The titles for the achievements system got revealed:

AME the Diplomat - exalted with Timbermaw Hold, Sporeggar and Mag’har / Kurenai
Seeker NAME - completed 3000 quests
Arena Master NAME - completed the arena achievements
Salty NAME - completed the fishing achievements
Chef NAME - completed the cooking achievements
NAME the Supreme - first to reach 80
NAME of the Ten Storms - first shaman to reach 80
Arch Druid NAME - first druid to reach 80
Crusader NAME - first paladin to reach 80
Prophet NAME - first priest to reach 80
NAME the Malefic - first warlock to reach 80
Stalker NAME - first hunter to reach 80
NAME of the Ebon Blade - first death knight to reach 80
Archmage NAME - first mage to reach 80
Warbringer NAME - first warrior to reach 80
Assassin NAME - first rogue to reach 80
Grand Master Alchemist NAME - first to reach 450 alchemy
Grand Master Blacksmith NAME - first to reach 450 blacksmithing
Iron Chef NAME - first to reach 450 cooking
Doctor NAME - first to reach 450 first aid
Grand Master Herbalist NAME - first to reach 450 herbalism
Grand Master Angler NAME - first to reach 450 fishing
Grand Master Enchanter NAME - first to reach 450 enchanting
Grand Master Engineer NAME - first to reach 450 engineering
Grand Master Scribe NAME - first to reach 450 inscription
Grand Master Jewelcrafter NAME - first to reach 450 jewelcrafting
Grand Master Leatherworker NAME - first to reach 450 leatherworking
Grand Master Miner NAME - first to reach 450 mining
Grand Master Skinner NAME - first to reach 450 skinning
Grand Master Tailor NAME - first to reach 450 tailoring
NAME of Quel’Thalas - first blood elf to reach 80
NAME of Argus - first draenei to reach 80
NAME of Khaz Modan - first dwarf to reach 80
NAME of Gnomeregan - first gnome to reach 80
NAME the Lion Hearted - first human to reach 80
NAME, Champion of Elune - first night elf to reach 80
NAME, Hero of Orgrimmar - first orc to reach 80
Plainsrunner NAME - first tauren to reach 80
NAME of the Darkspear - first troll to reach 80
NAME the Forsaken - first undead to reach 80
NAME the Magic Seeker - realm first Malygos kill
Twilight Vanquisher NAME - realm first Sartharion the Onyx Guardian kill
NAME, Conqueror of Naxxramas - realm first Kel’thuzad kill
NAME, Hero of Northrend - realm first exalted with Argent Crusade, Wyrmrest Accord, Kiron Tor and Knights of the Ebon Blade
NAME the Hallowed - completed the Hallow’s End achievements

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World of Warcraft, Wrath of the Lich King titles, World of Warcraft, wotlk, wrath

Death Knight
Blood

• Bloody Vengeance: Gives you a 1/2/3/4/5% bonus to Physical, Frost and Shadow damage you deal (old: only Frost damage) for 30 sec after dealing a critical strike from a weapon swing, spell or ability. This effect stacks up to 3 times.
• Hysteria: Induces a friendly unit into a killing frenzy for 30 sec. The target is Enraged, which increases their physical damage by 20%, but causes them to suffer damage equal to 1% of their maximum health every second.

Frost

• Improved Icy Touch: Your Icy Touch does an additional 10% damage and your Frost Fever reduces melee attack speed by an additional 2/4/6%.
• Toughness: Reduces the duration of all movement slowing effects by 10/20/30/40/50% in addition to its armor increasing effect.

Unholy

• Dark Command added to Unholy Command’s effects
• Reaping now affects Pestilence and Blood Boil (old: Death and Decay).
• Desecration now affects Plague Strikes (old: Obliterate).
• Scourge Strike: An unholy strike that deals 100% of weapon damage as Shadow damage plus 333 and 50% additional damage for each of the Death Knight’s diseases on the target.

Additional Changes

• New Ability: Dark Command(Level 65): Commands the target to attack you, but has no effect if the target is already attacking you. Shares cooldown with Death Grip.
• New Ability: Horn of Winter: The Death Knight blows the Horn of Winter, increasing the total Strength and Agility of all party or raid members within 30 yards by 155. Lasts 2 min. Costs 20RP. No cooldown

Druid
Balance

• Genesis: Increases damage and healing done by 1/2/3/4/5% by your periodic spells
• Nature’s Splendor: Increases the duration of your Moonfire, Insect Sward, Rejuvenation, Regrowth, Lifebloom and Flourish spells by 10/20/30%
• Improved Insect Swarm: Increases your damage done by your Wrath spell to targets inflicted by your Insect Swarm by 1/2/3%, and increases the critical strike chance of your Starfire spell on targets afflicted by your Moonfire spell by 1/2/3%
• Improved Nature’s Grasp removed
• Control of Nature removed

Feral

• Natural Reaction: Increases your dodge while in Bear Form or Dire Bear Form by 2/4/6% and you regenerate 1/2/3 rage when you dodge while in Bear Form or Dire Bear Form.
• Mother Bear: Increases the bonus attack power for Bear Form or Dire Bear Form by an additional 20/40/60%, and for each friendly player in your party, damage you take is reduced by 1/2/3% while in Bear Form or Dire Bear Form.

