First off, here’s a screenshot of the new pet that will come as a reward from using the new Random Dungeon LFG system in 3.3. I don’t usually refer to things as cute, especially in-game, but this pet is indeed very cute.

The specifics of what exactly you have to do to obtain this pet is not known yet, but you can bet your ass that I’ll be doing whatever needs to be done in order to obtain this little pug (even if I have to slog through many bad PuGs to get the good one).

Secondly, remember the Pandaren Monk and Lil K.T. minipets whose models were added in to the game with the 3.2.2 patch? It has now been revealed as to how you can obtain them!

… By buying them for $10 US at the Blizzard Store.

It seems that Blizzard are looking more and more in the direction of micro-transactions for WoW. Already there is a number of various things you can pay for in-game, on top of your basic subscription payment. These things are:

• Character Re-Customization
• Server Transfer
• Name Change
• Faction Change
• Race Change

And now added on to this,

• Minipet Purchases

Personally, I don’t particularly like the direction Blizzard are taking with increasing the amount micro-transactions. I understand it, but I don’t like it.

However, there are some good things that can be said for this micro-transaction. People who don’t have the time to grind reputation or farm for a rare drop will be able to obtain this pet. Instead, you can just drop a quick amount of money and instantly receive an account-bound pet. That being said, as much as I like the look of these minipets, especially the Pandaren Monk, I’m not willing to pay $10 US for one pet. But there are definitely other people out there who would (as shown by the number of people who bought the Blizzcon Live Stream just for Grunty).

Blizzard are donating 50% of Pandaren Monk profts to Make-a-Wish though, so props to them for that.

Make a Difference: Pandaren Monk Charity Pet
Enter the Pandaren Monk, a martial-arts expert who’s here to help celebrate the upcoming fifth anniversary of World of Warcraft. He may be cute, but he’s proof that even the softest of critters can overcome the hardest of circumstances. For every Pandaren Monk that finds its way to a player’s side between now and the end of the year (December 31, 2009 at 11:59 PDT), we’ll donate 50 percent of the $10 purchasing price to the Make-a-Wish Foundation in an effort to brew up a little hope, strength, and joy in a child’s life.

What will this mean for WoW in the future? Will Blizzard continue to keep implementing new micro-transactions? Maybe purchasable mounts or tabards.

I can only hope that these purchasable features stay purely cosmetic..

Hallow’s End is, well, about to end (or has already for those on Oceanic servers).

However, for those with a craving for more holiday events, have no fear, Day of the Dead is here! Despite its name, Day of the Dead actually takes place over two days (the 1st and 2nd of November).

Day of the Dead vendor, Chapman, is found in any major city’s graveyard (usually found just outside the city). From him you can purchase:

• [Candy Skull] x5 – Use: Restores 61 health over 18 sec. Must remain seated while eating. – 25c
• [Orange Marigold] - Use: Detect lesser invisibility for 30 sec. Only works during the Day of the Dead. (30 Sec Cooldown) “Said to attract spirits and help one communicate with the departed on the Day of the Dead.” - 10c
  
• [Spirit Candle] – Use: Places a spirit candle that increases the spirits of those nearby by 4. (5 Min Cooldown) – 30c
• [Recipe: Bread of the Dead] – Requires Cooking (1) – 20s, BoP
• [Whimsical Skull Mask] – 5c, BoP
• [Bouquet of Orange Marigolds] – Held In Off-hand. Use: Detect lesser invisibility for 30 sec. Only works during the Day of the Dead. (30 Sec Cooldown) “Said to attract spirits and help one communicate with the departed on the Day of the Dead.” - 1g

The mask and bouquet can be seen below (Festive Black Pant Suit not available for purchase):The Candy Skulls seem pretty useless unless you’re level 10 or under. Similarly, the Spirit Candle seems like a Basic Campfire that you can’t cook on. However, one cool thing is that if you use the Orange Marigolds (either a single one or the bouquet) the graveyard will become filled with dancing ghosts.And don’t worry, if you’re not a fan of having a holiday without any achievements, you can get 10 achievement points for dancing with Catrina, found in any of the aforementioned graveyards, and earning your achievement [Dead Man's Party]

