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31 Day Challenge: The Elevator Pitch

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On Saturday, I made a quick note that I would be participating in this year’s 31 days to building a better blog.

Earlier readers will remember the previous tagline I use was Knowledge through Logic and Reason. That wasn’t the best of taglines to use on a healing related blog.

Anna suggested World of Matticus – Where Leadership and Healing Collide (without the train wreck). I know if I the blog had a business card of some sort it would read something like: "Problems with healing? Guild issues got you down? Matt can help!”

For most WoW bloggers, I suspect their elevator pitch would be something related to their character (The adventures of ____ or the musings of a <race> <class>). I have yet to think of the perfect pitch. This blog isn’t just mine anymore. It’s Wyns, Syds, Lodurs and everyone that’s ever contributed via comments or guest posts or emails.

When people discover that I’m a blogger, they always ask “Oh, what do you write about?”. I admit that it’s a bit frustrating to come up with an answer. I usually have different ones on standby depending on the what I know about the person. If they’re my age, they’ve heard of World of Warcraft. If they’re of a different generation or not as fluent with video games, I’ll tell them I write about gaming strategy and advice.

So here’s the short form of what I would use across the network.

World of Matticus: Improving Today’s Healers and Tomorrow’s Leaders
PlusHeal: The Universal Healing Community for all Specs and Skills
No Stock UI: A Different Playing Experience

The elevator pitch is a great way for you to really buckle down and figure out who you are and what you want to do.

Apping for Guilds

This works the same way. When you’re applying for a guild and you’re speaking to an officer or a GM, most of them get a good handle on the type of player they’re dealing with in a few minutes. So you should take the time to develop a small pitch for yourself if you’re in between guilds.

Example – I’m a progression raiding oriented Discipline Priest

I’m about to head out and do some progression oriented studying and then some more volleyball!

For the bloggers out there, what would your tagline be and what is your blog about?

Say Hi to No Stock UI!

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nsui

During the summer of 2007, I started World of Matticus. In the summer of 2008, I opened the PlusHeal discussion community for healers to take part and actively contribute their ideas for other players to learn from.

It is now spring of 2009.

Enter No Stock UI.

This will be a magazine style blog with a few notable bloggers around the community:

You can find out more about us if you’re interested! You’re also certainly welcome to contribute! We’re all UI enthusiasts at heart.

What’s the big idea?

No doubt some of you are wondering what’s the point in a UI blog. But some of the most passionate and heated blog posts stem from bloggers who write about their UI and different addons. Often times these useful posts are scattered, buried and tossed aside never to be read again.

Here at No Stock UI, our goal is to deliver compelling and quality content centering around your gaming experience. Topics will range from:

  • Addons
  • Macros
  • User Interface
  • Design
  • Reviews
  • Comparisons

To start with, the blog will be updated every Tuesday and Thursday. Hopefully we can pick up the pace as time goes on. Eventually, I’d like to see it get to the point where readers can get a new post everyday. One step at a time, right?

Our posts

  • 4 Popular Heads Up Displays
  • Why Aesthetics are Important
  • 6 Nifty Addons You Might Not Know About
  • 30+ FuBar Plugins You Can’t Live Without
  • Where to Find Your New UI
  • Killer Combinations: AuctionLite + Skillet + LilSparksWorks
  • In Depth Analysis with Recount

Hope you’ll enjoy reading our posts as much as we loved writing them!

And the Award Goes to…

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awards

My fellow Blog Azeroth colleagues (altoholicmom and Stop) have seen fit to offer World of Matticus one of the most prestigious awards in blogging today! I’ll be accepting it on behalf of the entire team. Blogging is not easy but all of us put in an effort to make it look as polished as possible. The design uses the Matticus standards of blue. It’s the revolution music theme I purchased from Brian Gardner which I’ve customized.