Resto

• Furor now also increases your total intellect while in Moonkin form by 2/4/6/8/10%

Additional Changes

• Nature’s Grasp removed from the talent trees, it is a trainable ability

New Glyphs

• Glyph of the Wild: Your Gift of the Wild spells no longer require a reagent.
• Glyph of Aquatic Form: Increases your swim speed by 20 while in Aquatic Form.
• Glyph of Rebirth: Your Gift of the Wild spells no longer require a reagent.
• Glyph of Challenging Roar: Reduce the cooldown of your Challenging Roar ability by 30 sec.
• Glyph of Thorns: Increases the duration of your Thorns ability by 50 min when cast on yourself.

Hunter
Beast Mastery

• Aspect Mastery changed: Reduces the damage penalty of Aspect of the Viper by 10%, reduces the damage done to you while Aspect of the Monkey is active by 10%, increases the attack power bonus of Aspect of the Hawk by 50%.
• Separation Anxiety changed: When your pet is greater than 20 yards from you or is out of line of sight of you, its damage is increased by 4/8/12/16/20%, and when you and your pet are within 20 yards of each other, you and your pet’s movement speed is increased by 2/4/6/8/10%.
• Beast Mastery now grants you 4 (old: 5) extra pet skill points.

Marksmanship

• Improved Hunter’s Mark: Increase the bonus attack power granted by your Hunter’s Mark ability by 10/20/30%, and reduces the mana cost of your Hunter’s Mark ability by 33/66/100%.
• Trueshot Aura now increases the attack power of party and raid members within 45 yards by 10%. Lasts until cancelled. (Previously, increased the attack power of party and raid members within 45 yards by 225. Lasts until cancelled.)
• Combat Experience now increases your total Agility by 3/6% (old 1/2%) and your total Intellect by 3/6%.
• Wild Quiver changed: You have a 4/7/10% chance to shoot an additional shot when doing damage with your auto shot, dealing 60% Nature damage (old: physical damage dealt). Wild Quiver consumes no ammo.
• Concussive Barrage now procs of more shots: your successful Auto Shot, Multi-Shot and Volley attacks have a 2/4/6% chance to Daze the target for 4 sec.
• Improved Arcane Shot: Increases the damage done by your Arcane Shot by 5/10/15% (old: reduces cooldown by 1 sec).

Survival

• Trap Mastery changed: Increases the duration of Frost Trap by 30%. If your Freezing Trap is dispelled within 5 sec of it’s duration, the dispeller will be rooted in Frozen Ice for 6 sec. Increases the damage of Immolation and Explosive Trap by 30%. Increases the number of snakes summoned by Snake Trap by 30%
• Lock And Load changed: You have a 33/66/100% chance when you trap a target and a 5/10/15% chance (old: 10/20/30%) when you Sting a target to cause your next 3 Arcane Shot or Explosive Shot spells to trigger no cooldown, cost no mana and consume no ammo.
• Survival Tactics now reduces the chance your traps will be resisted as well.
• Expose Weakness now only affects the caster.
• Hunting Party changed: Your Arcane Shot, Explosive Shot and Steady Shot critical strikes have a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to grant up to 10 party or raid memebers mana regeration equal to 0.5% of the maximum mana per second.

Additional changes

• Kill Shot now deals 15% of RAP + 2500, the extra damage against low health targets has been removed.
• Hunter’s Mark stacking effect removed: Places the Hunter’s Mark on the target, increasing the ranged attack power of all attackers against that target by 110. In addition, the target of this ability can always be seen by the hunter whether it stealths or turns invisible. The target also appears on the mini-map. Lasts for 2 min.
• Disengage changed: You attempt to disengage from the target, leaping backwards. Must be facing the target.
• Aspect of the viper changed: The hunter takes on the aspect of the viper, instantly regenerating mana equal to 100% of the damage done by any ranged attack or ability, but reduces your total damage done by 50%.  Only one Aspect can be active at a time.

