Blizzard Announces automated account recovery form for hacked accounts

by Mathew McCurley Sep 22nd 2010 3: 00 p.m.
World of Warcraft accounts were for many years under siege with hackers and gold-selling power outlets, who steal passwords, items and more to their coffers fill sells gold has on unsuspecting Käufer.Blizzard continuously during the flood of gold farming and account hacking fought back, and as you can imagine, the scale at which this happens is very tasking on its customer support department.

Blizzard has just announced, a new, faster way to help get and answered via your account hacked, stolen items, authenticator questions and more! now after the new system does not have an e-Mail or call to Blizzard to getting these issues in its queue - simply use the Account recovery form.

Calling the new method has a "one-stop shop" for dealing with recovery issues include Blizzard the process automatically be restored by, accounts can Battle.NET, treated and recovered faster than usual.

Remember never to share your password with anyone, and that Blizzard will never after password questions. One of the most common ways that hacks, Trojans and keyloggers are distributed is too so by malicious files that represent as addons, keep unharmed, only download addons of safe, reliable places, recall WoWInterface or curse.

I can not enough Blizzard for this step recommend. Thank you, Blizzard.In return we will try really hard to stop hacked. Check the complete announcement below:

Missing article?Password changed?Characters transferred to realms, which you not even heard? added for an authentication code, although you have no authenticator? can affect your account if any of these questions match those that you are questions now.

Well, don't panic.Blizzard Entertainment's customer service team are here to help you.There is no need, create a test account to submit an in-game petition, nor shall a friend you, one on your behalf einreichen.Zum on your account as soon as possible, please visit account recovery visit restore access and be prepared to verify your account information.

Introducing our new account recovery process, you should no longer required his try call or email to our & billing account Services Department one authenticator to remove that may be granted on your account without your authorization.

All you have to do is our new account recovery form to fill in: (https://us.battle.net/account/support/secure-computer.html).

How does it work?

Consider will ask your "one stop shop" for pointing out a potentially vulnerable kontos.Wir, a number of questions, which only you the answers to sollten.Nachdem know we are confident that you, your access who you say you are, our automated recovery process will take and try to restore the battle.NET account as soon as possible.

This process will issue a password reset E mail for the battle.NET account, compromised was initiated and create a service ticket (petition) to investigate use be able this ticket if logged on the game show you a message to your E-mail address should, however, that with your ticket number and other information.

Do what I do after I fill out the Web form?

• Check your E-mail account for two e-Mail messages: one reset your password and your service ticket information.

• Check by a Battle.NET-Authenticator, account to protect: (http://us.blizzard.com/support/article/26552).

• Take a deep Atemzug...Unser customer service team will do the rest.

Tags: Account, Account Management, Account recovery, Account recovery form, Account recovery, Account security, Account theft, accounts, Blizzard support, customer service, customer support, Customer service, Customer support, CustomerService, customer support, Hack Support, hacker, hacking, keylogger, keylogger, Keylogger-Wow, support, wow account hacking filed under: news items, Account security

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Cataclysm beta live stream and select my adventure queries

by Robin Torres Sep 22nd 2010 at 1: 00 pm
Select the adventures, our bloggers as we our characters in it came from the blog level > on Zangarmarsh (U.S. PvE H).

Note: The stream is the cataclysm Beta.Es and chat below are full Spoiler.Sie were warned.

Update:The stream is now over.Please click on the image above, if you want to view the recording of the stream.

Hello and welcome to the live version of select my adventure (Beta) .the winner by the surveys was Robinemia of abandoned Hunter, so today I your adventures continue to be wird.Begleiten run me, while I tell, reading quests and requests from the chat room after the break nehmen.Die show for at least an hour and appear on video, if you are not able to see it live.

The schedule for our more adventurous can take found on Monday's post, and surveys for this week are after the break.

Live-stream chat


Surveys

Proofreading Prairie dog was victorious! Lisa's proofreading your new pet together with her Druid, Prupher, bring during the adventure.

Gregg Reece AKA Sandwichdoc, the troll shaman wants to select his mode of the game for the next week.