Dancing with her will also give you a Day of the Dead costume (matching either Chapman or Catrina) which will last for 12 hours. Yes Alliance, you can finally be that Undead you always wanted to be. Unfortunately for us Druids, shapeshifting will clear this costume (just like every other one).Finally, if you make/buy some Bread of the Dead then go to the graveyard of your home city (or the Shatt/Dal GY) and use the Marigold(s), then talk to the Cheerful Spirit found next to their portrait, get and complete the quest “The Grateful Dead”, you will be rewarded with a Macabre Marionette, “a sombrero-wearing, maraca-wielding skeleton companion pet“. One important thing to know about it – “This pet can only be used during the Day of the Dead event; it cannot be learned and kept like other companion pets.” (Taken from the official Day of the Dead page.)

Overall, Day of the Dead is a fairly boring event. For me it’s just an excuse to bank some more holiday items and to get 10 more achievement points. I’m also very disappointed that the Macabre Marionette is only available for two short days during the event, I’d have loved it if it was a permanent minipet!

Ghostcrawler posted a thread on the official forums today titled “Hybrid Tax”.

I would highly recommend reading the whole article yourself, however here’s GC’s TLDR summary:

Hybrid = can respec to fulfill a different role (damage, tanking, or healing).
Hybrid != can fill multiple roles at the same time.
Hybrid != has awesome, amazing buffs or utility.
Hybrid != pure. Beyond that, there are no shades of gray among hybrids.

He also makes a couple of interesting statements that contradict the general ideas in relation to Hybrids:

There are no different categories of hybridness:

In Blizzard’s grand scheme of things, they consider a Death Knight or Warrior to be as much of a hybrid as a Paladin or Druid. As long as you can fulfill more than one role (from the three roles: tanking, DPS or healing), you’re considered a hybrid. Hybrids that can fulfill more than two roles are not intentionally penalised any further than hybrids who can only fulfill two.

The only pure classes are: Hunter, Mage, Warlock, Rogue.

Pure classes should do slightly more damage than hybrids:

Ghostcrawler states that, ideally, they would want pure classes to do higher DPS than hybrids (though not by too significant a margin), or else they believe that pure classes would eventually “die out”. However, an important factor of this is that this will only be truly prevalent if all things are equal. In WoW, this is very, very rarely the case. Gear levels between individual players vary greatly, and often fights will favour a type of class rather than another.

This means that, unless your whole raid is equipped in BiS gear fighting Patchwerk you won’t be able to see a definitive difference. Even then it probably wouldn’t be a fair test, as the fight would be very short due to the gear level, which could skew the results. Other factors such as latency, player reaction time and RNG also factor in to this, meaning that it’s very hard to actually measure the difference.

There is no such thing as the “5% rule”:

There is not a “5% rule” that says pures should be 5% higher than hybrids in every circumstance.

There is no set rule or percentage which defines how much more pure classes should do over hybrid classes in terms of DPS.

What does this mean for Moonkin?

It means that Blizzard do believe that we can be competitive in terms of DPS (or at least aim for this to be so). We are “penalised” compared with the pure DPS classes, but by no means does this mean that we cannot out DPS them if you do all you can to maximise your DPS output. If anything, it means that you should have more competitive drive to do more DPS in order to overcome these pure classes.

Once again, there is not a set value or percent for the amount of damage a pure DPSer should do in relation to a hybrid DPSer. It’s a general aim that the pure class should do slightly more, but this may not always be prevalent.

A new release after the latest maintenance – you can now pay a fee to change your race! That is, if you’re on a US server. Race changes have yet to be released on European servers.
Edit: Race changes are now live on European servers too!

So what does this mean for Druids?

Well, nothing. Yet.

Troll Druids (for Horde) and Worgen Druids (for Alliance) will only become available with the Cataclysm expansion, and we’re still yet to know if you’ll be able to transfer races to the new combinations as soon as they arrive.