New Glyphs

• Glyph of Revive Pet: Gives your Revive Pet spell a 100% chance to not lose casting time when you take damage.
• Glyph of Mend Pet: Your Mend Pet spell increases your pet’s happiness slightly.
• Glyph of Bestial Speed: Increases the speed of your pet by 40% while using Eyes of the Beast.
• Glyph of Scare Beast: Gives your Scare Beast spell a 75% chance to not lose casting time when you take damage.
• Glyph of Feign Death: Reduce the cooldown of your Feign Death spell by 5.
• Glyph of the Pack: Increases the range of your Aspect of the Pack ability by 15 yards.

Rogue
Assassination

• Improved Eviscerate: Increases the damage done by Eviscerate by 7/14/20% (old: 5/10/15%).
• Improved Expose Armor increases the duration of Expose Armor instead of increasing armor penetration.
• Fleet Footed: Reduces the duration of all movement impairing effects by 15/30% (old: 25/50%).

Subtlety

• Waylay: Reduces targets melee and ranged attack speed by 20% (old: 30%)
• Honor Among Thieves: When anyone in your group critically hits with a damage or healing spell or ability, you have a 33/66/100% chance to gain a combo point on your current target. This effect cannot occur more than once every second.

Additional Changes

• New Ability: Tricks of the Trade (Level 75): The current party or raid member becomes the target of your Tricks of the Trade. The threat caused by your next attack and all actions taken for 6 sec afterwards will be transferred to the target. In addition, all damage caused by the target is increased by 15% during this time.
• Mutilate no longer requires you to be behind the target.
• Expose Armor armor reduction increased through all ranks.
• Envenom now increases the chance to apply poisons by 25% to targets for 1 sec plus an additional 1 sec per combo point in addition to its current effect.

New Glyphs

• Glyph of Pick Pocket: Increases the range of your Pick Pocket skill by 5 yards.
• Glyph of Vanish: Increases your movement speed by 30% while the Vanish effect is active.
• Glyph of Blurred Speed: You gain the ability to walk on water while your Sprint ability is active.

Mage
Arcane

• Slow: Reduces targets movement speed by 60%, increases ranged attack speed by 60% and casting speed by 60% (old: 50%).

Fire

• Improved Scorch: Your Scorch spells have a 33/66/100% chance to cause your target to be vulnerable to spell damage, increasing spell critical strike chance against that target by 2% and lasts 30 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.
• Hot Streak: Any time you score 2 spell criticals in a row using Fireball, Scorch, or Frostfire Bolt, you have a 33/66/100% chance the next Pyroblast spell cast within 10 sec will be instant cast.

Frost

• Fingers of Frost now lasts 15 secs, but only affects your next 2 frost spells.
• Improved Water Elemental: Makes your Water Elemental restore mana to all party or raid members an amount equal to 0.2/.4/.6% of their total mana every 5 secs.

Additional Changes

• Focus Magic now affects the raid.

New Glyphs

• Glyph of Arcane Intellect: Reduce the mana cost of your Arcane Intellect and Arcane Brilliance spells by 50%.
• Glyph of Slow Fall: Your Slow Fall spell no longer requires a reagent.
• Glyph of Fire Ward: You have an additional 5% chance to reflect Fire spells while your Fire Ward is active.
• Glyph of Frost Ward: You have an additional 5% chance to reflect Frost spells while your Frost Ward is active.
• Glyph of Ice Armor: Increases the duration of your Frost Armor and Ice Armor spells by 30 min.

Shaman
Elemental

• Totem of Wrath changed: Summons a Totem of Wrath with 5 health at the feet of the caster. The totem increases damage done by spells and effects by 160 for all party and raid members, and increases the critical strike chance of spells and effects against all enemies within 40 yards. Lasts 2 min.
• Elemental Oath changed: Your spell critical strikes grant your party or raid Elemental Oath, increasing critical strike chance by 3%. Lasts 15 seconds.
• increases the damage done by spells and effects by 100% for all party and raid members, and increases the critical strike chance of spells and effects by 3% against all enemies within 40 yards. Lasts 2 min.

Enhancement

• Guardian Totems: Increases the armor granted by Stoneskin Totem by 10/20%.
• Anticipation reduced to 3 ranks, adds disarm reduction: Increases your chance to dodge by an additional 1/2/3%, and reduces the duration of all Disarm effects used against you by 16/25/50%. This does not stack with other Disarm duration reducing effects.

Restoration

• Tidal Force now lasts 20 sec.

Additional changes

• New Ability: Wind Shock: Instantly blasts the target with a gust of wind, causing no damage but lowering your threat, making the enemy less likely to attack you, and interrupts spellcasting and prevents any spell in that school from being cast for 2 sec.
• Bloodlust / Heroism now trigger a debuff: After the completion of this effect, those affected will become Exhausted/Sated and unable to benefit from Bloodlust/Heroism again for 5 min.