If female Worgen and the starting point zone work next week, am I delete everything and make a Druid, as per your Stimme.Ich already made a beautiful but was unable to save you.Error in fact one select a sign for me, in the event that doesn ' t happen to stream.

We also have our annual Brewfest event this Sunday if participate?

Please visit us at Zangarmarsh (U.S. PvE H) in it came from the blog > .Gilde series of "Blog lurkers" or higher can load so / Flüstern Robiness or online Mitglieder.Sie are all welcome, as long as you play through our simple rules-in fact, be no Funsucker! visit the Guild FAQ for more details.Tags:Cataclysm Stream, featured, Guild event, Guild events, live Beta Stream, live Stream, Robinemia, Wow com Guild, Wow dot com Guild, Wow event, Wow events, Wow Insider, Wow Insider Guild, Wow Insider Guild event, wowinsider

Filed under: Choose your adventure

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MMO Roundup: Last week on massively

by Alex Ziebart Sep 21st 2010 7: 00 p.m. sometimes want to know that it other MMO out there, isn't it? It's not all WoW all the time! Our sister site massively can offer you everything you need to know implementation on all the other MMOs - past, present and future.

RIFTreveal: the Kelari race
If the thought of edgy rebels Elves channel magic in machines makes your ears perk, you'll the Kelari lieben.Sie are not only the stereotypes "Dark Elves", to which boast many fantasy games but instead carry with you twist the same genre that RIFT to create by became well known. Phantasy Star Online 2 announced at the Tokyo game show
Phantasy Star Online is dead - long live Phantasy Star Online 2! SEGA announced recently the sequel to the hit MMO, during a live stream event at the Tokyo game show. PSO2's revelation was planned for release in 2011 a surprise for everyone. Pirates of the Burning Sea walk F2P next expansion
Cranked the shiny new extension power & prestige for Pirates of the Burning Sea, have straight out flying Lab software team has chosen a choice for other uncharted provision-the free to play waters!In fact it seems that the company has since late last year was this step planning and what's more, has it already in the free-to-play elements, currently in testing encoded. Bible online set to start
Bible online has been through a few stages of beta testing of the game since at the end of August, and its popularity zugenommen.Die has first round of beta testing had over 2,500 participants, and the Bible online forums were aktiv.Die increasingly developers seem happy with the results because you have explained the game almost ready to go in Europe. Clone Wars Adventures launches new trailer
Clone Wars Adventures has been in the open beta for a little while now, and the big day arrived started the free to play game ist.Sony Online Entertainment last week in tandem with an exciting new trailer titled "War reels."Tags:Facebookfeed, featured, massive, MMO Roundup, RoundupFiled under: MMO Roundup

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Know your Lore: Orgrim Doomhammer, part 1

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by Matthew Rossi Sep 22nd 2010 at 7:00PM

The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

He is the father of the modern Horde. His name became the name of the great city built by the orcs. He found in the son of his oldest friend a protegé who would lead his people, and he passed his family's greatest treasure down to ensure that prophecy was satisfied. To his people, he was one who never forsook them. No attempts to run away from the consequences of their actions, no dissembling -- simply forthright, pragmatic action. Alone of the Blackrock Clan, he refused the taint of the demon blood, yet found himself marked by it as it spread through his people. Called the Backstabber because he killed his direct superior, Blackhand the Destroyer, he ruled the Horde until its final defeat at Blackrock Mountain.

To his enemies, he was death. He beheaded his own chieftain and seized power in one brutal moment, crushing any opposition by the swift assassination of his enemies.He destroyed Stormwind and nearly brought down Lordaeron. He killed the majority of the warlocks of the Shadow Council and removed the position of Warchief from the role of a puppet ruler, leading the Horde in truth. He asked for no quarter and gave none. He countenanced the capture and forced breeding of the dragon queen Alexstrasza and her consort Tyranastrasz, using the juvenile dragons as mounts. He allowed Gul'dan to live, even though he suspected treachery, because the old warlock promised him a weapon that could counter the magics of the humans. He was never one to put his conscience ahead of what he saw as his duty; even as he suspected the orcs were being lied to and manipulated, he took part in the slaughter of the draenei. In the end, his own pragmatism cost him the victory in the Second War, as the treacherous Gul'dan proved that placing victory above all sometimes means giving someone too much rope -- Gul'dan's betrayal of the Horde in its moment of victory effectively destroyed all of the hard work of its Warchief.

