that want to be the best at what we do so we go out there and farm our butts off.

Along the way, you might hear of these objects known as Everfrost. Every turn in nets you 350 rep.

Here’s a few locations with coordinates and visual references. I’ll continue to add more as I see them. If you happen to see one not on the last, please screenshot and email it to me! Use the contact form to get in touch with me first.

Further more, you may wish to check out this awesome WoWHead map with Everfrost Chip locations pinned on it.

Updates 2

3 more locations (courtesy of Karthis again!)

everfrost2a

Coordinates: 53.1, 64.6

Notes: Above ground level. Fly up.

everfrost3

Coordinates: 59.9, 63.9

Notes: Also above ground level (really high, if you compare it with ground level).

everfrost4

Coordinates: 72.2, 47.9

Notes: Out to the east by them Forefathers.

Updates

Added 2 more locations (Thanks Karthis)

Everfrost chip location

Coordinates: 58.2, 64.6

Notes: Fly up. It’s not at ground level.

 WoWScrnShot_121808_094946

Coordinates: 73.1, 65.4

Notes: As you approach this Everfrost from the east, you might see this chip disappear from your eyes. Don’t worry, it didn’t actually go away. What happened is that you entered a phased part of the map which the chip isn’t a part of. What you have to do here is approach the chip from the southwest (like pictured above). This will let you see it and loot it. If you approach from the north, you won’t be able to see it at all.

Everfrost chip location

Coordinates: 75.2, 48.4

Notes: You can find this at the back of the area where you kill the Forefathers. It’s right on the ledge. Most players tend to miss this one.

Everfrost chip location

Coordinates: 69.3, 53.4

Notes: Just west of the area where you fight the Forefathers.

everfrost

Coordinates: 65.4, 61.0

Notes: Karthis sent in this one. You can find this chip right under the noses of the Sons of Hodir.

WoWScrnShot_010109_113030

Coordinates: 52.3, 67.9

Notes: Right as you fly over the village of the Norse women, look south on a cliff. A lot of players miss this one.

I’ll continue to update this post as I get more locations. If you see any that aren’t on the list, get in touch!

For more information on reputation with other factions, you may wish to look at Wyn’s reputation guide.

Priest Tier 8 Previews

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I don’t know if you’ve seen it or not, but the crew at MMO-Champion’s just released screenshots of a bunch of tier 8 gear.

priest_tier8_male_small

priest_tier8_female_small

No wings this time. But we do look more Rogue like. They have Death Knight, Hunter, Mage, Rogue and Warlock Tier 8 previews.

The Hunter set looks incredibly bad ass. Some of the Ulduar weapon previews are out as well. The 1H is almost as large as the 2H. Check out the rifles at the bottom. Talk about packing serious heat. No caster weapons as of yet, however.

What do you think about the Priest Tier 8 look?

Matt’s Predictions for 2009

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2008 was a blast. I wish I did a predictions post last year. Who knows what I might’ve gotten correct? Probably nothing. But it’s not too late to do one for 2009!

2009 Predictions: What will happen? Speaking of predictions, check out Doofy’s blog for his!

WoW Blogging growth: We’ll continue to see more and more WoW bloggers entering the blogosphere. Death Knight blogs in particular will be on the rise.

Path of a Hero flourishes: Make sure you add the  guy on Twitter (@pathofahero). Epic and Legendary Path of a Hero accounts will be launched soon. This service is just a chronicling of your character’s progression. Think of it as an automated character tracker with text inserts for your journalistic needs.

craftofwar

Machanima standards rise: Craft of War: Blind sets a new standard in WoW machinima.

Warriors spotlighted: The removal of the Titan’s Grip hit penalty will see Warriors doing even higher damage. Where 2008 was the year of the Druid for arena, 2009 could very well be the year of the Warrior.

Dual specs delayed: Delays from trying to interface dual speccing with alternate bars, glyphs, and talents continue. Players continue to fork over hundreds of gold in respecs and reglyphs.

Dance studios delayed: Continuing Blizzard’s trend of releasing stuff “when it’s ready”, dance studios will reach PTR status but will still not be live just yet.

Swimming mounts implemented: On the other hand, swimming mounts will arrive in the first quarter of 2009.

Achievements become the standard of guild progression: WoW Progress and Warcrafter are sites that rank your progression on both a guild and personal level. In the past, the only way a guild’s success could be measured was via the speed at which bosses were taken down. But achievements, whether you love them or hate them, will eventually be used as another comparison tool between guild A and guild B.

Megan’s arena team vs Hafu’s arena team: They will meet in the grand finals somewhere. This will be the match of the century.

3.1.0 content beaten in 4 months: Difficulty curve of Ulduar and the other unknown instance throw a big curveball to raiding guilds. Blizzard brings back “gated” content like what was done with the last bosses of Sunwell to slow down progression.

Epic gems introduced: Even though epic gems came out in the third tier of content in BC, the difficulty level of Ulduar is ramped up where epic gems become an almost necessity.

