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Live
Talk Azeroth with Olivia: Support and the Store, Play with the Blues Event
Play With the Blues Event
Today from 2-4pm PST, Blizzard Devs and Community Managers will be hosting a
"Play with the Blues"
event on the PTR! They'll be testing out the
Timeless Isle
, an exciting zone filled with rare spawns, BoA epics, and tons of vanity loot!
Not sure where to start? Check out our
Timeless Isle
coverage--we've been having a blast tracking down all the hidden details on the island:
BoA Items, World Bosses, Battle Pets, Timeless Coins
Timeless Isle Vanity Loot
Celestial Pet Tournament
Timeless Isle Rare Spawns
Celestial Tournament and Sky Lantern Updates
Talk Azeroth: Episode 9
We've al
Live
Patch 5.4 Feature Preview: Connected Realms
<div class="detail"><p><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 2em;">Over the years, World of Warcraft players of all kinds have naturally migrated to different realms to play with their friends, find new guilds, strive for Heroic boss kills, search for the most competitive PvP experiences, and otherwise try to find the right place to call home. Over time, these shifts in player population can sometimes create a less-than-optimal play experience for those on less popular realms, making it tougher to find guilds, conquer group content, and get what they’re looking for from the Auction House and in-game economy.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 2em;">In Patch 5.4, we’re looking to address this with a new feature called <strong>Connected Realms</strong>. Building on our existing cross-realm technology, a Connected Realm is a set of two or more standard realms that have been permanently and seamless “linked.” These linked realms will behave as if they were one cohesive realm, meaning you’ll be able to join the same guilds and Arena teams, access a single Aucti
Live
Best in Show: A Guide to All Shirts
Today's guide looks at all the vanity shirts in game--perfect if you want something to match a transmog set! They're not restricted by class or armor limitations, so nothing is out of reach for avid collectors. They're great for both bank alts, players looking to cover up skin, or show off a rare find.
I've organized all the shirts by color, as well as providing descriptions, acquisition methods, and crafting materials. To see an image for every shirt, click on the
Image
toggle which will display a user-submitted screenshot.
Here's a a set of quick links to currently-obtainable items by source:
Vendors
Brawler's Guild
Tailoring
Drops
Trading Card Game
Guild Achievements
Live
5.4 PTR Patch Notes: Updated August 2nd
The 5.4 PTR Patch Notes were updated late last night with some class and ability changes. Here's the highlights:
Trinket, enchant, set bonus, and legendary meta-gem effects whose triggered effect benefits from haste no longer also have their chance to trigger the benefit from haste. Activation chances for those effects have been adjusted to compensate. You can check out the updated proc per minute details on our PTR tooltips, like
Cha-Ye's Essence of Brilliance
.
Heroic Scenarios no longer have a minimum item level requirement to enter. This will make putting groups together easier on alts.
All enemies in Throne of Thunder now have a debuff called Shado-Pan Onslaught, which reduces their health and damage by 20%. Since 5.4 introduces a new raid tier, making the older tiers easier makes sense.
Class changes include
Shadow Word: Death
increased by 80% when used on enemies that have less than 20% health, but the cooldown is no longer reset if the target does not die, and Dash, Dive, and Charge no longer costing Focus to use.
There were also some significant changes to Vengeance:
Vengeance now grants Attack Power equal to 1.5% of the damage taken, down from 1.8% (The tooltip said 2% but it was actu
Live
Siege of Orgrimmar Loot Tables, Clarifications on Off-Spec and Upgradable Legendary Capes
The 5.4 Dungeon Journal has been updated to include loot drops from all Siege of Orgrimmar bosses--check out the loot drops and dungeon strategies below.
We also have some clarifications on the
legendary capes coming in Patch 5.4 as well
. There's plans to include options to get legendary capes for your off-spec, and there's also some discussion on whether or not capes can be upgraded. It looks like the legendary capes will end up at ilvl 608 regardless of the item tech behind it.
Lore
I'm not completely sure how things are set up in the build that's going up today, but our intent is actually that you'll be able to acquire multiple Legendary cloaks, if you like. So, if you wanted, you could actually get one for both your Protection and Retribution spec :)
As an update, there's been a very slight change of plans. Our current thinking is to either start the Legendary cloak off at 2/2 upgraded (regardless of whether you upgraded the Epic cloak or not), or just have it set t
Live
5.4 PTR: Build 17260--New BoA Items, Siege of Orgrimmar Loot
A new PTR build is on its way--many Siege of Orgrimmar raid epics were added, as well as Timeless Isle achievements and some new BoA items.
Check out the latest additions!