The conditions of acceptance are as follows:

  1. When accepting this auspicious award, you must write a post bragging about it, including the name of the misguided soul who thinks you deserve such acclaim, and link back to the said person so everyone knows she/he is real.
  2. Choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you dont have seven friends. Show the seven random victims names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog. Well, theres no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.
  3. List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. Then pass it on!

Now, it’s my turn to nominate and award seven other blogs around the blogosphere which is going to be difficult. But I will try!

too-many-annas 

Too Many Annas: For outstanding blogging. Her ability to represent the three Rs (Resto Shaman, Raiding, and RPing) are unparalleled. Her site design is the latest evolution in Informational Shamanistics. She doesn’t know it yet, but shes up for an honorary healing degree from the Matticus school of Raiding.

big-bear-butt

Big Bear Butt: This bear has managed to outwrite and outproduce World of Matticus in terms of sheer quantity (and quality!). The award goes to Master Patricelli! 😉 Renowned for writing thought provoking, eyebrow raising, and mind warping posts, Big Bear Butt has entertained and educated readers since the summer of 2007 (right around when World of Matticus formed)!

duct-tape

Duct Tape and a Prayer: For most promising healing blog formed in 2009, I nominate @etherjammer. He’s come to the conclusion that haste is indeed better than crit going forward into 3.1 for Discipline Priests. His weekly link posts are an excellent source of reading material if you’re looking to kill time somewhere. Keep an eye on the jammer. I suspect his presence will be around for a while.

druid-kitty

Druid Kitty: Having been read 10000 times is no easy feat. Many aspiring bloggers give up before they even reach that mark. A big congratulations are in order for @superkathoid for reaching the 10000 mark. Before you realize it, you will break the 100000 mark. But keep writing. Don’t give up. Never look back.

tanking-tips

Tanking Tips: Without tanks, there would be no need for healers (since we’d die too quick to be effective). Veneretio has been a beacon to countless protection Warriors both novice and veteran alike. His tenacity for tanking is matched by his ability to engage discussion. For this, I nominate @veneretio for outstanding blogging and service to the pin cushions of WoW!

need-more-rage

Need More Rage: Ratshag has provided countless hours of laughs and tears with his posts. What goes on in his head when he writes? I would love to know that myself, actually. As such, it is only fitting that Ratters earn the title of “Most Wackiest WoW Blogger”

paladin-schmaladin

Paladin Schmaladin: This blogger popped up on my radar a few months ago. She is a contributor to the Retpaladin.com community. Some of you might know her as Ferraro. I don’t know of very many Retribution Paladin bloggers myself. But I did learn a thing or two from her for my Paladin.

Honorary mentions:

World of Warcraft, eh? – I had the pleasure of meeting Cadistra two weeks ago (and she’s cool to boot). It’s a great WoW comic and it should be added to everyone’s RSS. Totally blew my mind how much time and effort is involved.

And now to the facts portion. As a twist, I made an extra stipulation that none be WoW related.

Facts about Matt

  1. Favourite beverage is coffee. Usually grabbed from Starbucks for the sake of convenience. No cream, no sugar. I like my coffee black.
  2. Brain teasers and logic puzzles are what I do when I need a break from anything WoW related.
  3. I still have yet to watch Princess Bride.
  4. I let out large sighs of exasperation when I’m not happy about something. (My guild can attest to this)
  5. The only genre of music I don’t like to listen to is country.
  6. I once took Salsa and Waltz lessons (but call me the dancing Dwarf, and I will smite you).
  7. Dogs scare me. A dog came up to me on my bike when I was younger and caused me to fall off.
  8. When skating, the only method by which I can stop is crashing into the boards.
  9. I worked as a carnie for three years. Yeah, I was the guy that let your kids into the bouncy castle. However, I was not the guy who cleaned up after your kid if he peed in it (I made someone else do it).
  10. I have the world’s messiest handwriting. There are some days where I can’t even read myself. That’s why I purchased my Macbook for school

Facts about Wynthea:

  1. My birth was announced by a fortune cookie which proclaimed "There will soon be an addition to your family" to my mother. She was pregnant, but didn’t know it yet.
  2. I once auditioned for The Real World because it was the season to be set in Paris, even though I’ve never seen the show.
  3. I don’t own a television. (well, i do, but it’s only hooked up to my DVD player…)
  4. When I’m stressed, I count to twenty in my head… in French.
  5. It’s taken some time, but I’ve finally learned to control the facial twitch that happens when I introduce myself, and people respond: "oh, like the little mermaid?"
  6. I can bake excessively delicious cookies, muffins, and brownies.
  7. My birthday is New Year’s Eve. It is AWESOME.
  8. I got my nose pierced today.
  9. My guild makes fun of me because I am notoriously un-funny. They’ve learned to give me pity laughs in vent though, which is why I’ll never leave them.
  10. I know all the words, and can rap along to, this Outkast track.

Facts about Lodur

  1. I’m addicted to all things steam punk. I’m just fascinated by the artwork and gadgetry and overall style
  2. I obsessively watch hockey and soccer. (GO MANCHESTER UNITED!)
  3. I have been referred to at work as "Super Mario" since Halloween of 2007 when I showed up to work in overalls, red shirt, over-sized cartoon gloves and an embroidered red hat with the "M" on it. Helps that I’m short, round and mostly Italian.
  4. I’m a classically trained singer (not kidding) and performed in the traveling show of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in the early 90’s as part of the children choir
  5. I’ve named all of my guitars
  6. I’m named after one of The Beatles.
  7. The demo for the song "To Be With You" by Mister Big was recorded in my childhood home
  8. I’m addicted to Tim Horton’s coffee… no seriously they put one across the street from my home and I have to buy at least one cup a day.
  9. My favorite T-Shirt has the words "Cereal Killer" on it with a skull and crossbones with two spoons as the crossbones. Yes, I love the movie hackers.
  10. I’m an Apple fan boy. I love me some Mac!

Facts about Sydera

  1. I am a big reader. I always was, for my whole life. I was that kid who really did read the encyclopedia–it was a set of 1966 World Books. My favorite books of all time are Don Quijote, Pride and Prejudice, Bleak House, and Jane Eyre. However, I read mostly sci-fi and fantasy in my spare time now.
  2. I am a southerner, but I don’t have a southern accent. However, ask me sometime to imitate my mother or grandmother–guaranteed to have you in stitches!
  3. I hate flying. A lot. Have you ever tried to take a cat to the vet? Getting me on a plane is a lot like that, except I have to do it to myself.
  4. I am a big-time procrastinator. In fact, I totally could have written this list yesterday, but I didn’t.
  5. I love vampires. I like to read about them, watch movies about them, and debate other vampire fans about vampire culture. I almost started a vampire blog, but then WoM came along! I’m currently working on my own vampire novel about an 18-year old girl vampire. I think it’s sexist that it’s mostly men who get to be vampires in all the stories. My favorite contemporary vampire authors are Anne Rice and Tanya Huff. I just read Bram Stoker’s Dracula this year and I really loved it. And just for the record, I read the Twilight books and enjoyed them, but I wouldn’t say I’m a fan. Vampires have no business being outside in the daylight. I always did love vampires, even as a kid–I blame the Bunnicula books. And, of course, my favorite Sesame Street character was Count Von Count, the numerically-gifted vampire puppet.
  6. I scare really easily. If you walk around my house with your hands in "claw" formation while making "monster" noises, you’ll definitely get me to scream. Yes, even if you didn’t surprise me. A part of me will suspect you’ve actually turned into a zombie.
  7. I am a cat person. I like dogs too, but if there were a box of free kittens and a box of free puppies, guess which box I’d be putting in my car? Baby kittehs for sure.
  8. I am obsessed with matching pajama sets–you know, the sporty cute kind that my undergrads often wear to class. I mostly buy them at Target, but I look for them everywhere.  My favorites are the holiday PJs–especially the purple ones with skulls that I got for Halloween last year. I am currently upset that I have not been able to find any Easter pajamas. My ideal would be yellow PJs with a chick on the t-shirt and an egg pattern like polka dots on the pants. I always raid in cute PJs.
  9. I am a wine snob. I prefer Sonoma to Napa, dry to sweet, and red to white, except where a French-style grenache rosé is involved. My very favorite wine is the Hawkes Cabernet from the Alexander Valley. You’ve never lived unless you’ve had a good northern California Cab with a juicy steak. Despite my love of wine, my go-to raiding drink this year has been hot chocolate with Baileys. I just moved to a really cold climate!
  10. Strawberries are the best fruit, and asparagus is the best vegetable. Sushi makes the tastiest dinner, but crème brulée is the most proper dessert. Ham is superior to turkey, and fried chicken outclasses fried fish. If I have to eat potatoes, they’d better be french fried or mashed, but I’d rather not eat them at all.