Orgrim Doomhammer, last of the Doomhammer line, Warchief of the Horde, chief of the Blackrock, was an orc, give him all in all. You shall not look upon his like again.

Before the Horde

The greatest strength of Orgrim was also his ultimate weakness: his ruthlessly pragmatic nature. A brilliant tactician and skilled warrior, Doomhammer did not particularly care for the self-examination that marked the character of his best friend and rival, Durotan of the Frostwolves. Doomhammer was not a chieftain. He was not born to rule his people, but to serve them as a descendant of the Doomhammer line, gifted for generations with the honor of carrying the weapon from which they took their name. Orgrim's father, Telkar, wielded the hammer as one of the greatest warriors of the Blackrock Clan in the time before the shaman Ner'zhul first began warning the tribes of the draenei threat. Upon Telkar's death, Orgrim assumed his role in the Blackrock Clan and proved himself every bit a Doomhammer, quickly rising to an honored position as second in command to the Blackrock chief Blackhand.

Orgrim first met Durotan at a Kosh'harg festival, and the two young orcs settled into a friendly competition that became an unusual friendship, stretching as it did across clan lines. There was no rule against this, primarily because orcish society as a whole at that time had few hard-and-fast rules at all, being decentralized and nomadic -- but it was not traditional. Still, neither young orc ever broke from this friendship, renewing it at subsequent Kosh'hargs and whenever they had the chance to meet. It was this friendly rivalry that led the two youngsters to encounter the draenei, led by the warrior Restalaan (the draenei patrol helped the two orcs against an ogre), and this meeting led to an encounter with Velen, prophet of the draenei. If Velen foresaw that these two young orcs would someday help butcher his people, he gave no sign of it, receiving them warmly and spending time conversing with them about their people and the ancient prophecy of the Doomhammer itself.

Despite this cordial reception, in later years, as Ner'zhul's warnings became urgent and the various clans of the orcs became suspicious of the draenei, Orgrim ultimately made war on the draenei. While at first he merely followed the lead of his chieftain Blackhand, in truth Orgrim enjoyed the war and began to relish the opportunity to prove himself in a far more dangerous way than the contests in which he and Durotan used to engage. While he suspected both Ner'zhul and later Gul'dan of deceiving and manipulating the orcish people, unlike his friend Durotan, he didn't question the rightness of his own actions nearly so much, accepting the orders of his clan chief. It's also possible that despite his role as second in command, Doomhammer felt somewhat uncertain in his position. Not only was his friendship with Durotan unusual, his connections with the Thunderlord clan may have made him somewhat of an outsider in the Blackrock, despite being heir to the Doomhammer.

What's clear is that Doomhammer, like Durotan, had no desire to trust Gul'dan and was not about to drink the blood of some giant monstrosity simply because the warlock told him to. (Durotan and his wife Draka had been warned by Ner'zhul, who had found himself powerless in the Horde as Gul'dan's alliance with Kil'jaeden marginalized him completely.) Doomhammer's excuse for not drinking proved that he understood his vain, somewhat smug superior fully. He claimed to feel unworthy to drink from the same chalice as the great Blackhand, and Blackhand lapped it up. Gul'dan, however, saw right through it, as Doomhammer expected he would.

What followed was a battle of wills between the warlock who pulled the puppet's strings and the warrior who sought to cut them. Gul'dan sought the ultimate power for himself, while Doomhammer had no particular interest in power at all. He fought in the war against the draenei because it was his duty, but also because he found that he enjoyed battle and was talented at it. The aggrandizement he sought came from this long-held need to prove himself via contest, and war provided him with the ultimate chance to do exactly that. He sought to be the first among equals and could not abide the role of puppet Warchief accepted by the boorish Blackhand.

