World of Warcast

World Of Warcast Episode 284, “Bun of steel”

Discord: http://discord.worldofwarcast.com

Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/starmike

Twitch: http://twitch.tv/starmiketv

Ren:

Not played much in past couple weeks

Next projects: mechanical pets for hunter, Field Medic, Fisherfriends

Mike:

Started working on Field Medic. No bueno

cjracer20 in Discord suggested premades. Will do that soon™

Did not get into alpha this week yet. Ali couldn’t Monday, and then Wednesday turned into hell.

Been doing follower missions.

Mount and mog runs. Tailoring/enchanting finally at 800.

Went through old pics.

This Week in WoW

Mage Tower currently active on North American realms

Legion Timewalking this week. Pet Battle event next week

General News

Blizzard Balance can now be gifted – send a friend an electronic gift card with a personalized message

Remote Auction House: Blizzard confirmed in a blue message that the reason they closed the RAH is that a “tiny fraction of one percent” of their user base was actually using the RAH and it was not worth their time and effort anymore to keep it updated

Battle for Azeroth

In-Game Communities:

Quoting Wowhead: “This system will allow you to have broader communication options with fellow community members, including multiple text channels, text channel history, simple role management, quick join, voice integration, roster listing and calendar invites. You will be able to be part of multiple communities at the same time, in addition to your current guild.”

Interview at Pax East with lead designer Daniel Stahl and lead encounter designer Morgan Dey about Island Expeditions:

More intelligent AI in NPC encounters

Some AI groups may be aggressive – others may be passive and require you to chase them down

Weather improved and may be a factor

Different mobs may appear at different times of the day

“Fog of War”

Blizzard has confirmed people will still be able to get class mounts after BfA has launched

Tribute to last year’s BlizzCon Costume Contest winner Kazplay – when Horde invades the Stockades, they encounter a human female in a cage with a crumpled costume next to her: Text: “Look, it’s just a costume! See? Feel it! Now will you tell them to let me out of here? It was just a joke! Hogger wasn’t really terrorizing Stormwind!”

Alpha News:

Battle for Lordaeron scenario now playable on Alpha

Heart of Azeroth item levels show ranges with iLevel starting at 265 and going up one point per level from there. Highest they show is at level 300 with an iLevel of 564

Mag’har and Dark Iron Dwarves now playable in Alpha.

Maghar racials:

Ancestral Call – Invoke the spirits of your ancestors granting you their power. Increases a random secondary stat by 102 for 12 seconds.

Open Skies – Increases mounted speed by 10%.

Savage Blood – Reduces the duration of Poisons, Diseases, and Curses by 10%.

Sympathetic Vigor – Increases pet health by 10%.

Dark Iron Dwarves: still no reports on what the Mole Machine racial does

Blood Elf and Human racials seriously nerfed.

From the Discord: Bucket Lists

Expansion Countdown: 116 days to Expansion (3 months, 25 days / 16 weeks and 4 days / 2784 hours)

Congrats to

Alberthe for getting the Forgotten Hippogryph mount

Mightymurloc for the new Kara mount

Txcoolkid for finishing FIeld Medic

Suggests joining a Field Medic premade group, as did Cjracer20

It’s not a shared drop (personal loot) but since there is a lot of competition and in some areas the respawn is fast, you have a greater chance of being able to loot more mobs

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World Of Warcast Episode 283, “Booty Bay has the worst doors”

Discord: http://discord.worldofwarcast.com

Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/starmike

Twitch: http://twitch.tv/starmiketv

Ren:

Have a new Highmountain Tauren – enhancement shaman

Got the noblegarden bunny

Working on the four hatchling pet quests — haven’t finished any of them

Mike

Exalted with Army of the Light.

8000 from exalted with Argussian Reach

Tol Dagar BfA dungeon

Odd thing about BfA – some people have quests, I don’t.

Finally finishing up getting followers to 950

Noblegarden fun

Field Medic

This Week in WoW

Pandaria Timewalking this week, Battleground Bonus event next week

Darkmoon Faire

Noblegarden (ends Monday)

March of the Tadpoles (Borean Tundra – ends tonight at midnight)

News: General and Current

April Fool’s patch notes

Remote Auction House is retiring on April 18th.

Realm connections

New round of realm connections is “on the way” to help with low pop servers.

Family Guy: a 30 second Leeroy Jenkins reference.