Ghostcrawler retires: After much epic QQing and players disagreeing with his perspective and discussions on class balance, Ghostcralwer promptly calls it a career. Class discussion boards and other related forums vanish as blues begin to scale back the amount of posting and responses they do to avoid community burnout.

What are your predictions for 2009?

Discipline without Penance – Can It Work?

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penance

This is a guest post from Wistoovern, a Discipline Priest who takes a closer look at Penance to see if it’s really all that

There are some instances in World of Warcraft where individuals who take a role proceed to redefine it into "non-traditional" role. For example, there is the player that decided to level without killing anything, or the hunter that decided not to level ranged weapons at all, but instead maxed out melee. These people are proof that your characters are flexible, unique, and can fill roles that others would not immediately think of.

Along these same lines are character builds that involve or ignore talents and spells that others find key. I’m speaking specifically of the new Penance spell that all of the Discipline priests that I have met so far are just ga-ga over. However, while it might be an efficient spell depending on how you use it, I beg to differ when it is said that a Discipline priest must have it in order to be a viable party/raid healer.

My initial thought to the spell was, "Why? Priest spells have a certain ‘flow’ to them; a spell like this is only going to throw everything out of whack." Well, imagine my surprise when so many Discipline priests started extolling its virtues. Personally, I am still unmoved. I do not believe that this spell is key to Disc healing – after all, we did without it for so long. But shall I go into specifics as to why it is not so as important as others might think?

  • Stop Assuming you need it – Yeah, it’s a 51-point spell. But do ALL Beast Mastery Hunters use Beast Mastery? It’s not too long ago that Lightwell was at the top of the Holy Priest’s tree, but did anyone actually use it? Taking a talent without making sure that you will use it efficiently is useless.
  • Dual Tasking? – Let’s be honest – priests are not hybrid classes. We’re not meant to do both healing and damage at the same time. We really get to pick one or the other. We do a good job at either one (nice shadow priests, GOOD shadow priests…), but both at the same time is impractical or inefficient. So a spell that can either do heals or DPS depending on who is targeted? This can be a big problem.
  • I Mean Really, Dual Tasking? – There are only two other spells that we have that works like this: Holy Nova and Dispel Magic. However, the priest that considers Holy Nova a crucial part of his healing spells needs a reality check, and Dispel Magic (and Mass Dispel, fine) is not going to be an issue if it’s cast on the wrong target (unless you REALLY had to dispel a DoT or effect off of a player and you miss).
  • Did I Do That? YES! – Let us not forget Mr. Urkel and his occasional mistakes with such horrible results. Imagine that you go to heal someone in your party, without realizing that you have a mob targeted that has not yet been pulled. Oops…not only are you making new friends FAST, but your tank probably won’t have time to pull it off of you. Any other heal, and this would not be a problem – in fact, the inability to use healing spells on enemies can help you.
  • The Hell Does That Mean? – Well, here’s a trick that I used to use in Hyjal and Kara. Target a mob that you have to Shackle, and after they’re Shackled, leave them targeted. When you click your keyboard buttons for heals, the system will TRY to heal your target. Oops, you have an enemy targeted, so it will instead give you the "grayed-out finger" pointer. Then, just click on your healing target. Sounds bulky? It’s not! It’s a click tap-click to healing someone. Advantages: no need to use a focus, and you can still pick up the shack quickly if it breaks. Disadvantages: slightly slower than normal, takes a little getting used to, will not work with Dispel Magic…or Penance.
  • What He Giveth With One Hand... – When the GMs build spells, they do it with careful consideration to effect intensity, cooldown, casting time, mana cost, and reagent cost. If they did not, you’d see Instant 50,000 damage spells that cost 100 mana with a .5 second cooldown. No, every spell that they give is balanced through the various aspects. High effect? It will have a high casting time or casting cost. Instant effect? High mana cost or cooldown. Low mana cost? Reagent cost. And when it comes to pure healing spells, cooldowns can be death (literally). Waiting for a heal to be available – or, rather, a heal that so many people think is just "so awesome" is a crapshoot. If a six-second cooldown can kill Circle of Healing, how is Penance so great with a TEN-second cooldown?

I can’t deny that a lot of the numbers for Penance look really good. But assuming that this spell is going to be a Discipline priest’s best friend is like assuming that all druids have feral sets (they don’t) or that all Warriors have Titan’s Grip. I’m not saying don’t use it – just don’t be so surprised if your Discipline priest starts laying down the heals without Penance. It can be done. Really.

Five Reasons You Want To Heal My Pet

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In this post, Amava of Amava Knows Aggro looks at the often underhealed Hunter pet and why they should be extended heals.