Monday’s a big day. Stay tuned…

Image courtesy of CanadianSc.

Tier 7 Bonuses: A Guide to What’s Hot and What’s Not

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tierpiece

Updates:: This is another classic example of me not fact checking my stuff. This post sat in my draft queue since early January. Other things came up and I set it aside for the time being. Patches 3.0.8 and 3.0.9 were released and I forgot that some changes were made. Resto Druids 2 piece, Feral Druid 2 piece notes have been changed. Stop’s opinions have been revised. I split the tanking and DPS feral druids accordingly instead of lumping them together. Added another Enhancement Shaman perspective. Sorry! 🙁

Tier pieces have a history of granting bonuses. Blizzard has an even more illustrious history of giving set bonuses that are really good and some that are really bad. I don’t know everything about every class. Yet, as a member of loot council, I should be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the various set pieces. Like it or not, set bonuses do tend to have an impact on decisions. One of the Resto Shamans in my guild was the first to get the 4 piece (because Archavon was kind and dropped 2 Resto pieces).

To help you understand and decide on your set pieces, I’ve consulted my guild and several other prominent bloggers and players in the community. I don’t know as much as I would like about other classes and it wouldn’t be fair for me to make any assumptions (without asking others about it first).

This post will be broken down into 4 different roles: Tanking, melee DPS, ranged DPS, and healers.

Tanking

Warriors

2 piece: Increases the damage of your Shield Slam by 10%. Rating: Good

4 piece: Increases the duration of your Shield Wall by 3 seconds. Rating: Moderate

Several of the tanking Warriors I consulted weren’t impressed with the Warrior 4 piece. Prot Warrior blogger Veneretio only had this to say:

"It’s a great bonus if the 4 pieces fall into your lap, but the current non-set itemization is so strong that you’ll be hard pressed to even get the 2 piece. Basically, it’s go for the 7.5 gloves and another set piece (like shoulders or chest).”

Druid

2 piece: Your Rip lasts for an additional 4 seconds, and your Lacerate deals an additional 5% damage. Rating: Good (for both)

4 piece: Increases the duration of Barkskin by 3 seconds. Tiger’s Fury cooldown reduced by 3 seconds. Rating: Good for tanks

I had to consult Feral Druid Karthis about this one.

His thoughts on the 2 piece:

“While extra damage is always nice, Lacerate doesn’t form a crucial part of a bear tank’s output – Maul and Mangle generally outperform it (although Mangle is close).  Since threat is a non-issue in the existing content, this set bonus is even further trivialized.”

On the 4 piece:

“This unassuming-sounding set bonus is actually fairly significant.  Barkskin reduces damage taken by 20% and usually lasts for 12s.  It is a spell that every tank should be re-casting as soon as it is off cooldown.  Boosting the uptime to 15s only improves an already must-use skill, and further reduces the total incoming damage that must be healed through.”

Paladin

2 piece: Increases the damage dealt by your Hammer of the Righteous by 10%. Rating: Good

4 piece: Increases the duration of your Divine Shield and Divine Protection by 3 seconds. Rating: Moderate

HoR is good AoE threat. 4 piece is irrelevant to raiding. (Thanks Myze!)