News: Battle for Azeroth

8 – 14 – 18

Ren’s Ridiculous Fun Facts about the History of Blizzcon Expansions

Collector’s Edition – box set

Limited edition hardcover edition – 2 new WoW novellas by Christie Golden and Robert Brooks

Horde & Alliance Double Sided Mark of Allegiance with stand

Digital soundtrack

Collector’s Edition box set owners will be able to unlock and create unreleased Allied Races in advance

If you bought Digital Deluxe and want Collector’s Edition box, you can get a refund on Digital Deluxe to Battle.net balance

Digital Deluxe edition – mounts, pet

Island Expansions

Expedition table in Boralus Harbor (Alliance) or Zuldazar Harbor (Horde)

3 man – Normal, Heroic, Mythic or PvP – reward of 6,000 Azurite

Azurite: killing mobs, finding treasure, defeating the opposing team, or mining nodes

Drawn on “lessons learned” from past content like scenarios and keystone dungeons. Replayable content.

WoWhead interview with Jeremy “Muffinus” Feasel, Senior Game Designer for WoW

No death knights for allied races – tied to Lich King

Other possible rewards for Island Expeditions, like in the Timeless Isle

When asked whether quest and profession progression will be gated behind dungeons and raids: No real discussion yet on profession progression, although he did say he thought ending final part of certain questlines end in a dungeon was “super cool, as it is the best way to tell the end of the story”.

Felt that artifact weapon system was interesting in the beginning of the expansion but not at the end of it. Lots of choices in the beginning and none in the end.

Discussion about making certain things accountwide — seemed to think things were pretty OK the way they were. Too much accountwide stuff and characters lose identity, but opening areas, flying, etc., seem to be good kept accountwide.

Battle for Azeroth

Mag’har Orcs and Iron Dwarf allied races will be available after completing the Battle for Azeroth war campaign. Zandalari and Kul’Tiras will be unlocked later in the expansion.

BFA alpha lasting longer than in the past. Beta polishes features and features are still being added to alpha.

Six emissaries for each faction – 3 home continent, two neutral (Tortollan and Voice of Azeroth) and a War Faction with quests on the enemy continent.

8.0 prepatch

Likely a few weeks before the expansion

Will introduce the Burning of Teldrassil and Battle for Lordaeron. May be new mounts themed around Night Elves and Forsaken in conjunction with this event.

New details on PvP

New world PvP system called War Mode: players toggle PvP in a capitol city on any server. This will put them in a separate server shard, away from the PvE characters.

War Mode gives extra rewards and Azerite, and also allows access to special world PvP events.

PvP gear system revamp: conquest point system returning in the form of a bar you fill up to earn new gear each week. When you’re finished with a set, you can move up. There will be ways to skip ahead.

Changes to Honor and Prestige: honor levels will be account wide.

Naked and Afraid FInisher: Alcina, night elf mage — 110

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World Of Warcast Episode 282, “Fuego”

Discord: http://discord.worldofwarcast.com

Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/starmike

Twitch: http://twitch.tv/starmiketv

Ren:

Finishing zones, changing to Beastmaster on hunter

The handy parts about thinking about alt priority

Mike:

Island Expeditions

Antorus

Rep

This Week in WoW

World Quest Event – bonus reputation

Darkmoon Faire starts on April 1 – rep bonuses from carousel and top hat stack with World Quest Event

Noblegarden – April 2

Reminders: 2 pets and 1 mount – spring rabbit, noblegarden bunny (added 2017), springstrider mount

News:

New Naked & Afraid Finisher: Settlersrule, Alliance panda windwalker monk, with 5 days 23 hours and 28 minutes, and 24,483 gold.

Next highest in progress: Norgreyclub, dwarf retribution paladin, level 92, closely followed by Alcina, a night elf arcane mage at 91 and Buffysummers, a human windwalker monk at level 90

Pax East – Apr 5-8 at Boston Convention Center – Demo stations for new Island Expedition feature

Family Guy episode April 1 – Warcraft references

Player gets every achievement in game (3,314) – Xirev, a blood elf fire mage

Need to do things like reach prestige 25, collect 300 toys and mounts, and win 5000 pvp pet battles

One achievement ahead of Metatrosha, a human shadow priest (same number of points; Alliance have one extra 10 pointer)

Wowhead interview with Xirev

Single hardest achievement: high rated PvP ones – most others simply “tedious”

Single hardest non-PvP achievement – “Going to Need a Bigger Bag” – obtain all the rare items from Timeless Isle. Involved a lot of realm hopping (56 items)

Time /played: Estimated 850-900 days /played. 434 days /played on mage alone.