But if a Druid is not your main (/gasp!) or you have an alt that you wish to change the race of, here’s the main points:

• A race change will cost US$25
• You can only change to a race that already supports your class
• You can race change from level 10 (or 60 for DKs)
• A race change will include character re-customization and an optional (but not required) name change
• This can be done once every 3 days

Your mounts and reputations will be affected, click here to view how they will translate.

A full FAQ can be found here.

This post assumes that you already have knowledge of how to complete (i.e. know all the mechanics and requirements) the fight on normal mode.

The main differences between normal mode and Heroic mode for this fight are:

• A higher DPS requirement
• The boss entries are based on a timer, not on the previous boss’s death

This means that if you’re lacking the required DPS, you’ll have an additional boss come out when you’re not ready for it, which will, in most cases, lead to a wipe. Either that or Icehowl will enrage, and boy, it’s a hard enrage. The higher DPS requirements mean that you’ll need most, if not all, of your DPSers alive. This in turn means that your raid as a whole will need to have excellent raid awareness and positioning abilities.

It also means that, as a Druid, you’re very likely to have to use your Battle Rez in this fight, to get someone else up in order to pump out the most DPS possible. Try to do it as soon as you can, but be smart about it. Don’t Brez someone right before Icehowl’s Massive Crash, often people will click the ‘accept rez’ button right away, and thus will die again immediately.

Also, if possible rez someone when you’re not doing anything else (such at the burrow phase of Acidmaw and Dreadscale). Remember though, the priority is to get someone else up rather than put out your own DPS – the DPS loss you suffer will more than be made up by a whole nother person DPSing.

Now, some specific things you’ll need to look out for in each phase.

Phase One:

Raid awareness – move out of fires! This is extra important because of the DPS requirements, if you die to a fire you’re not helping to meet this requirement. One way to work around this – if you have any priests in your raid, have them levitate you. If you get a fire while levitated, you’ll drop down but the fire will not spawn, and you won’t have to move. Less movement = more DPS.

Take down those Snobolds quickly! As a ranged DPSer, your first priority should be the Snobolds when they jump on to someone. As a Moonkin, you’re immune to getting Snobolds, so make sure you’re pumping out your DPS to help get them off those other, unfortunately lesser-feathered raid members.

Phase Two:

Spread out! The more spread out you are, the less people will be hit with Paralytic Toxin (or Burning Bile when Acidmaw dies). This means that less people will have to move to the person with the Burning Bile, so the more DPS uptime there will be.

Have an efficient system for getting rid of Paralytic Toxin! You do not want to have anyone become paralysed as you will lose all of their needed DPS/healing/tanking abilities.

Don’t DPS too early after a submerge! As a Moonkin, if you have Moonfire and Insect Swarm ticking on either of the two Jormungars you’ll have residual threat on the mob. If you start DPSing too hard too early, you’ll pull threat, which could lead to your death and potentially a wipe (if the mob casts Molten Spew on the raid because they were facing you).

Oh, and spread out!

Phase Three:

Save your cooldowns and potions for when Icehowl is stunned! When he crashes in to a wall and becomes stunned after his charge, he’ll take 100% additional damage. Save any trinket CDs, Treants, Starfall or potions for these stuns, you’ll get more bang for your buck.

Make sure to refresh DoTs before a Massive Crash! If you’re using DBM, his Massive Crashes will be on a timer. Refresh your MF and IS before he does this, so you’re still doing some damage even when stunned/running.

Spread out! Icehowl’s Arctic Breath can be devastating when he does it right before a Massive Crash, if too many people are frozen you’ll get people dead due to the combo of moves. Also, Arctic Breath means you’re not DPSing, which is bad.

Once again, the main difference is really just a higher DPS requirement (because of boss entry timers / the enrage timer). The mechanics don’t change, you just have to be on top of your game for the fight. Keep those DoTs rollin’ and your Eclipse burnin’!