Paladin
Retribution

• Improved Blessing of Might: Now increases the attack power bonus from Blessing of Might by 5/10/15/20/25% (old 10/20/30/40/50%).
• Judgements of the Wise: Your Judgement spells have a 33/66/100% chance to grant up to 10 party or raid members mana regeneration equal to 0.5% of their maximum mana per second.

Holy

• Beacon of Light: The target becomes a Beacon of Light to all targets within a 40 yard radius. Any heals you cast on those targets will also heal the Beacon for 100% of the amount healed.

Protection

• Shield Specialization now increases shield block value by 10/20/30%.
• Toughness now reduces movement impairing effect durations as well: Reduces the duration of all movement slowing effects by 10/20/30/40/50% in addition to its previous effect.

Additional Changes

• Blessing of Might Ranks 5-11 now grant more attack power to bring it in line with Battle Shout with talented.
• Blessing of Sanctuary: Gives all members of the raid or group that share the same class with the target the Greater Blessing of Sanctuary, reducing damage taken from all sources by 3% for 30 min. In addition, when the target blocks, parries, or dodges a melee attack the target will gain 10 rage, 20 runic power, or 2% of maximum mana.

New Glyphs

• Glyph of Blessing of Kings: Reduce the mana cost of your Blessing of Kings and Greater Blessing of Kings spells by 50%.
• Glyph of Sense Undead: Damage against Undead increased by 1% while your Sense Undead ability
• Glyph of the Warhorse: Reduce the casting time of your Summon Charger and Summon Warhorse spells by 0.5 sec.
• Glyph of Lay on Hands: Increases the mana restored by your Lay on Hands spell by 5%.
• Glyph of Blessing of Might: Increases the duration of your Blessing of Might spell by 20 min when cast on yourself.
• Glyph of Blessing of Wisdom: Increases the duration of your Blessing of Wisdom spell by 20 min when cast on yourself.

Priest
Discipline

• Unbreakable Will now reduces the duration of Stun, Fear, and Silence effects done to you by an additional 3/6/9/12/15%.
• Improved Inner Fire moved to Tier 3: Increases the effect of your Inner Fire spell by 20/40/60%.
• Absolution moved from Tier 3 to Tier 4.
• Focused Power: Increases your total spell damage and healing done by 2/4%. In addition, your Mass Dispel cast time is reduced by 0.5 sec.
• Enlightenment: Increases Intellect, Spirit and Stamina. Damage and healing bonus replaced with spell haste.
• Reflective Shield reduced to 3 ranks: Causes 15/30/45% (old: 10/20/30/40/50%) of the damage absorbed by your Power Word: Shield to reflect back at the attacker.
• Renewed Hope: Increases the critical effect chance of your Flash Heal, Greater Heal and Penance spells by 3% on targets afflicted by the Weakened Soul effect.
• Grace: Your Flash Heal, Greater Heal, and Penance spells have a 50/100% chance to bless the target with Grace, reducing damage done to the target by 1%. This effect will stack up to 3 times. Lasts 8 sec.
• Borrowed Times: Increases the amount absorbed by your Power Word: Shiel/d equal to 8/16/24/32/40% (old: 4/8/12/16/20%) of your spell power.
• Penance damage and healing increased through all ranks. Duration reduced to 2 seconds, but the first tick is instant.

Shadow

• Shadow Weaving reduced to 3 ranks: Your Shadow damage spells have a 33/66/100% chance to increase the Shadow damage you deal by 2% for 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.
• Misery reduced to 3 ranks: Your Shadow Word: Pain, Mind Flay and Vampiric Touch spells also increase the chance for harmful spells to hit by 1/2/3%.
• Pain and Suffering: Reduces the damage you take from your own Shadow Word: Death by 10/20/30%. (Previously 20/40/60%)
• Vampiric Touch: Causes up to 10 party or raid members to gain 0.5% of their maximum mana per second while you are dealing shadow damage.

Additional Changes

• Inner Fire now increases Spell power (old: healing spell power).

New Glyphs

• Glyph of Fading: Reduce the mana cost of your Fade spell by 50%.
• Glyph of Shackle Undead: Increases the range of your Shackle Undead spell by 5 yards.
• Glyph of Levitate: Your Levitate spell no longer requires a reagent.
• Glyph of Fortitude: Reduce the mana cost of your Power Word: Fortitude and Prayer of Fortitude spells by 5%.
• Glyph of Shadow Protection: Increases the duration of your Shadow Protection and Prayer of Shadow Protection spells by 10 min.