20,400 to 21,600 hours

8,760 hours in 1 year (not counting leap years)

Done over 6 years – 6 years has about 122,400 hours (without leap years)

Average of 5.5-6 hours per day, every day, or 38.5 – 42 hours per week

Ren: Did my own /played calculation on all active toons – came out to 6554 hours or 273 days /played. Sounds like a lot, but when averaged over 10 years (didn’t play for 4 years out of the past 14) it comes out to less than 1 hour per day /played

Alpha News

Changes to quest log – looked at first like the quest log limit was going up to 50. Not true – but it seems like some quests no longer count toward the 25 limit – including account wide quests such as many battle pet quests

New Alpha build includes several class talent changes

Alpha Profession changes:

Enchanting: many new ring and weapon enchants, glove enchants for gathering professions

RETURN OF Wands (Scepters). Last available: VANILLA

Engineering: some of the usuals like glasses, explosives, and scopes

RETURN OF Engineered belts. Last available: WRATH OF THE LICH KING

More weapons (guns, maces)

Interesting bits: Slumber Bombs, Electroshock Mount Motivator (+10% mount speed for 10 seconds, stacks up to 5x, “increased motivation may cause your mount to become disoriented”), Deployable Attire Rearranger, Interdemensional Companion Repository (portable stablemaster), and an XA-100 Surface Skimmer (25 sec duration)

Inscription: new codex

New Darkmoon cards, Vantus runes

RETURN OF

Offhand tomes and stat buff scrolls.. LAST AVAILABLE: CATACLYSM

New: Contracts: allows you to choose a faction with which you will gain reputation when you do world quests – requires Friendly rep with target reputation

Scroll of Unlocking – unlock anything that requires 550 lockpicking skill

Jewelcrafting – usual rings and stones

NEW: two staffs – both listed were listed as Mage but the second one (Laribole Staff) also listed Agility as a stat

Leatherworking – usual armor bits and drums

NEW: create fist weapons and bows (bow/crossbow was available in Engineering, 490/525, Cataclysm)

From the Discord:

Seems there is a fashion in listening to our oldest episodes

World Of Warcast Episode 281, “Fel sanitation simulator”

Discord: http://discord.worldofwarcast.com

Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/starmike

Twitch: http://twitch.tv/starmiketv

Ren

– Life invasions of all life invasions

– Had to update laptop to make WoW run

– Game goals:

– get Field Medic done

– get toons left behind caught up on Argus and professions

– running up a void elf warlock for the hell of it

– Question to self: do I have too many alts?

– 12 110s with two duplicates (rogue and mage on Alli/Horde)

– no DK or DH

– Question: Is Blizzard both encouraging more alts AND not paying enough attention to making game alt-friendly?

– If I had to pare down my alts, who would make the cut?

Mike

So close to finishing up this rep from Hell.

Thanks to Ali for filling in last week about alpha

Infinite Timereaver mount dropped while doing timewalking. That was fun.

Alpha is still fun, but obviously limited in scope at the moment. There was a 1GB patch.

Maybe I’ll try tanking again.

I have a ton of quests I need to finish up.

The Argus version of the flight whistle should have been available at honored, not revered.

This Week in WoW

Not much – Arena Skirmishes, then World Quest Event next Tuesday

On the horizon: Noblegarden (4/2 – 4/9)

(Mike – I HATE NOBLEGARDEN)

News

Hotfixes:

Mythic Antorus now available for cross-realm groups, though not through LFR. “To join a public group for Mythic Antorus, just open Group Finder (hotkey: i), select ‘Premade Groups’, then ‘Raids-Legion’, then click on “Find A Group”. That returns a list of many public groups that are available to you. Start typing ‘Antorus’ into the search bar at the top, and you’ll be prompted to select a difficulty.”

Battle for Azeroth

New Alpha Build changes:

Achievements to unlock Dark Iron Dwarves and Mag’har Orcs added

Dark Iron racial mount: core hound

Latest build tagged “beta” instead of “alpha” and new invitations out

New “boop” emote

Some new enchanting stuff:

Swift Hearthing: bracer enchant to speed cast time of hearthstone

Gale-Force Striking: weapon enchant to increase weapon attack speed

First Aid confirmed going away – bandages will be under Tailoring and antivenoms/pots will be under Alchemy

New customization options for Blood Elves – three new faces and glowing gold eyes

Azerite bonuses datamined: Set bonuses also going away, being replaced by Azurite empowerment on armor

Several class specific traits, but also several that appear to be multi-class

Traits that increase primary and secondary stats by a set amount

Absorption traits – traits that shield or absorb a set amount of damage

DPS,heal, and tanking traits. DPS obviously increases your DPS, healing traits are self-heals, and tanking traits are damage mitigation:

Examples:

(DPS) Gutripper – Your damaging abilities have a chance to deal 347 Physical damage to the target. Gutripper occurs much more often against targets below 30% health. (Approximately 5 procs per minute).

