We Know BC

Nethergarde Bitter and other Useful Things to bring from Azeroth

I just finished a quest that made me go back to the "old world". I had to go to Nethergarde Keep and pick up a Nethergarde Bitter - a strong alcoholic beverage. You need to take it to this location (where my character arrow is, in the South Western part of the zone). You also need some faction, but it's just friendly. Make sure you pick up your Nethergarde Bitter before you head into the outlands, and you won't have to go back for it!

I've also discovered that if you are an Enchanter, you should bring six Large Brilliant Shards and four Greater Eternal Essence so you can make your new enchanting rod. It consumes your Arcanite Rod, so if you don't have one of those yet, you should get on it. The highest level rod covers all the lower level rods, so you don't need to carry them all around any more, or risk having left it in the bank when someone asks you for an enchant.

The new enchanting rod also requires a Feliron Rod from a smith. I've seen Feliron spawns all over the first zone in Outlands, Hellfire Peninsula, but it's not entirely common. Make friends with a smith! :)

PvF?

I just completed a quest in the Shattrath, the big city in Terokkar called "I'd Rather be Fishing." I got fishing rod with +20 fishing (have this on my Big Iron Fishing Rod anyway) and +52 Stamina. +52 Stamina? I'm afraid to find out why you need Stamina when you are fishing...

items

if i were nice, i'd have a nice compiled group of photos that show multiple items as a single image..but i'm not that nice :P  as it is, here are a few things i got shots of and thought i'd share.

this plate breastplate is a quest reward (early quest, you can get it at 60).

the dagger is being compared to my epic aurastone (from mc).  note that it is green and boe.  i think it fell of some trash somewhere...i don't recall exactly.

and for those who wish to see what an epic looks like....

i had to show this one to the healers!  if this doesn't make you believe in a one handed weapon, nothing will!  (and there are PAGES of these items, not sure how we get them but i imagine it's not easy).

just some fun stuff :)

so i had a lot of fun with the twisting nether--first of all, it's beautiful.  blizz really did an amazing job creating it!

of course, standing on the edge of the world--how could i not jump off?  several times lol  i think blizz anticipated this as there is a graveyard right next to where i jumped :P

 

and of course, i ran into a friend of steve's and thought i'd warn you all about him....

druids in bc

ok, lots of new stuff and plenty to talk about but i want to focus on a few druid specific things.  i'm starting with resto since that's what i know.

for the most part, i adore the new resto talents.  the big one everyone asks about is tree of life.

i've tried this out and it's kinda fun in a unique sort of way.  you get the standard protection from polymorph and for some reason, this form also has a buff icon stating as much.  the /sit command produces a very minor graphic change and isn't that exciting and there isn't a /dance at all (i really hope it includes falling leaves once they put it in though!).  the attack animation is kinda fun as it looks like you are doing some sort of kung fu move.  but by far, the best is /jump cause the leaves on your head go back and you look a lot like e.t. lol 

there are a few drawbacks to this form though.  one that people comment on the most is the speed reduction (speed is reduced BY 20% not to 20%) and i don't think it's that much of an issue to be honest.  sure, would be nice if it wasn't there but unless you plan to explore in tree form it's really not a big deal.

the only spells you can cast are heal over times (regrowth, rejuv, tranq, lifebloom), swiftmend and innervate.  that means NO healing touch, NO nature's swiftness, NO decursing and NO rebirth while in tree form.  that doesn't sound too bad until you see yourself trying to spam regrowth because the tank is dying and you need a heal boost (where you'd normally toss in a healing touch) or until the tank dies and you have to take time to shift out of form and then cast rebirth...when that sort of thing happens, you realize just how bad it is that you are so restricted in what you can cast.

the bonus to healing is nice, it's 25% of whatever your spirit is (and this is an aura with a 45 yard range so an all heal group would be hawt).  unfortunately, most druid gear doesn't focus on spirit so it doesn't actually work out to be a huge amount.  you can invest talent points to up your spirit but i think resto druids who want to make the most of this form are going to also need to invest in some +spirit gear and enchants.

not positive if it is a bug or intended, but tol form also doesn't allow drinking or using consumables--so no potions at all and in between fights you have to shift in order to regen mana.  this sucks and i'm really hoping it won't remain.