Warrior
Arms

• Trauma has been moved from Tier 9 to Tier 6
• Sudden Death has been moved from Tier 6 to Tier 9.
• Strength of Arms has been moved from Tier 8 to Tier 7

Fury

• Precision has been moved from Tier 7 to Tier 5
• Rampage now affects all party and raid members within 45 yards (old: 20 yards).

Protection

• Shockwave now deals damage equal to 50% of the AP of the Warrior (old: 25%)
• Sword and Board: When your Devastate and Shield Slam abilities deal damage they have a 3/6/9/12/15% (old: 2/4/6/8/10%) chance of refreshing the cooldown of your Shield Slam ability and reducing its cost by 100% for 5 sec.
• Safeguard moved from Tier 8 to Tier 7, Rank 3 removed: Now Reduces damage taken by the target of your Intervene ability by 30/60% (old: 20/40/60%) for 6 sec. In addition, your Charge, Intercept and Intervene abilities have a 50/100% (old: 33/66/100%) chance to remove all movement impairing effects when used.
• Critical Block: Your successful blocks have a 10/20/30% chance to block double the normal amount and increases your chance to critically hit with your Shield Slam ability by an additional 5/10/15%.
• Improved Defensive Stance reduced to 2 ranks: While in Defensive Stance all spell damage is reduced by 3/6% and when you Block, Parry or Dodge an attack you have a 50/100% chance to become Enraged, increasing melee damage caused by 5/10% for 12 sec.
• Vigilance’s Taunt refreshing effect increased to the next 3 attacks and lasts 30 minutes.
• Improved Shield Wall: Increases the damage reduction of your Shield Wall ability by an additional 5/10% and reduces the cooldown by 30/60 secs.
• Puncture Rank 3 removed
• Improved Disarm reduced to 2 ranks: Reduces the cooldown of your Disarm and Shield Break abilities by 10/20 secs (old: 5/10 secs) and causes the target to take an additional 5/10% (old: 4/7%) damage while disarmed.
• Improved Revenge reduced to 2 ranks: Increases damage of your Revenge ability by 10/20% (old: 8/16%) and gives a 25/50% (old: 10/20%) chance to stun the target for 3 sec.
• Toughness: Increases your armor value from items by 2/4/6/8/10% and reduces the duration of all movement slowing effects by 10/20/30/40/50%.

Additional Changes

• New ability: Weapon Throw (level 80): Throws your weapon at the enemy causing damage equal to 100% of AP. This ability causes high threat. 30 yd range, 0.5 sec cast, 20 sec cooldown
• New ability: Enraged Assault (level 75): A furious assault that consumes an Enrage effect on the warrior and attacks with all weapons. Can only be used while Enraged. 15 Rage, 5 yd range, Instant, 10 sec cooldown
• Execute damage has been slightly reduced, now scales with 20% of your AP.
• Battle Shout now affects your raid members.
• Shield Block duration increased from 5 seconds to 10 seconds.
• Revenge damage has been slightly reduced, now scales with 9.5% of your AP.
• Shield Wall damage reduction has been changed from 60% to 50%.
• Disarm rage cost changed from 20 to 15.

Warlock
Affliction

• Frailty changed: Increases the amount of attack power reduced by your Curse of Weakness by 10/20%, and reduces the amount of attack power granted by your Curse of Recklessness by 50/100%.
• Shadow Embrace changed: Your Corruption, Curse of Agony, Siphon Life and Seed of Corruption spells also cause you to gain the Shadow Embrace effect for 12 sec, increasing Shadow damage dealt by 2/4/6/8/10%.

Demonology

• Demonic Pact changed: Your pet’s criticals apply the Demonic Pact effect to your party or raid members. Demonic Pact increases spell power by 2/4/6/8/10% of your Spell Damage for 12 sec.

Additional Changes

• Curse of Weakness Rank 9 now increases time between melee and ranged attacks by 20%.
• Curse of Recklessness armor reduction lowered through all ranks.

World of Warcraft, Wrath of the Lich King

Today, we kick off the PvE spotlight with a Wrath of the Lich King beta spotlight: a Death Knight has ventured alone to Onyxia’s Lair, and taken the dragon’s life, her head, and several nice tier two epics. The video can be found here!

Second, Nihilum have released a trailer for their upcoming Kil’jaeden video. I think it looks great, and I’ll be sure to update the next PvE Spotlight when the movie is ready! Check out the trailer here.

Next up, we have an 83 minute Karazhan speed run! It has been sped up and edited for viewing purposes, and can be found here. That, I believe, is a real badge run.

Finally, we have a Zul’Aman speed run, by Nihilum and SK Gaming, which took place during the Intel Extreme Masters event. It can be found here.