Here’s what the fight looks like from a Moonkin PoV:

(Yes, we got very lucky and were able to kill him after he enraged. Oh man, the madness there would have been if it was a 1% wipe…)

Finally I was able to beat RNG and get the final part of the achievement, that damned Hallowed Helm, to become Boize the Hallowed!
Now I just need the Winter Veil, Lunar Festival and Love is in the Air meta achievements until I get my Violet Proto-Drake. Hope you guys have had as much success!

What happens when you combine a Tauren with candy that makes you big and orange, Winterfall Firewater and a Black War Mammoth?

One GIANT mounted Tauren…

… who can’t even get in to the North Bank in Dalaran!

[Buff this article at Buff'd!]

For those that may not have been lucky enough to get their Violet Proto-Drake last Brewfest, or even for those that just enjoy doing World Events for fun, Hallow’s End is now here! So if you’re still hunting that elusive Proto-Drake, here’s your second chance to complete the achievements needed for the [Hallowed Be Thy Name] meta achievement.

The Achievements required for this are:

Trick or Treat:

This is an extremely easy one to do. Just grab a [Handful of Candy] out of any Candy Bucket. These Candy Buckets can be found by nearly any innkeeper in Azeroth or Outland.

Bring Me The Head of… Oh Wait:

This is another relatively simple achievement. Just venture in to the Scarlet Monastery Graveyard instance and kill the Headless Horseman. Usually done in a group of 5 to maximise summons and a chance at various loot (including his rare mount). Don’t expect this fight to be very hard even though it is tuned up from 70 to 80.

Note: For Oceanic servers, you will not be able to summon the Headless Horseman until the US-based servers tick over to Midnight. This is 7pm on Oceanic servers.

That Sparking Smile:

This achievement comes down to RNG. You can “Trick or Treat” an innkeeper once an hour (and doing so will give you a debuff, so it’s easy to track how long until you can do it again). If they treat you, they’ll give you a Treat Bag. The toothpick required for this has a chance to be looted from this bag, and will give you the achievement on use. It is BoP, so you won’t be able to sell these for exorbitant prices.

G.N.E.R.D. Rage:

This is one that will require a bit of PvP. You’ll need to have the buff from eating G.N.E.R.D.S. (found from Handfuls of Candy) and get 50 honourable kills. (Note: This means that you have to be in the proximity of a kill, not actually get the killing blow yourself.) Just jump in to Wintergrasp and/or a few BGs, Alterac Valley works well, and watch the HKs flow in. Remember though, this buff does not persist through death, so you’ll need to eat more G.N.E.R.D.S. if you die.

The Masquerade:

For this one, you’ll need to be transformed by each of the 7 Hallowed Wands (excluding the Random one): Bat, Leper Gnome, Pirate, Wisp, Ghost, Skeleton, Ninja.

The wands themselves are looted from Treat bags from Trick or Treating innkeepers. They can only be used on party members, not yourself. One way to get this done is to “trade” transformations with other people, i.e. you cast one on them, and they cast one on you. Swapping with guildies works well for this.

If you’ve already done this achievement and/or want to make a bit of money, you can sell these transformations to people who still need the achievement – some people will buy them for 20g or more!

Tricks and Treats of Azeroth:

Grab some candy from all of the buckets in Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms and Outland. These are easy to find, as each of the zones the buckets are located in can be shown in the achievement itself. This can be a great way to gain some levels for alts, or if you’re 80 you’ll get 6g 36s. (There are also buckets in Northrend if you want more exp/money, but they’re not needed for the achievement.)

Important Note: Blizzard have noted that there is an issue with some Northrend candy buckets (here).

We are currently experiencing an issue with the Hallow’s End candy buckets that is affecting the Trick or Treat Achievements for this event. Certain candy buckets in Northrend, once looted, are preventing characters from looting some of the Candy Buckets required for the Trick or Treats of Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor and Outlands. The current way to work around this is to get the candy buckets from Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor, and Outland before doing any in Northrend.

Note, doing the Achievements first will prevent some of the Northrend Candy Buckets from being intractable.
We are actively working on a resolution for this and will provide more information when it is available.