Rise of the Warchief

Following the destruction of the draenei, the orcs began a slow decline as their world became too corrupted by the fel magics of the warlocks to support life. It's clear that watching his people's slow death affected Doomhammer deeply, as all of his actions to follow were aimed primarily at securing a future for them at any cost to anyone else. Following Blackhand to Azeroth, Doomhammer watched in dismay as his Warchief Blackhand managed to quickly lose control of the invasion and was even driven back to the swamps surrounding the Dark Portal by the armies of the native people of Azeroth, these "humans." While Gul'dan didn't really care -- he'd only invaded Azeroth in the first place in order to try and trick Medivh into revealing the location of the Tomb of Sargeras -- Doomhammer quickly grew incensed at what he saw as poor leadership by Blackhand and selfish, power-hungry manipulations by the warlocks of the Shadow Council who used Blackhand as a puppet.

By this point, any scales remaining had fallen from Doomhammer's eyes. He knew the war with the draenei had been a sham and that the invasion of Azeroth was, as well. Given the choice between dying on a blasted, dead world corrupted by Gul'dan and his sycophants, or murdering every last man, woman and child in the Kingdom of Stormwind, he took the latter option. But make no mistake; Doomhammer would be no orc's puppet. As soon as Gul'dan was distracted by events (specifically, Khadgar and Lothar's raid on Karazhan that ended Medivh's life, as Gul'dan took the opportunity to try and ransack Medivh's distracted mind and got blasted into a coma for his troubles), Doomhammer struck. He beheaded his Warchief and seized total control over the Horde. As soon as Garona returned from her mission to assassinate King Llane Wrynn, he seized her, too, and tortured her until she told him where the leadership of the Shadow Council was hiding.

Then he killed as many of them as he could get his hands on. When Gul'dan awoke, he was presented with a fait accompli. Blackhand was dead, as were the majority of his warlocks. Doomhammer fully intended to kill him, too. It's a testimony to Gul'dan's skill at saving his own green behind that he managed to convince Doomhammer not to kill him -- but it's also a testimony to Doomhammer's ruthless pragmatism. He was embroiled in a war on an alien world that was, so far as he knew, the only chance for his people to survive. He'd managed to destroy Stormwind, but the humans of that kingdom had retreated to the unknown north, leaving Doomhammer in command of a military with no idea what lay ahead of it and nothing to retreat to on Draenor. Simply put, he didn't have a lot of options at this point. He had to move fast to take advantage of the momentary triumph, and to do that, he needed magic. With shamanism effectively dead, it was warlocks or nothing.

So Gul'dan created the first death knights out of the corpses of fallen Stormwind knights and his own slain warlock followers, and Doomhammer prepared to lead the Horde -- his Horde, at last -- to its destiny in the lands of the north, what the humans called Lordaeron.

Next week, we'll discuss the Second War, which could well be called Doomhammer's War, and how he came within hours of conquering the Alliance. Then we discuss the fulfillment of prophecy and how the Doomhammer came to leave the hands of the Doomhammer line. Doomhammer was large; he contained multitudes.

While you don't need to have played the previous Warcraft games to enjoy World of Warcraft, a little history goes a long way toward making the game a lot more fun. Dig into even more of the lore and history behind the World of Warcraft in WoW Insider's Guide to Warcraft Lore. Tags: Blackhand, Dark-Portal, Doomhammer, Draka, Durotan, featured, guide, guide-to-lore, Guldan, lore, lore-guide, Nerzhul, Orgrim-Doomhammer, role-play, role-playing-guide, rp-guide, The-Doomhammer, world-of-warcraft-lore, wow-guide, wow-lore, wow-role-playing, wow-role-playing-guide, wow-rp, wow-rp-guide, wow-rping

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Lore, Know your Lore

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World of WarCrafts: sweet start to the week

by Anne Stickney Sep 20th 2010 at 4: 00 pm
World of WarCrafts spotlights art and creativity by WoW players including fan art, cooking, comics, cosplay, music, fan fiction and more.