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General

The clash between SK Gaming and Nihilum in the Intel Extreme Masters is over, and can be watched at the following links:

Game 1 - Round 1
Game 1 - Round 2
Game 1 - Round 3
Game 1 - Round 4
Game 1 - Round 5

Game 2 - Round 1
Game 2 - Round 2
Game 2 - Round 3
Game 2 - Round 4

PM Strands on the forums for your Youtube links to be featured in any future PvP or PvE spotlight (with full credits, of course).

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General

Shaman

Anticipation / Shamanistic Focus changes / Windfury concerns
One change we’re doing to Anticipation is changing it to 3-points, and giving it disarm reduction. We are also most likely going to change Shamanistic Focus to make it a flat mana reduction in shock cooldowns. It’s too spammy right now, and the class has too many on proc buffs.

Edit: BTW, one thing I totally agree with is the Windfury Weapon concern. We’ll see if we can make the ability less complicated/”mathy”.

Warlock

Warlock changes and Patch 3.0 Deployment
We’ll be doing some considerable work on Warlocks before that patch hits.

Warrior

Furious Attacks
This talent will see some revision before retail so don’t worry about a world where warriors are dual wielding daggers for MS bonanzas.

Blizzcast Episode 5: Special WWI Edition
This special Worldwide Invitational wrap-up edition of BlizzCast begins with a brief chat between RTS Community Manager Karune, World of Warcraft Community Manager Nethaera, and Diablo III Community Manager Bashiok about their WWI experiences. Bashiok then takes you into the mind of Diablo III Lead Designer Jay Wilson, and the two discuss some recent hot issues surrounding the game. Listen to the show now or check out the transcript to see all the featured artwork.

Download the new episode here:
http://eu.blizzard.com/blizzcast/

Transcript for the new episode:
http://eu.blizzard.com/blizzcast/archive/episode5.xml

Feats of Strength - Spirit of Competition 2008
Great idea. We implemented two Feats… one for the Tabard and one for the Pet.

[Feedback] Wintercrasp (long)
We’re hoping to get the zone into better shape in the next couple patches. Here’s a few things that should be coming in the next build:

- All vehicles should be despawn after the battle ends
- Demolisher and Siege Vehicle health has been reduced by 50-75%
- Demolisher and Siege Vehicle ram attacks no longer knock a player high enough to kill them
- Jet & Bomber health has been reduced
- Bomber damage has been increased
- Players in Bombers should no longer take damage
- Reward for holding the keep has been added
- The Goblin Workshops in the North and South now also supply players with land mines that deal bonus damage to tanks

We also hope to have a system for rewarding only players that participated in the battle working soon.

Profession recipes collection achievements
We’re working on the ability to do these kind of achievements. We wouldn’t do anything percentage based but rather choose a flat number and add more achievements as we add more content.

Most likely, you’ll see a cooking version like this in the near future. Versions for the primary professions won’t go live until account-based achievements are active. We don’t want to encourage people picking up and dropping profressions simply to gain achievements.

World of Warcraft on your mobile.
Carry a little piece of Azeroth wherever your real-world travels take you with our new World of Warcraft-themed wallpapers and ringtones for your phone. They’re part of a new service that lets you download content related to your favorite Blizzard Entertainment games to supported mobile phones.

Over 50 pieces of content are currently available, including ringtones of World of Warcraft’s capital city themes and the distinctive murloc gurgle, as well as wallpapers featuring character artwork, class and faction emblems, and more. Visit the new Mobile Ringtones and Wallpapers page for more information — and while you’re there, be sure to check out our StarCraft and Diablo mobile content, too.

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General

This week on Movie Watch…

The Scarlet Thorn
Lady Sylvanas puts some arrows to the Scarlet Crusaders. She’s had it and now she is going to pluck the scarlet thorn from the ground..

..for good!

Azerothian Super Villains - Episode 6
In Episode 6, “The Virgin Kael’thas,” Illidan finally has a plan to take over the island of Theramore that is unstoppable — a cloning machine! However, as he recruits Kael’thas to be a distraction to the leader of the isle, Proudmoore, things backfire when Kael’thas becomes attached to not a king of the town, but a lady. Will Illidan’s cloned army become a reality or will Kael’thas finally pull through?

The Demise
Adopted by rich and very strict couple from Silvermoon ,little Alasse is deprived of her childhood. One night as she looks out of the window, she sees a strange, bright light comming from a nearby forest. Night is the only time when guards hired by Alasses parents don`t follow her. She decides to take her chances and sneak out through the window, to check out the mysterious light. This isn’t another simple story about incredible people and heroic acts.This is a breathtaking story, about simple people, forbidden love, hope and drama.

That’s all for this week. We’ll highlight a PvP or PvE specific movie in our spotlights later in the week!