From what I’ve been told, the 2 piece is good. The 4 piece appears to be just average. The situation seems to be similar to the Warrior 4 piece. Divine Protection is probably going to get used more often in the same was Shield Wall would be. Thanks Anna!

Death Knight

2 piece: Increases the critical strike chance of your Plague Strike by 10%. Rating: Moderate

4 piece: Increases the duration of your Icebound Fortitude by 3 seconds. Rating: Good

When Stop speaks, I listen:

2 piece: It’s still not fantastic… at all. Plague Strike is one of our lowest-hitting abilities, and improving its crit chance is not as useful as if they’d increased its crit damage. Basically, the 2-piece bonus is not worth going for.

4 piece: About the tanking gear 4-piece bonus: If you have to have a set bonus, this would be the one to go for. However, I don’t know if I’d pass up other gear just to get it, depending on your playstyle. Icebound Fortitude is basically Barkskin, and with some specs being squishier than others, some use it constantly while some use it like a moderately less effective Shield Wall. If you use IBF every time it’s up, go for this bonus. Otherwise, consider it a nice perk for getting this already-nicely-statted tank gear.

Melee DPS

Warriors

2 piece: Increases the damage of your Slam by 10%. Rating: Good.

4 piece: Your Bleed periodic effects have a chance to make your next ability cost 5 less rage. Rating: Moderate

Not that hot. Most DPS Warriors don’t have as much rage issues from what I’m told. But the Slam bonus is very nice.

Rogues

2 piece: Increases the damage dealt by your Rupture by 10%. Rating: Good

4 piece: Reduces the Energy cost of your Combo moves by 5%. Rating: Ugh

“The two-piece bonus seems pretty useful but I’m unconvinced about the four-piece.” Seri, Snarkcraft

“Just that the two piece is a huge bonus for rogues while the four piece is lackluster considering the amount of energy used to perform the combo moves.” – Cassio

Druids

2 piece: Your Rip lasts for an additional 4 seconds, and your Lacerate deals an additional 5% damage. Rating: Good

4 piece: Increases the duration of Barkskin by 3 seconds. Tiger’s Fury cooldown reduced by 3 seconds. Rating: Not great for DPS kitties

2 piece notes: “This is an important set bonus for a feral cat’s long term sanity.  Kitty DPS is stressful – there are four separate buffs/debuffs that need to be monitored.  By increasing the duration of Rip, a Druid is allowed more wiggle room to keep the other three (Rake, Mangle, Savage Roar) all active, which leads to consistently higher DPS.  “

4 piece notes: “It reduces the Tiger’s Fury cooldown by 3s. While TF is used every 30s, the top theorycrafters say that this new bonus is almost meaningless, clocking in at an extra 0.7% dps. There are much better gear choices that provide a bigger DPS boost than that.” (Karthis’ notes in the comments)

Shamans

2 piece: Your Lightning Shield damage is increased by 10%. Rating: Not so good.

4 piece: Your Flurry effect provides an additional 5% melee haste. Rating: Good

Not the greatest. Most Shamans don’t appear to pick up the Static Shock talent. Water shield is primarily used since they go through mana quickly. The 4 piece is decent as it results in overall faster hits.

On the other hand:

It is actually fairly good, static shock is a must take ability for an enh shammy. When I look at my WWS, lightning shield represents about 6% of my total damage output. Since I am at about 4k DPS right now that means my lightning shield is doing about 240 DPS.

Paladins

2 piece: Increases the damage dealt by your Divine Storm by 10%. Rating: Good

4 piece: Reduces the cooldown of your Judgment of Light, Judgment of Wisdom and Judgment of Justice by 1 second. Rating: Good

An overall net increase in DPS. Your Ret Paladins will love it. From what I’ve been told, Ret Paladins have this in their rotation anyway.