It's Monday, but don't worry!Monday Blues can not the sheer deliciousness this latest enlargement Warcraft inspired cake standhalten.Diese week was my birthday, so I have birthday cake the brain - and we have a handful of WoW-themed birthday cakes, the me hungry you sind.Lassen us begin the week on a sweet note for frosting, shall we?

Come with us after the break to hear more about the latest additions to our cake Gallery.

Appetizing Azeroth

First up: Watch the breathtaking map shown above of Azeroth.The best part? the whole is edible homemade fondant and creative painting.Vahnya on pitched at Sisters of Elune (U.S.-H) her sister-in-law to help the cake for your little brother's birthday. "The cake was white cake mix-made out of the box!"Vahnya says. "The fondant was a homemade fondant made from melted marshmallows and sugar powder, hand mixed until it was no longer sticky."

"" We painted the sea - part of the cake with food dye - mixed with a little water that much as painting with watercolors,"continues you."We have printed a picture of the map Azeroth and cut the continents, as our guide to cutting we used that another piece of the rolled fondant an earth tones color colored. "After all continents on the cake placed we she painted with a little washing of food dye then brownish red in the mountains and maelstrom and a darker blue for the banks and rivers went back with a dark paint."

Impressive job-- and even more impressive as Vahnya admitted that this was the first time or your sister-in-law had worked with fondant!"Your little brother was quite surprised when he saw that it", says Vahnya."My brother in law asked and we are convinced that he knows (something sad) the geography of Azeroth better than our own planet!"

For the Horde

Our next delicious number is this Horde-themed cake, submitted by Charlotte.Ich love the details icon; the small silver dragees (Yes, you have a name!) the icon outline are a nice touch and the springs at the bottom look too real to frosting to! This is the last of her friend, cake not decorate exploits. "My friend the next destination is a blood elf!"Charlotte sagt.Achten to send out, even in the next edible artwork Charlotte!

Treated hunting on birthday

Far from me, bias against Horde show while talking about cake.Further up, have we an Alliance-themed cake just to balance things out.Speaking of balance, this cake is a spectacle of balanced layers and unusual shapes, complete with hand-painted art on all sides!

"Emrldsky of Kul Tiras (U.S. A) decided, together at their own birthday cake, a tribute to put your night elf Hunter." "My main is a night elf Hunter, and I wanted my birthday cake, accordingly" Emrldsky explains."I wanted a structure that was a bit different than what people usually see.""As a whole probably 14 hours, including the time it took to make the structure together to took this cake."

"" Only one animal is fake (second from bottom); the rest is all cake, "adds you.""Each animal is covered with fondant, and most of the tiers with gel food colors with vodka diluted ink gemalt-- which alcohol evaporates, leaving behind a non-sticky painted surface."Emrldsky has some cakes that you together is put more pictures of their Hunter-themed birthday cake on Flickr, as well as some other beautiful non-WoW.

An edible battle cry

"Svartalfar from the Drakkari server in the last cake of a replica the battlecry mosaic from five year WoW anniversary features gesendet.Der cake was collected by Svartalfar's girlfriend.""" The cake was a surprise and all your idea,"he says.""The image of the battlecry mosaic took-as my wallpaper I use - and this cake with the basic idea of an old book about loved the cake; all my friends es.Ich at the party were to play wow with me and did not cut the cake... but in the end, we ate AV. - and it was delicious!"
World of WarCrafts spotlights art and creativity by WoW players, including arts and crafts, fan art, WoW-themed recipes, comics, cosplay, music and Fan Fiction.Zeigen you us, how you express yourself, by you e-Mail anne@wow.com with your not-for-profit, WoW-inspired creations.Tags:Featured birthday cake, cakes, crafts, crafts, fondant, game craft, world of Wacraft craft, Wow art, Wow artwork, Wow craft, Wow fan, Wow fan art, Wow fan made, Wow fan made art, Wow fan made artwork, wow fans

Filed under: world of WarCrafts

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Spiritual guidance: priest changes in build 12984 and life grip video

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by Dawn Moore Sep 19th 2010 at 10:00PM

Every Sunday at WoW Insider, you'll find Spiritual Guidance, a guide to healing as a discipline or holy priest. Priestess Dawn Moore will bring you the latest in news, discussion and advice for priests in the World of Warcraft while simultaneously battling her shadow priest rival, Fox Van Allen. This week, Dawn has been training an infantry of super-perceptive aerial assault sheep to counter the Dark Shrine she spotted Fox warping into WoW Insider HQ earlier.