Visit WarcraftMovies.com for more Warcraft related Videos.

Until then…

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General

Rogue

Lack of rogue changes in WotLK Beta
Beta implies that the game is in a testing process and currently incomplete. Your assistance in testing and providing feedback is much appreciated, however, we ask that you remain patient while we continue to push out new content, abilities, and balancing adjustments each week.

No class is going to be left behind when all is said and done. The point of working through a Beta process is to ensure the product is fully polished by the time it is slated for release. We ask that you consider this before expressing frustration over a lack of battle-ready talents and abilities for your class in its current state. We will continue to push out changes for the Rogue class — as with every other class — so you will all have plenty of time to test out the updates.

Warrior

Intensify Rage
Thank you for bringing up this concern. After examining the situation we agreed this would potentially be a problem. Precision and Intensify Rage have now switched places in the talent tree. We want this to be something that a furry warrior has access to without making arms warriors feel they have to have it to be functional.

Changes to Illidan encounters with the 3.0.2 patch and new talents
Changes can be made to encounters if we feel they are necessary to allow the fight to work right. That said, the release of the patch isn’t tomorrow, it’s sometime in the coming weeks, so you still have time to work on the raids. Good luck on Illidan.

Feats of Strength: First to kill!
Realm Firsts are implemented in the next beta build although they will be slightly broken due to the fact that we have data issues with existing beta testers. For now, here’s the list. We’ll probably add more.

Realm First to 80
Realm First <insert class here> to 80
Realm First <insert race here> to 80
Realm first <insert tradeskill or secondary skill> to 450
Realm First 10/25 end-boss kills

Keep in mind, this will be broken on beta realms slightly. For example, in the current build, Realm First Mage to 80 is actually implemented. Well, Daelo, our Lead Encounter Designer, was testing something and leveled a Mage to 80 instantly and got the achievement for the server. On live realms, this will never happen. On live realms, all blizzard employee accounts are not counted toward server-firsts. But this part of the technology was not yet implemented.

Also, when those Realm First achievements go live, they won’t be accurate on the beta realms. But on live realms, the data will be pure and the information will display correctly.

Something to note about Realm Firsts:

A Realm First window stays open for 1 minute after initial completion of the Feat Of Strength. This means if 25 people kill Malygos as a Realm First, they’ll all get credit. But what this also means is that if two players reach level 80 within a minute of each other, they will both get credit as well.

Flying Mounts in Dalaran
For the time being, it is intended that you cannot fly within the city of Dalaran. We want you to be able to fly into Dalaran and fly out of Dalaran (via mounting at the flying landing or in the sewer pipe) but we don’t want people flying around the city streets. We do want people to be able to mount on their ground mounts in the city (but not indoors).

This isn’t entirely set up properly yet and not all things are working. Most of this will be implemented over the coming weeks. If it’s horrible, we’ll change it. But that’s what we’re trying out right now.

A big complaint of Shattrath was that it did not feel like a city. A goal of Dalaran was to re-capture the bustling street feel of places like Stormwind and Orgrimmar. Flying mounts work contrary to this goal.

Netherdrakes in WotLK
We don’t have any current plans to remove the ability to get the Netherdrakes in Outland, we’ll let you know if anything changes.

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A new Athene clip is up, and shows some awesome Fraps arena with a 2v2 Holy Paladin/Arms Warrior setup.

The clip can be found here as well as in the Athene Videos tab on the top of the homepage.

Be sure to let us know what you think of it in the forum comments!

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Death Knight

Anti Magic Shell = WIN!
That is by design. Now, it might end up being too powerful and ultimately getting tweaked, but it isn’t a bug.

Druid

Feral spec in WotLK
We do want to give Ferals who want to focus on being cats some excellent melee dps. We do want bears to be end-game tanks. We want to see serious guilds with a bear MT and a death knight OT.

What held us back from that before was that the kitty could turn around and tank almost as well (and sometimes better) than the Prot dudes who abandoned any hope of competitive dps in order to be able to tank for their guild. Clearly (I hope) a class that could do rogue-level dps and warrior-level tanking with the same talent build is the kind of thing that makes other players a little miffed.

But we’re reevaluating a lot of old (and some admittedly tired) decisions for Lich King. Not only will tank-spec classes be able to do a lot higher dps (not the highest in the raid mind you, but higher), but we think it’s fine for a Feral to nerf their tanking ability a little in order to go for high dps, or lower their dps a little in order to be amazing tanks.

We don’t think it will take a complete overhaul of the Feral tree. To be honest, I think it’s a pretty fun tree. But it will definitely take some changes to the tree you see on beta today. Imagine 5-10 talent points that significantly increase your survivability but do nothing to your dps. Take those points and you’re a tank. Ignore them and you’re melee dps. Take a few here and there and you are as flexible as you are today. I’m not saying that is the final or even only sollution. But that implementation gets brought up quite a bit.