(DPS) Heed My Call – Your damaging abilities have a chance to deal 154 to your target, and 15 to enemies within 3 yards of that target.

(HEAL) Savior – Your heals on targets below 35% health have a chance to heal for an additional 208. (Approximately 5 procs per minute).

(HEAL) Self Reliance – While no enemies are within 20 yds, you heal for 70 every 3 sec.

(TANK) Gemhide – When dealt damage greater than 10% of your maximum health, gain 31 Avoidance and 138 Dodge for 10 sec.

(TANK) Winds of War – Taking damage grants you 14 Dodge for 3 sec, stacking up to 10 times.

New detail on parrot mount: drops from Skycap’n Kragg, boss in the Freehold dungeon

From the Discord

Naked & Afraid Challenge has its second finisher – TheCowKing (EU) with a feral druid – 4 days 1 hour 1 minute

Current highest still in progress – Settlersrule (101) windwalker monk

World Of Warcast Episode 280, “The Burning Squirrel”

Discord: http://discord.worldofwarcast.com

Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/starmike

Twitch: http://twitch.tv/starmiketv

Special guest host Ali (@aliandrasK) joins us to talk about Battle for Azeroth alpha.

This week is Cataclysm Timewalking.

Tuesday the 20th Arena bonus week.

Un’Goro Madness starts Sat goes through Mon.

World Of Warcast Episode 278, “Meat II Pet”

Discord: http://discord.worldofwarcast.com

Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/starmike

Twitch: http://twitch.tv/starmiketv

Ren

Life invasions: thank you Cara – did not touch Love is in the Air

Naked & Afraid monk: level 95, 3 days 22 hours, 46k gold

Northrend: Leveling time slow, money amazing

Pandaria: Leveling time medium-fast, money good

Draenor: Leveling time medium-fast, money bad

Mike

Life invasion

This Week in WoW

Lunar Festival starts 2/17, runs to 3/3

Love is In the Air ends tomorrow

Battleground bonus event starts Tuesday

Ulduar Timewalking

News

Dungeon XP hotfix to bug introduced in 7.3.5 https://www.wowhead.com/news=281885/dungeon-experience-hotfixes

Side effect to creature scaling broke awarded XP in some situations

Significantly increased XP awarded for queuing for random Normal dungeons, Classic through Draenor

Mobile Auction House has been restored

New mount: Shu-zen, The Divine Sentinel – $25 in Blizz store (6 months game time for Chinese servers) – and fixed a scaling bug

http://www.wowhead.com/news=281915/upcoming-changes-to-the-na-wow-mvp-program

Battle for Azeroth: Alpha Build News

Tons of class changes but these tend to change a lot over alpha/beta

Allied races

New allied race? Orc based – either Mag’har or Frostwolf Orcs (brown orcs)

Datamined orc armor and a Mag’har Direwolf mount

Dark Iron Dwarf racials

Dungeon Delver: 4% increased indoor speed

Fireblood: Removes all poison, disease, curse, magic and bleed effects and increases primary stat by 100 for each removed. 2 min cooldown

Forged in Flames: 1% physical damage reduction

Mass Production: 2x speed creating blacksmithed items

Mole Machine: Summons a Mole Machine that tunnels through the earth (30 min cooldown)

Non-caster damage that used to be calculated on weapon damage is now based on a combo of weapon damage and attack power to help bring better balance between classes that rely heavily on weapons vs. those who do not

Return of Pepe: New Pepe costumes include a scuba costume and a Zandalari mask

Hunter pet specialization:

All pets will have equal damage, health and armor (all can tank or DPS equally well). Old designations Ferocity, Tenacity or Cunning will continue as categories, but as categories of pet families, not as descriptions of their utility

All pets will have Growl and Dash or Swoop

Pet families now each have a special ability – one active, one passive, depending on their category (examples: the passive for Ferocity is a 3% leech, for Tenacity, 10% max health, and for Cunning, 8% movement speed buff)

Each pet family will get one of six different abilities. Examples include a healing reduction debuff, reduced damage, increased dodge, etc.

Profession changes: (just noted things that are different or interesting) Major squish: Max profession skill cap going from 800 to 200

Alchemy preview:

Tinctures – trinkets with combat buffs based on the flask you’re currently using

Usual transmutes of changing one profession material to another. Also Fish to Gems and Meat to Pet.