The latest build for the Cataclysm beta was the big news yesterday, thanks to ol' B at MMO-Champion. The news hit sometime in the night while most priests were nestled all snug in their beds, but High Priest Matticus and I were up late drinking chocolate malts and playing wall ball, so we got a head start on the information ... which we promptly used to write about pets and shaman.

Last week, I said I'd be finishing my Cataclysm roundup this weekend, but since there were quite a few changes in this latest beta build (which I'm guessing will affect the release of patch 4.0.1), I think it's better if we discuss the details of the changes before we try to summarize them. There was also a super-exciting (though entirely superficial) change with this patch as well ...

Leap of Faith, also known as "Life Grip," got a brand new animation! Check out the video after the jump.

This new animation comes just a week or so after we got our new animation for the discipline talent Archangel, which also uses the angel wing imagery. I'm actually not a big fan myself (I have a completely irrational dislike for cliché), but I think Blizzard did a nice job with it -- and it sure beats the recycled Death Grip animation we had before.

Anyway, if you've sated yourself watching the video a few times, let's go ahead and move onto the rest of the changes. Thank you again to MMO-Champion for getting this information to us the other night.

Discipline
Focused Will Talent was reworked to no longer proc from critical hits. It also no longer grants a healing buff. The tooltip now reads: Whenever you are victim of an attack equal to damage greater than 10% of your total health, you gain Focused Will reducing all damage taken by 4/6% lasting for 8 sec. Stacks up to 2 times.Grace Now stacks up to three times, up from two times.Atonement Now heals for 40/80/120% of the damage dealt by Smite, up from 15/30/45%.Archangel (Evangelism) Tooltip was clarified: Lasts for 18 sec.; 15-sec. cooldown.
Inner Sanctum now reduces spell damage taken by 2/4/6%, down from 5/10/15%.The discipline tree seems to be getting buffed overall. The change to Grace means we can get up to 12 percent bonus healing on our target (up from 8 percent), and the huge raise to the values on Atonement mean we'll still be able to heal the tank while we restore our mana. This change might even make Atonement a mandatory talent for disc priests, but I'm going to hold my judgment on that for now since the scope of testing on beta is rather small. I'd like to see how it holds up against the pacing of raid environment, as well as PvP.

Speaking of PvP, Inner Sanctum and Focused Will both got some changes. Just last week, we saw Inner Sanctum turn into a PvP talent, so I'm surprised to see it getting nerfed so soon. I guess it needed to be scaled back for balance. As for the change to Focused Will, and Blessed Resilience in the holy tree, I honestly can't give you a solid comment yet because I haven't done much (read: any) PvP testing in the beta yet. I poked around Arena Junkies and a few other sites looking for some discussion but came up short, so this week, I'm putting BGs and arenas (assuming they're functional) high on my to-do list. I'd like to see how hard enemy players are hitting for so I can decide if these changes were buffs or nerfs and what the new uptime on these talents will be with the changes. From there, I should be able to gauge how valuable these talents are for survival in PvP. I'll keep you posted.