Patch Highlights
New BoA items--currently they have "Hellscream" in the name and are epic, but Blizzard has reached out to clarify with us that the
item levels are not final
. They are:
Hellscream's Barrier
,
Hellscream's Cleaver
,
Hellscream's Decapitator
,
Hellscream's Doomblade
,
Hellscream's Pig Sticker
,
Hellscream's Razor
,
Hellscream's Shield Wall
,
Hellscream's Tome of Destruction
,
Hellscream's War Staff
,
Hellscream's Warbow
,
Hellscream's Warmace
Many new Timeless Isle achievements, including
Fire-Watcher
for getting tons of Bloody Coins,
Timeless Champion
for killing all the rare spawns,
Treasure, Treasure Everywhere
for looting all the chests, and
Going To Need A Bigger Bag
for getting all the rare items.
Many new Siege of Orgrimmar epics were added. Check out the thousands of raid items, which we've organized by slot and armor type:
Cloaks
[url=
http://ptr.wowhead.com/items=2?filter=qu=4:5:6:7;cr=82;
Live
Activision Earnings Call: WoW Down to 7.7 Million Subs, Titan Updates
Activision announced their
second quarter 2013 financial results
today. It was confirmed that WoW lost 600k subscribers since the last earnings call, which was released as a tentative estimate in a press release from
last week
, in which it was also announced last week that Activision Blizzard was separating from their parent company Vivendi in an $8.2 billion deal.
It was also revealed that
Titan is unlikely to be a subscription-based MMO
, Blizzard is looking for a new director for Titan, and that the game's concept is undergoing significant changes.
The subscription losses follows
March's report
, which follows a loss of [url=[url=
http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ACTI/2310472046x0x634081/fbb6a75d-f965-442b-8d6a-bde335918118/Q4_2012_atvi_press_release.pdf
Live
Site Updates: Image Search Results, Loot Specialization Filters, and More
With all the recent 5.4 PTR coverage, it's a good time to step back and highlight some of the cool projects and database improvements our dev team has been working on. We've added image galleries to our search results, some new loot specialization tools, and more!
Image Gallery: Search Results and "Same Model As" Tab
We've added image search results, generated by our 3D Modelviewer, for all armor and weapons! To view the image results, simply click on the
Gallery
tab next to the default
Name
option. Clicking on an image will open up our 3D modelviewer, and clicking on the name will take you to the item's page.
We've also turned the
Same Model As
tab on all armor and weapon pages into an image gallery as well. With images for all items, players can easily spot what armor not only has a matching style, but also identical colors--a popular site request among our transmog users.
Loot Special
Live
5.4 PTR: Celestial Tournament Updates and Legendary Questline Clarifications
Celestial Tournament Updates
The
Celestial Tournament
, a place where players can battle celestial battle pets and famous pet battle tamers for cool prizes, is a bit more festive on the PTR now. There are tons of spectators and banners, as well as new vendors who sell noodle bowls and the new alcoholic drink
Dragon P.I.E.
!
The available teams were tweaked since last week as well--
Nairn
, a tribute to
Kristian Nairn
who plays Hodor on
Game of Thrones
, now has a battle pet ability tribute as well--
Nairn!
, which is strong against undead. He's also joined by a new direwolf pet,
Summer
.
There were also some new teams after Tuesday's reset--including Sully who has an Undead Socks pet, and Lorewalker Cho. Players can also now heal battle pets inside the tournament from
Cowardly Zue
, but y
Live
5.4 PTR Patch Notes: Updated July 29th
The 5.4 PTR Patch Notes were recently updated by Blizzard with class and item changes. For the most recent datamined changes, check out our coverage of
Build 17247
.
PTR Patch Note Changes
Death Knight
:
Death's Advance
now grants a flat 10% Haste to all things, up from Haste for melee (attack speed and Rune regeneration) only. The movement speed buff remains unchanged.
Fixed a bug that caused
and
Runic Corruption
to incorrectly increase activation rates of some trinkets and effects.
Ghoul's Leap and Gnaw abilities are no longer on a global cooldown, and no longer cost Energy.
Hunter
:
no longer initiates auto-attack.
Charred Glyph
: Camouflage also reduces spell damage taken by 10%.
Mage
:
Rune of Power
now has an increased effective range. The Mage can remain up to 8 yards away from their
Rune of Power
and still receive benefits to mana regeneration and spell damage (up from 3 yards).
Monk
:
Fixed a bug that caused the damage of some abilities for Brewmasters with
Live
5.4 PTR: Timeless Isle Vanity Loot
The
Timeless Isle
not only has tons of
rare spawns
--it also has tons of vanity loot like character disguises, pets, and BoA items!