Death Knight

2 piece: Increases the critical strike chance of your Obliterate and Scourge Strike abilities by 5%. Rating: Good.

4 piece: Your Obliterate and Scourge Strike generate an additional 10 Runic Power when used. Rating: Moderate

DPS 2 piece: The only people who won’t benefit from this are dual-wielders. Every two-handed build in common usage uses either Obliterate or Scourge Strike, so for much the same reason as how Heigan’s sigil is great for pretty much every two-hander-using DK, this set piece bonus is fantastic for them. I’m still trying to get a set piece just for this bonus, in fact!

DPS 4 piece: I have no idea what they were thinking with this. I think they would’ve done better to try to rip off another class’s bonus, like, say, warriors? No DK should be having problems generating runic power, two-handed or dual-wield, period. Plus, again, this is useless for dual-wielders – both of the DPS plate set bonuses are geared exclusively towards two-handed weapon users. All that aside – I would never gear for this set bonus specifically.

– Stoppable force.

Ranged DPS

Priests

2 piece: The mana cost of your Mind Blast is reduced by 10%. Rating: Good

4 piece: Your Shadow Word: Death has an additional 10% chance to critically strike. Rating: Not so good

From my Shadow Priests:

The 2 piece is nice but is purely for mana efficiency on Mind Blast and doesn’t really matter much if you have stacked Spirit and Crit like most Shadow Priests do. The 4 piece isn’t worth it because with itemization there are many pieces that add more DPS than the 10% critical chance to Shadow Word: Death.

Druid

2 piece: Your Insect Swarm deals an additional 10% damage. Rating: Good

4 piece: Your Wrath and Starfire spells gain an additional 5% critical strike chance. Rating: Good

Boomkin ones are awesome all the way around. Insect swarm should always be up and 5% extra crit on our two major nukes is flat out gibbering insane. – Llanion, Moooonfire

Shaman

2 piece: Your Lightning Bolt costs 5% less mana. Rating: Moderate

4 piece: The bonus critical strike damage of your Lava Burst is increased by 10%. Rating: Good

I play an Elemental Shaman in my off nights and I absolutely love it. I don’t have a ton of mana problems in the beginning. Fights are short enough that I won’t be taxing my mana pool. The 4 piece set bonus is great for me. Flame Shock guarantees that my next Lava Burst will crit. This means Lava Burst will get an increase of 10% damage no matter what. Normally I’ll do around 8000 damage per Lava Burst. This shoots it up to a little under 9000. Fights like Thaddius or Malygos where your damage gets increased will have Shamans see an extremely noticeable amount (18000 with Sparks)!

Mages

2 piece: You gain 40% more mana when you use a mana gem. In addition, using a mana gem grants you 225 spell power for 15 sec. Rating: Moderate

4 piece: Your offensive spells gain an additional 5% increased critical strike bonus damage. Rating: Good

I consulted one of my Mages on this and he tells me that the 2 piece is nice for the extra mana boost. The 4 piece could potentially equal a 1%-2% overall DPS increase.

Hunters

2 piece: Your pet deals an additional 5% damage. Rating: Good

4 piece: Your ranged attack speed is increased by 20% while Aspect of the Viper is active. Rating: Good

2 piece bonus is nice for any spec, but it’s particularly good for MM or SV looking to close the gap in pet damage. The 4 piece bonus is kind of a nice boost to DPS while in regen mode, but nothing earth shattering, looks like. – Lassirra, The Hunters Mark

Warlocks

2 piece: Your Corruption and Immolate periodic effects have a chance to increase the next critical strike chance of your next Shadow Bolt or Incinerate by 10%. Rating: Good

4 piece: Casting Life Tap grants you an additional 300 spirit for 10 seconds. Rating: Good

“2 piece bonus is really good. 4 piece bonus is- OMG WHY DON’T I ALREADY HAVE THIS?”  – nibuca

Note: Nib immediately dashed off and could not be reached for further comment.