Out With It:

“Eat so many Tricky Treats that you get an upset tummy.” Tricky Treats are looted from the Headless Horseman. The amount needed for you to get an upset tummy is random, can range from 2 to 10+.

An important note for Survival Hunters: Last year there was an issue where, if you had invested points in Sniper Training, you were immune to the Upset Tummy debuff. I’m unaware if this problem still persists, but it may be something to look out for.

The Savior of Hallow’s End:

Every so often, the Headless Horseman will start flying above a town outside one of the major cities (Brill, Razor Hill or Falconwing Square for Horde, Goldshire, Azure Watch or Kharanos for Alliance). He’ll fly around and set fire to the buildings. You’ll need to right click on the bucket of water in the city, then use the bucket of water on an area that’s ablaze. When all the fires hae been put out, he’ll land. He’s only level 11 and has ~22oo HP, so he’s not hard to kill. When you kill him, his head will fall off and will offer a quest. Turn in this quest to the Costume Orphan Matron near you to get the achievement.

Rotten Hallow:

This is a quest started by Darkcaller Yanka (on the path leading South-West out of Undercity) for the Horde, or Sergeant Hartman (in Southshore) for the Alliance.

For the Horde version of the quest, you have to travel to Southshore and throw 3 smoke bombs that have been supplied to you. After this, you have to place rotten eggs in eggs found in the Southshore inn (marked with a question mark). Placing the rotten eggs in the kegs will flag you for PvP, but throwing the smoke bombs won’t (assuming you don’t throw them near guards or flagged Alliance players).

Check Your Head:

Use Weighted Jack-o’-Lantern on a character of each race. A couple of important things to know for this achievement: Putting one on your own head will count towards the achievement. You will not get credit if you put one on a character who already has one on their head. Your best bet is probably just to hang around Dalaran, around the North Bank for Horde characters or the South Bank for Alliance characters.

Sinister Calling:

For this final achievement, you need to obtain a Sinister Squashling minipet and a Hallowed Helm. This is another RNG achievement. Luckily, you can obtain these items from both the Headless Horseman or from a Treat Bag from trick or treating.

If you manage to do all these achievements, congratulations on your new title! <Name> the Hallowed. If you did yours last year and already have your Violet Proto-Drake, I hate you.

[Buff this article at Buff'd!]

Recently we had an issue in our guild that left me a bit sore. To cut a long story short, one of our members lied about quitting the game to move on to a more progressed raiding guild on a different server.

What made me angry (and many other people in my guild) is not that he left for a more progressed guild, but the fact that he lied about doing so. Now, I don’t know about everyone else, but I build up a relationship with a lot of the people in my guild. Even in my current guild, which I’ve only been in for a few months, I enjoy the company of most, if not all, of the people in that guild, and am especially ‘close’ to a few members in particular.

Yes, we do raid quite a bit, but the bond with the other 9 or 24 people in the raid is what makes this enjoyable. Sure, it’s a thrill to down new or hard bosses, but it’s even more so when you’re able to do so with people that you know and respect.

I do certainly feel an allegiance towards my guild.

But then I think about this person, who was thought to be quite ‘close’ to a few people in our guild, yet he blatantly lies about quitting, then moves on to a different guild that’s clearing H ToGC 25.

Am I wrong? Are guilds simply a means to and end? (i.e. A mechanic required by the game in order to get the best gear.)

Or is it merely a minority of people that are so loot-hungry that they ditch and run whenever the guild’s progression isn’t “up to their standards”?

Looking back on it, I feel more sad (for them) than angry. It’s sad that that person chose to sneak out the back door and lie to us, instead of stating their true intentions. It’s sad that their reputation in our guild and on this server is left tarnished, because of their actions.

But I guess it just makes us stronger as a guild, having people like that leave.

On a different, happier note:

Those people who have merged their WoW accounts with a Battle Net account should have received their Mr Chilly pet in the mail.

He’s kind of like Pengu, but less evil.

[Buff this article at Buff'd!]

Grats, Conclave! ‘Just’ Yogg +1 and Firefigher to go.