To read more about the
Timeless Isle
, check out our recent posts on
rare spawns
including maps,
transmog looks
, and our initial look at
BoA gear, world bosses, and Timeless Coins
.
Bloody Coin
Items
Speaker Gulan
by The Blazing Way has special vanity items that cost
Bloody Coin
. To get this currency, you will have to World PvP.
To flag up for World PvP, you'll first need
Censer of Eternal Agony
, which costs 2500
Timeless Coin
. On use, it sacrifices 90% of your health, turns you translucent, and makes you hostile to players of both factions. Killing players with this buff awards one
Bloody Coin
.
Here are the vanity items from
Bloody Coin
. Big thanks
Live
5.4 PTR: Build 17247--Spell Changes, Tier 16 Names and Models, and More
A third PTR build is coming this week! Check out the spell changes and new additions.
Click here for the latest additions!
Patch Highlights
New Battle Pet:
Sky Lantern
More Timeless Isle items:
Bubbling Pi'jiu Brew
: Pour the brew onto the ground, summoning a Spectral Windwalker to fight for you for 10 min.
Flimsy Sky Lantern
: Right click to summon and dismiss your Sky Lantern.
Golden Glider
: Ride the glider, reducing your falling speed for 2 min.
Misty Pi'jiu Brew
: Pour the brew onto the ground, summoning a Spectral Mistweaver to fight for you for 10 min.
Thick Pi'jiu Brew
: Pour the brew onto the ground, summoning a Spectral Brewmaster to fight for you for 10 min.
Tier 16 Names and Models
In this PTR build, Tier 16 items were give names, instead of using placeholder T15 names. They were also assigned their models, which we datamined previously. Currently on the PTR, you can purchase Tier 16 gear but it resembles Tier 15 gear.
These colors below are for Normal itemsets. It appears that the colors for LFR, Flex, and Heroic were not assigned to items
Live
5.4 PTR: Timeless Isle Transmog and Cosmetic Glyphs
Timeless Isle Transmog
We've mentioned before that the Timeless Isle has ilvl 496 Bind-on-Account epics, but we also realized that some of these epics have unique looks as well!
Cloudscorcher
: any Mage or Warlock spec
Cranefeather
: Leather Agility specs
Ordon
: Mail Intellect specs
Crimsonscale
: Mail Agility specs
Cliffbreaker
: Plate DPS specs
Click on the images to view them in our 3D Modelviewer!
[model itemset=9,111475,8,111476,7,111477,10,111471,1,111479,5,111470,3,111474,6,11
Live
WoW Down to 7.7 Million Subscribers, Activision Blizzard Splits from Vivendi
In their
latest press release
, Activision Blizzard announced they were separating from their parent company Vivendi in an $8.2 billion deal.
In addition, the press release revealed that WoW's subscriptions for the 2013 second quarter were down to 7.7 million. This is a loss of 600k subscribers from the last
March's report
, which follows a loss of
1.3 million subscribers
reported at the end of 2012.
In Cataclysm, WoW lost
a lot of subscribers
and was at 9.1 million right before WoW's expansion came out:
600k
,
300k
, [url=htt
Live
5.4 PTR: Celestial Pet Tournament and New Battle Pets
The Celestial Pet Tournament is now open for testing on the 5.4 PTR, and there's also over 20 new battle pets to collect!
Celestial Pet Tournament
To participate in the pet tournament, speak to
Master Li
and pick up the weekly quest
The Celestial Tournament
.
You must have 30 pets at level 25 in order to be able to enter, but this requirement will most likely be tweaked in a future build.
Once zoned into the tournament, you cannot heal your pets. You must exit the tournament to heal your pets, which means you must start the tournament over from the beginning.
There are seven challenges in the tournament: three pet tamers that each have three legendary battle pets, and then four legendary elite battle pets. You must complete them all in order to win the tournament, so it does require you to have leveled a fair number of pets.
To keep things fresh, the three pet tamers will change every week--one is even
Game of Thrones
themed with a Hodor tribute pet!
On the PTR, your collection of pets doesn't copy over, but you get a random assortment of level 25 pets, including some Collector's Edition ones.[/
Live
Talk Azeroth w/Olivia - Ep 08 - Timeless Isle Kills Dailies, Mists Endgame Madness
This week Olivia wants to hold your hand as she takes you on a journey through the
Timeless Isle
, running merrily through the new zone, murdering rares, stealing their stuff, and generally making with the stabby.
She then opens the table for discussion of the shifting end-game content styles in Mists. We really have run the gamut in this expansion, from factions and factions of dailies, through weeklies, and now, with patch 5.4, the arrival of the
daily-quest-free timeless isle
.