so how about keeping a tank up in this form?  a lot is gonna depend on the instance, your gear and the tank but unless the instance is normally easy for you or you have some other healing, i think you'll find it lacking.  it's just not got the flexibility you get in natural form.  if you could use all your heals--definitely!  it makes using hots much more mana efficient and keeping them on everyone was no problem.  i tried in a 5 man to stay in tol but i just couldn't, i had to switch out to use healing touch due to the cooldown on swiftmend and the lack of nature's swiftness.  with a better tank (i actually was using a paladin, but he was healing himself at times and the shadow priest was using vamp embrace so i also had some help) it might have been easier, i'll try some other group combos and see what happens.  also, i currently don't have lifebloom (still too low) so that extra hot may be all the difference.

i can't see wanting a lot of tol druids on a raid.  i think one would be a great asset, but don't see a need for more than that.

the other thing people have asked about, is the ability to use rank 4 healing touch.  i don't know the math on the scaling, but i took screenshots from both live and bc wearing the same amount of +heal to demonstrate what rank 4 was healing for.  i forgot to get a pic of my spec so i'll check on it--but in bc i have all the resto points that improve healing in any way.  (first pic is what rank 4 is like in live, pic on the right is beta)

Priest Info

Heya everyone!

I am going to share some of my very initial first impressions. I've only played a few hours.

First there are tons of quests, some of them send you right into instances, and some of them are similar to the leveling quests (go get some wood, I need some wood! I'll give you 2g).

The one instance I have run, I've run it 2 times now, and it's relatively short. I'm hoping this means that there are no more 8 hour marathon instance runs. Being able to pop off 3-4 instances in your spare time is an exciting prospect for me.

One thing I really love about the new UI is:

Notice how it lists your +dmg, and +healing. There are other options Melee Ranged Defences as well, I only SS'd this one, as it's most applicable to Priests.

Another awesome new feature is that you can do your AddOn's from the Esc menu:

It's pretty self explainatory about how to fix/change your AddOns

I feel like I lose item durability a lot faster. I don't know how true that is, but I am going to try to figure it out.

I also noticed that it's a lot easier to pull aggro with heals, in a situation where a heal would very rarely result in aggro being pulled, I'm grabbing aggro. I'm also running out of mana at an alarming pace (IE. I'm healing way more than usual)

From my limited experience in groups, once you get level 61, the instance that was challenging at 60 is easier, and by 63 it should be "cake".

Respeccing is 1c, so I've been playing with my spec. I've read that the lightwell talent is actually useful now, so I'm considering getting it once I get a few more levels. I have no idea where I'm going to be going when the game goes live, but I will let you know about talents as I know about talents :)

Howdy!

Just trying it out to make sure I can figure this thingy ma-bob out!

Conanator's Message to We Know warriors

i am reposting my first impressions (slightly altered for the broader audience) from the We Know warrior forum.  my first night on the BC beta server i never went to bed. there is something about virgin territory that spurs the adrenaline and wards off the sandman....

hmm interesting. the talent tree has changed again with the latest patch. (i am respeccing again because it only costs 1 copper. i am going to experiment with a strictly prot build). i guess there is not much point talking about the tree then, because it looks like they are actively moving things around. if you have any questions about it i will be happy to try to answer them.

i was a little zonked yesterday because i did not sleep at all once i installed the client. i experienced a bunch of technical difficulties for the first few hours, as outfitter doesn't seem to recognize new (beta) weapons, and i had to switch over to the ItemRack addon and figure out how to get that working and not end up naked when stance dancing.

we ran an instance pretty early on, and the first big realization that hit me when things started to drop was: holy crap epic gear is not that tasty anymore. the stats on the green stuff that dropped were pretty ridiculous, and this was an "easy" instance. i was replacing gear a lot, because it seemed like a plate kind of night for drops. rendall was commenting tonight that he noticed that there is some real price depreciation starting to happen in the AH on Eitrigg. he suggested thinking about selling things now, and from what i have seen i would say that might be a prudent plan.

the second thing that hit me was the xp. we are now going to be focused on leveling. how long that phase is going to last i am not sure, the rested xp was not working on the first day i was in, and i just noticed that it SEEMS to be working now. i don't yet have a sense of how long we are all going to be newbs again, but we ARE going to be back grinding and doing all that fun stuff.

ok it's 3:15 AM my time and i should get some sleep to make up for my recent lack of it.

Burning Crusade Beta

This is a blog to document We Know and We No's exploration of the Burning Crusade Beta.