Typhoon
It’s not finished, no. We’re still working on the new graphic for it, and also considering a different design path for it.

Improved Moonkin Form
The plan is for it to go raid wide. Given the talents avaiable to deep Balance, I hope it’s obvious that we are trying to make the Moonkin a very competitive spellcaster. Some of the concerns from BC (e.g. running out of mana, lack of AE or CC, not enough group synergy) should be aleviated by now.

Paladin

Retribution Paladins
I meant that we can’t assume Vengeance is up 100% of the time so we can’t assume paladins will always have that 15% boost. Yet if we balance them without that 15% (or we try and estimate it at something like 5 or 10%), we’ll start to run into trouble when paladins with lots of +crit do manage to keep it up all the time. And if it really is up all the time, is that interesting an ability anyway?

As to the death knight, we only gave them that talent to mirror the paladin one and catch a hint of the “anti-paladin” vibe. Whatever treatment Vengeance ends up, Bloody Vengeance will almost certainly get as well.

I agree there are several things driving Retribution to be bursty. To some degree, bursts can be fun. We all like seeing a crit with a big number flying up. But we’d probably all agree that there comes a point where you feel like you’re just rolling a dice — maybe I’ll do crazy dps on my next few hits and maybe I won’t. I think we can stabilize Retribution a little bit while still letting you see some big numbers sometime and have very competitive dps.

Priest

Upcoming Penance Changes
Some changes to Penance are incoming:

• The first tick will be virtually instant (so overall the channel is now 2 seconds, not 3)

• The mana cost has been cut roughly in half.

• There’s a new Discipline talent that will make it more interesting

Warlock

Demonic Circle
The looping and sound issues will be fixed soon, as well as some other random bugs with the ability.

Warrior

AoE Tanking
I totally agree. It’s depressing to see how excited a 5-player group gets with a paladin tank just because they know they’re going to get a good experience.

There are plenty of excellent warrior tanks out there — don’t get me wrong. But we think we can make the experience a little more fun for both the warrior and his or her group.

Generating a little more dps will help.
Not being rage starved all the time will help.
Being able to generate enough threat on groups will help a lot.
Having a few more fun buttons to push certainly wouldn’t suck either.
We would also love, love, love to be able to merge and pack some of the mitigation talents together so that you have enough points to get some more fun talents, so long as we can avoid any nerf to warrior survivability when tanking.

BlizzCon Ticket Drawing Opt-In Period Ends
The opt-in period for the BlizzCon 2008 Ticket Drawing is now over. We will be randomly selecting winners within the next few days and will announce when selections have been made on our websites. If you are chosen, you will receive an email from Blizzard containing information about how to purchase up to two tickets to BlizzCon 2008. If you haven’t done so already, please go to Blizzard Account Management and update your contact information. For more details, see the FAQ.

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Today’s spotlight for Lore Time is the Silithid, an insect race residing in the Southern areas of Kalimdor.

History:

Scholars disagree on the origins of the silithid. Some believe they are an offshoot of the arachnathid, an insect race that mostly dwells in the northern regions of Azeroth. Others believe they are a new race heretofore unknown on Azeroth, possibly having arrived from another world elsewhere in the Twisting Nether, much as the orcs once did. Still others posit that they are servants of the qiraji, and that their presence in Southern Kalimdor is a harbinger of the qiraji invasion.

Before the Great Sundering, Kalimdor, the ancient continent of eternal starlight, was a nurturing mother to all of its creatures. At the continent’s center was a mysterious lake of incandescent energies, the Well of Eternity. It was the true heart of the world’s magic and natural power. From this magical ether the Silithid were born. As the fallen Old God C’Thun recognized their appearance, he attempted to sunder the world that it once held in its merciless grasp. The Old God created avatars from the Silithid in its own image. These avatars were eventually known as Qiraji. Sapient and with thousands of years the Qiraji worked feverishly to build a force capable of laying waste to the world that would betray their god with the Silithids as their minions.

Biology:

• Their chitinous plating is interlaced in such a way that makes it incredibly strong. These creatures are very powerful and highly evolved.
• Silithid can range in size from a normal insect to gigantic. Size seems to depend on how long the Silithid are allowed to develop in their egg stage. It appears that size is also directly correlated with colony size.
• It can be inferred that caste is dependent on how the Silithid are “instructed” to develop, since larva forms have been found.
• Each of the three Hives in Silithus has a crystalline prism in it. They are apparently a means for the Qiraji and other unknown entities to communicate various messages to the silithid.

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