Healers

Priests

2 piece: Your Prayer of Mending will jump an additional time. Rating: Good

4 piece: The cost of your Greater Heal is reduced by 5%. Rating: No, not really

Personally, I’d say go consult your WWS on this. Try to get a feel for how often you use Greater Heal and see if you can justify it. I don’t use Greater Heal as often. When you think about it, 5% off of Greater Heal is about 50 mana or so. I don’t use this spell enough to warrant the free payback. But if you do, then it is something for you to consider. Otherwise, go for 2 sets then defer the rest to the other classes (like Warlocks or Paladins). Obviously if the 7.5’s drop and you have nothing else better in the slots (like heroic gear), go ahead and take a stab at it.

Shaman

2 piece: Your Water Shield is 10% stronger (each tick restores 10% more mana). Rating: Good

4 piece: Increases the healing done by your Chain Heal and Healing Wave by 5%. Rating: Good

Earthshatter set bonuses for Resto Shaman are awesome! Because they buff Water Shield as well as Chain Heal and Healing Wave, they manage to suit most of the various healing styles that Resto Shaman can perform (Anna, Too Many Annas)

Druid

2 piece: The cost of your Rejuvenation Lifebloom is reduced by 5%. Rating: Good

4 piece: Your Nourish heals an additional 5% for each of your heal over time effects present on the target. Rating: Good

2 piece is solid. Rejuvenation Lifebloom gets used frequently. With the 4 piece, Nourish becomes even stronger for Resto Druids. At least, this is what Syd tells me. Can’t go wrong here!

Paladin

2 piece: Your Holy Shock gains an additional 10% chance to critically strike. Rating: Good

4 piece: The cost of your Holy Light is reduced by 5%. Rating: Good

"Neither bonus is play-changing in the way that old set bonuses have been (4pcT5, anyone?) but both 2pc and 4pc bonuses are nice boosts to our mana-intensive spells." – Siha, Banana Shoulders

Hopefully this summary will help you in your loot decisions! For the DKP players, maybe it’ll even save you some points for other items instead!

Image courtesy of riyono

Ulduar Unveiled

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ulduar-unveiled

Update 1:32 PM

“Actually, the effectiveness of the vehicles in the Flame Leviathan fight changes depending on the quality of the gear. So someone in full Naxxramas epics (or Ulduar epics!) will have an easier time than someone in greens. “

Source

More information about Ulduar from this blue thread.

  • We know of four additional bosses: Thorim, Freya, Iron Council, and Hodir.
  • PTR will be on a testing schedule. Certain fights will be turned on at certain times so the encounter team can watch it.
  • Both 10s and 25s will be available

Some quick hits here for your Tuesday morning. WoW Europe’s released a lot of details for Ulduar.

Here’s all the stuff that may interest, you in a nutshell:

  • We’ll be engaging one of the Old Gods. Could be the final boss.
  • Contains two separate raid areas. Not sure if it means wings or two instances (a la AQ 40 and 20).
  • Seems one of the main areas will be where we fight the Iron Army. Humanoids (thinking ahead to CC types). I’m thinking a mix of elementals and mechanical mobs as well.
  • 14 bosses, 11 of which have hard modes.
  • Vehicles will be important. Motorcycles, demolishers, and siege engines will be used to breach the first set of Ulduar’s defenses.
  • Sick of vehicles in Malygos Phase 3? We get to use them against the Flame Leviathan (weapons platform), type boss. The Leviathan is a part of the V0-L7R-0N weapons platform (Reference to Voltron, eh Stop?). A boss that’s only touchable via vehicles. Once it reaches a certain percentage, players can then assault the tank’s back and destroy it.
  • Flame Leviathan encounter has four defensive towers that can be destroyed. The more towers left up, the more challenging the encounter. Ergo, better and more loot.

More details to come. Yours truly will be leading a task force in there on the PTR. As you may suspect, I will be writing up healing strategies for Ulduar as soon as I devise them. Expect the usual Photoshop diagrams to accompany them.