OK, fine there are no dancing gnomes in this post. Well just the one. Welcome to my end of the week recap. I will do a brief recap of what happened in Azeroth this week. WOW dropped a doozie of a patch this week with 3.1. In case you missed it, the patch notes are located here;
Patch Notes – http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=16403300172&sid=1
Major New Features – http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/underdev/ui.html
This patched added many new features, enhancements and of coarse nerfs to the game. For class specifics please click the links above to sort through the class changes. Let’s look at some of the more interesting items, determined by a very complicated algorithm run on a quantum computer power by irradiated gnomes.
First the new dungeon, secrets of Ulduar is finally here. Blizzard describes the dungeon as a prison intended to permanently confine the Old God of death, Yogg-Saron. This is a very difficult dungeon with very good rewards. In this dungeon you have the chance of acquiring a new legendary weapon named: the night elf hunter eradicator. Ok, fine it’s actually called Val’anyr-Hammer of the ancient kings. It’s a one handed mace with the stats currently unknown. The only know factor is the on-equip effect;
Val’anyr Hammer of the Ancient Kings- Equip effect – Your healing spells have a chance to cause Blessing of Ancient Kings for 15 seconds allowing your heals to shield the target absorbing damage equal to 15% of the amount healed.
The difficulty in obtaining the mace is that it will not drop from any boss. Players will be able to rebuild it through a quest line started by the Shattered fragments of Val’anyr. These are dropped by most of the bosses in Ulduar-25. You will need 30 Fragments to reforge the Hammer of Ancient Kings. So good luck.
The Argent Tournament is yet another cool feature Blizzard has added. The tournament adds a series of dailies which lead to very cool weapon, tabards, pets, banners, faction shirts, and even mount rewards. Here is the best part of the quests…wait for it…wait for it… Its solo friendly!!! Here are some of the pics from the weapons and the exclusive first ever image of the new Night Elf Hunter Multi-passenger Mount. Many Bothans died to get this information to me…wait wrong game. Here are the images enjoy;
A Forsaken Blade;
A Troll Gun;
Gnome Blade;
Dwarf Gun;
And Finally…..
New Night Elf Hunter Multi-Passenger Mount;
Sorry I just couldn’t resist. :)
Some of the other features implemented in this patch include; free talent respecs! Several talent trees have been redone so everybody gets this freebie. I will take my free talent respect and say thanks. We are now able to queue for battlegrounds from anywhere in the world, WarHammer style! This is a simple and yet much needed feature. It is much better to queue out in the field of battle, than having to run into city to queue up. When you’re done in the battleground you are transported back to where you where before the battle began. So you can continue to quest. Great feature and Good job!
Ammo changes for you hunters out there. All ammo now will stack to 1000. The haste bonus given to ammo pouches and quivers are now incorporated in the hunter’s auto attack. Basically hunters get a bag slot returned to them. Hunters can also call stabled pets once every 30 minutes from the field. The downside is you have to be 80. BOOO BOOO! This is a skill that should be available to all hunters regardless of level. I would think a leveling hunter would need this more than a level 80 with maxed leveled pets. Hopefully this might change in a future patch.
The final feature, hearthstones are now on a 30 minute cool down. This is awesome. I have my main character and some of my alt’s hearthstone set to Dalaran. So I can basically travel anywhere every 30 minutes.
This was a brief over view of the new content Blizzard has delivered. Everybody has been busy trying out the new stuff as well as updating all our add-ons. Have fun in Azeroth and as usually kill a few Night Elf Hunters for me. ;)
*Whats happening