Blacksmithing preview:

New stirrups for speed and interacting while mounted in the new zones

Khaz’gorian Hammer – blacksmithing hammer replacement that gives a chance to give crafted armor or weapons the Indestructible property

Cooking preview: Nothing special

Enchanting preview: Nothing special

Engineering:

Portable transmogger

Portable stable master

Herbalism: Nothing special

Inscription:

Contracts: Enter a contract with a faction that allows you to gain reputation with them every time you complete a world quest in the new zones

Jewelcrafting:

+5% experience gem

Leatherworking

Scuba gear

Mining: Nothing special

Skinning: Nothing special

Tailoring:

finally getting a bag upgrade – 1 30 slot bag (same as HW), 1 32 slot bag

Hot Air Baloon pet

First Aid getting at least a revamp – may be removed entirely and folded into Tailoring

First Aid achievements will become Legacy Feats of Strength

Now listed as “legacy”. https://www.wowhead.com/news=281844/first-aid-potential-revamp-or-removal-in-battle-for-azeroth

World Of Warcast Episode 277, “Caraclysm”

Discord: http://discord.worldofwarcast.com

Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/starmike

Twitch: http://twitch.tv/starmiketv

Special guest host Cara(clysm) (@xandara) fills in for Ren.

Mike

Rep grinding is making me bored.

Even if I did this when it was new, I find it dull because it’s too repetitive.

50% boost in rep from Sign of the Emissary, so go do it!

I also haven’t upgraded yet. When I get to exalted in all 4, then I’ll do it. No rush now.

Farming for the Love Rocket. No drops.

Achievement runs

Cara

Heroic Antorus 2/11, first bosses aren’t too different

Haven’t upgraded to BfA yet because I still feel like I have plenty to do without it right now, curious to see how long that will last

But also I don’t really care about things as much as I used to? Like it’s still super fun! But I don’t feel like I NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED it. I.e. Love Rocket runs, I do them when I can but I don’t frustrate myself trying to fit them into my day

I did claim my character names I want for my BfA allied race alts though. Seems they freed up a lot of names recently so if you have a name you couldn’t get before, give it a shot now!

Me too! -MG (kek)

This week in WoW

Darkmoon Faire until the 11th

Lunar Festival starts a week from today

Ulduar

News:

BfA alpha is going out to some people. Not me 🙁

Watched a few streams. Some people need to learn how to stream (don’t be rude!)

I found the starting areas to be ok. Didn’t watch long. Wasn’t anything really impressive yet.

Hotfixes:

Nightborne faces should match what was selected

Fire mage damage increased by a whopping 3%

Hunter BM damage increased by 2.5%

From Discord:

BfA comes with a level 110 boost

Shout out to PurpleMoose in Discord who was struggling what to do and used it for a Nightborne rogue.

Utheron – bad experience with a GM. Was trying to make him switch specs.

World Of Warcast Episode 243, “I killed a door”

Mike:

Overwatch fun this weekend.

Transmog – yes, you can still get new vanilla stuff after 12+ years.

Renata:

Reputation issues – go for 60? (hint: Mike is 67)

News:

Overwatch competitive season 5 started this week.

Overwatch lunar colony on the PTR.

Tomb of Sargeras opens June 20

We’re close to our class mounts!

You can’t find a server without finding a covfefe. Good idea or was it a scheme by Blizz to get people to eventually change their name?

How do people feel about Twitch?

Darkmoon Faire

Thousand boat bash


Letter from Maxcorpious, human mage, Riders of Rohan, Argent Dawn – what are our hardware setups?

Mod of the cast:

Mike – Ackis Recipe List

Ren – Request for a rep mod

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World Of Warcast Episode 242, “It’s like a Darkmoon Rave”

Ren announces the winner of which headphones she picked and why.

Squirt/200% pet binge – 33 pets from 2 to 25!

Always listen to people when they say something could bug a boss.

Abuse in Overwatch voice chat?

Are DX Racer chairs really worth the money?

News:

Tokens went WAY up this week due to Destiny 2.

Upcoming events in patch 7.2.5, both in scenarios and the Darkmoon Faire.

Come join us on Discord! https://discord.gg/0igWZxupFC0N8mH4

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World Of Warcast Episode 241, “Murderess of Headsets”

Spring balloon festival is this week!

Don’t forget your Inky potions!

The new armory UI!

How to buy a good pair of headphones.

Your letters and comments!

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