Hello, my name is Amava. I’m a raiding Hunter who transferred to the Ner’Zhul server to join Conquest shortly after WotLK was released. As a damage-dealing player, I’ve been a long time reader of World of Matticus because knowledge of the whole spectrum of specialties and roles helps build the foundation for a successful raid. When Matt put out his Guidelines for Guest Posters, and specifically called out a Hunter post as "lets not go there", I just had to plead my case to the healing community.

top5pet

Awareness of your fellow raiders’ strengths, weaknesses, needs, and desires helps make you a better member of your team. Over the next few minutes, I’ll hopefully convince you that any mana and GCD’s that you can spare for a Hunter’s pet directly helps the raid succeed. Let’s explore five reasons you want to keep an eye on those critters…

Say it with me: D. P. S.

If you raid, I’m willing to bet you enjoy dead bosses. There’s a million and one factors that go into killing a boss, and one that stands out very visibly is the need for enough damage per second to bring the mobs health to zero before the Enrage Timer dings. The pet of a Hunter of any spec brings a solid chunk of DPS to the raid. If the Hunter is a Beast Master, even more so. WWS reports show BM pets doing 45-50% of the Hunter’s total damage. Take for example a recent Conquest raid on Patchwerk in Heroic Naxxramas. Two BM Hunters. Two kitties. Two Thousand DPS. Each. Actually, closer to 2.2k each, but that didn’t fit nicely with my Two-Two-Two structure. Bottom line: Hunter pets bring massive DPS to your raid. Please help keep them alive.

Buffs and Debuffs

One of the most important parts of raiding is having a solid Raid Composition. There is a plethora of raid buffs and boss debuffs that all work together to boost the performance of your raid of 25 unbuffed toons to the equivalent of 28-29 toons. Ghostcrawler says, "Bring the player, not the toon." Blizzard has given a variety of options for fulfilling each of the buff/debuff categories which is outstanding from the perspective of a Raid Leader trying to get a team together, and Hunter pets only serve to increase the flexibility. I’d like to modify GC’s statement, "Bring the player [and the pet], not the toon." Since patch 3.0.2, there are a number of options for a Hunter to bring if your raid is lacking a particular capability. Some examples are a boost to the Attack Power of nearby players, a reduction in the armor level of the boss, or make the boss miss its next attack (tanks and healers should love this one). Dead pets bring no buffs or debuffs, so please help keep our pets alive. Communication is the key to a successful team, so I encourage you to discuss with your Hunters to see what special abilities their pets are bringing to the raid.

Cuddly

Everybody loves animals. Even animal haters, deep down inside, love animals. The haters are probably just harboring spite from a single bad encounter, and are irrationally prejudiced against the whole Animal Kingdom. I mean, even the Grinch has a dog. But I digress. It’s something primal; something instinctual from our roots. We love animals. There’s a subtle and subconscious benefit to your raid. It boosts morale seeing those fuzzy wuzzy pets charging off to battle, or just yawning and fidgeting while they patiently wait for everybody to stop going /afk. They’re also cute as hell when they accidentally go off and aggro the next pack of mobs or two. Blame the Hunter, not the pet.

Off-Tanking

Ever since patch 3.0.2, some Hunter pets make outstanding tanks. There are a whole slew of options, but most notable ones are Gorillas, Bears, and Rhinos. Before WotLK’s release, at level 70 there were reports of pets main tanking Gruul. At level 80, I’ve used my Gorilla to solo Utgarde Keep and nearly all of The Nexus. They are quite sturdy, can be spec’ed to resist lots of magical damage, and generate a respectable level of threat. In a raid environment, if you need to occupy the attention of a mob or two, a Hunter’s tanking pet brings some fantastic flexibility to your team. Just like the official tanks, our pets are going to need some love from the Healers. Do keep in mind that a tanking pet won’t deliver as much DPS as a ferocity pet, and I’m unaware of any reasonable way to make my pet uncrittable, but they do provide more options to your Raid Leader, which can be priceless in a pinch.

Spirit Bond

Here’s one that should really hit home for a Healer who wants to boost her numbers and top the healing meters. Mid-way through the Beast Master talent tree is a talent called Spirit Bond. Putting 1/2 points in this talent boost all healing that both the Hunter and the Pet receive by 5/10%. On the surface, it does not really look like a raiding talent, because it doesn’t directly boost DPS at all. However, the BM tree is a little messed up, and Hunters often find themselves with one or two points that really have no nice home, but need to go somewhere to allow access to the sweet and juicy talents deeper in the tree. Any mana you invest into a Hunter’s Pet will boost your individual return by 10% if that Hunter goes 2/2 in Spirit Bond. Communication is the key to a successful team, so I encourage you to discuss with your Hunters to see where they put their points.

Wrap Up

This is my top five reasons you want to heal my pet. Whether its raw numbers-based action or the softer side of a cuddly belly to pet between wipes, we all win when you keep our pets alive. What other reasons are there for keeping our furry friends alive? Or are you one of the haters who’d rather sit outside the FSR for just one more cooldown than lift a finger to help a kitty out?

Image courtesy of clix