And Olivia then rattles through your responses to last week's request for feedback, and is relieved that the majority seemed to agree with her, before answering some viewer questions, and berating herself for doing another too-long show!
Live
5.4 PTR Patch Notes: Updated July 24th
Blizzard updated their 5.4 PTR Patch Notes with class and glyph changes-when looking at the
datamined information from earlier
, see if it's listed here officially! Here's the additions from today:
Druid
:
now defaults to generating Lunar energy towards a Lunar Eclipse when used after being resurrected or zoning into a new area (used to default to generating Solar energy).
Hunter
:
A Murder of Crows
now deals 40% more damage.
Charred Glyph
: Reduces the range of
by 7 yards.
Charred Glyph
:
also reduces spell damage taken by 10%
Mage
:
Mastery: Frostburn has been replaced by
Mastery: Icicles
. When the Mage damages an enemy with their
Frostbolt
, and
Flurry
, (14% + 1.75% per Mastery) of the damage done is stored as an Icicle for 15 seconds.
Mastery: Icicles
also increases the Water Elemental’s Water Bolt damage by (14% + 1.75% per Mastery). Up to 5 Icicles can be stored at once. Casting
Ice Lance
launches all stored Icicles at the target.
Frostbolt
no longer increases the d
Live
5.4 PTR: Build 17227--Spell Changes, Vanity Items, Siege of Orgrimmar Mounts
A new 5.4 PTR build is on its way. There's tons of new vanity items like
Rime of the Time-Lost Mariner
, new mounts, and battle pets.
As Community Manager Lore noted on a PTR thread copied below, there are some changes in this PTR build that may be reverted in the build after next--so take datamined spell changes with a grain of salt.
Check out the latest additions!
Patch Highlights
New Proving Grounds achievement:
You're Doing it Wrong (Level 90)
. Complete Silver mode in the "wrong" spec!
Tons of vanity items, possibly tied to Timeless Isle rares:
Sunset Stone
: Place a Sunset Stone that will change the time of day to sunset in the surrounding area for 10 min. (1 Hour Cooldown)
Rime of the Time-Lost Mariner
: Sing the haunting melody of the crew lost on the Dread Ship Vazuvius. (2 Hrs Cooldown)
Rain Stone
: Place a Rain Stone that will summon a rain storm in the surrounding area for 10 min. (1 Hour Cooldown)
Odd Polished Stone
: Become infused with stone, granting a chance upon killing an opponent to encase them in stone. (1 Hour Cooldown)
Falling Flame
: Launches the user far into the distance as a blazing met
PTR
5.4 PTR: New Rare Spawns, Pirates and Events
The Timeless Isle is teeming with rare spawns--over 20 the last time we checked! Some are pirate-themed, while others spawn as part of rare events. The best part is that rare elites are complete shared tags--they are not limited by faction or by party.
For more posts on 5.4 PTR rare spawn coverage, check out
Lore
's
Rare Elites of Pandaria Guide
,
WoW Rare Spawns: Timeless Isle Preview
, and
Cymre Jones: Timeless Isle Rares
.
Pirates
Unsurprisingly, shipwrecks are a common theme on the
Timeless Isle
. The following events, objects, and npcs are tied to these achievements:
Where There's Pirates, There's Booty
,
Going To Need A Bigger Bag
, and
Timeless Champion
.
The ruined Dread Ship Vazuvius lies to the south of Pi'jiu Village. It's overrun by
Cursed Hozen Swabby
, who are guarding a treasure chest that contains
Cursed Swabby Helmet
. They drop the
Barnacle Encrusted Key
which is needed to open the
Live
News Roundup: Flex Raiding, Proving Grounds, Siege of Orgrimmar Gear
Today's news roundup is pretty heavy on gear discussions: Blizzard clarified the item levels of raid epics in Patch 5.4, talked about
Siege of Orgrimmar
's gear design, and talked about the different paths to PvE and PvP gearing.
Players were also keen to talk about Proving Grounds--they first discussed how they sound great for demonstrating raid capability for new players looking to find a raid, and then moved into more specific questions about the individual learning environment and overall difficulty level.
The
Siege of Orgrimmar
gear post by Watcher is especially worth reading, as it goes over the reasoning behind each's raid gear's strength and talks about how raiders shouldn't feel obligated to run all difficulties at once:
Siege of Orgrimmar
LFR loot is
ilvl 528
. It is intended to feel like a meaningful upgrade over gear from the last tier, and there's already
ilvl 522 Valor gear
and
ilvl 516 Heroic Scenario gear
which many LFR players have equipped.
Siege of Orgrimmar
Normal loot is [u
1
333
334
335
336
337
364