Holy
Leap of Faith Now costs 13% of base mana, down from 32%. Now has a 40-yard range, up from 30 yards.Holy Nova Now affects friendly targets (previously all party and raid members). Base healing increased by 33%, but the healing is now divided among the number of targets healed.Heal The base healing value has been reduced by 25%. Mana cost raised to 9%, up from 6%.Holy Focus (Passive) *New* Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting any Holy or Discipline spell by 70%.Revelations (Holy Word: Aspire (Renew)) base healing value reduced by 5%.Blessed Resilience revamped -- Whenever you are victim of an attack equal to damage greater than 10% of your total health, you gain Blessed Resilience, increasing all healing received by 5/10% lasting for 10 sec.Twirling Light is now a rank 3 talent, down from rank 4 and is now named Surge of Light and revamped -- You have a 3/6% chance when you Smite or Heal to cause your next Flash Heal to be instant cast and cost no mana but incapable of a critical hit.Lightwell now restores {((2878.1+(SpellPower*.308))*3)*1.25} health over 6 sec.Improved Healing is gone.Trinity (Tier 2) *New* When you Smite three times in a row, your spell haste will be increased by 5/10% for 12 sec.In addition to the new animation, the changes to Leap of Faith are welcome buffs. Obviously, the range will give us more flexibility in using it, and the mana cost will ensure that not only will it not cost too much to save other players, but that we're less likely to run into a situation where we can't cast it because we're OOM. A good change overall -- and did I mention it has a new animation?

Next up is the rework to Holy Nova, which, make no mistake, is a pretty big nerf. The change to targeting doesn't really do much more, since Blizzard already changed the spell to be raid-wide on the beta a few builds back. This change mostly just affects healing situations like you'd find in Tol Barad, when there may be multiple raid groups of the same faction on the field and you find yourself working with players in another group. With the targeting change, you won't need to find a way to merge groups for ... healing with Holy Nova. This seems like a good way to segue into explaining the nerf.

Currently on live servers, Holy Nova can only heal within your party or group, so you can never heal more than five players with the spell. This was changed on the Cataclysm beta, when Holy Nova was made raid-wide, giving it a ton more utility in BGs and raiding. Previously on the beta, I could heal multiple targets for about 2,000 health each at level 85. (Keep in mind that I have 70k health at this level, so that's not a whole lot of healing.)

[The following paragraphs have been rewritten since the original hour of publication to include some impromptu math and some general hosing down of a stupid writer.]

Now instead of hitting players for a static value, the coefficient of the spell changes as more targets are added. The amount of healing you do per target will decrease but the spellpower coefficient will go up, and thus, so will your healing output. So you're not getting completely screwed like I originally thought we would be (which I blame on ... something.) Without a full raid at my disposal, I was able to observe the spellpower coefficient going up the more targets I took on. .79 for 1 target, .95 for 2 targets, 1.1 for 3 targets, 1.4 for 4 targets, and 1.5 for 5 targets. (You can be sure Zusterke will have fun toying with that.) At level 85 I was doing around 2700 healing on 1 target (myself) and 1000 healing per target when I had 5 targets. So not too bad, but I wonder how small it can get, and at what point the coefficient might stop going up. We'll need to do more testing!

Ultimately, I'm not very pleased with this nerf, since there is going to be a point where the amount of healing you're doing per target is so small that it won't be able to have much affect. What good is high throughput when people are still dropping dead? In the past Holy Nova always served me by giving me a way to catch up when things were falling apart. With these new numbers and health pools I don't think it will be able to anymore, even if you spam it 4 times in a row. Maybe Blizzard has a grand plan for how the healing part of this spell is going to be implemented in the future, but I honestly can't see it. If this is supposed to be an AoE heal, what kind of raid damage are we supposed to heal with it? Can this spell even handle the damage from a ticking aura? Are tiny amounts of damage going to consistently be the difference between life and death? We just got Glyph of Holy Nova, which will let us spam it faster, but spamming anything in Cataclysm is dangerous for mana. I wonder if maybe the glyph was made more for soloing rather than group play? After all, the damage hasn't been nerfed. Whatever the plan is, this nerf still stinks.

Moving along -- Heal, Lightwell and Holy Word: Aspire were all nerfed. Lightwell and Holy Word: Aspire only got small percentage tweaks, which I'd account to balancing, but the change to Heal really makes me wonder what Blizzard's plan is. I wrote about an identical change that shaman got, and one commenter suggested that the nerf happened because Heal was just too good. Was it really too good? It certainly is cheaper in comparison to everything else, so in that sense, I get the motivation behind the cost being raised. But lowering the amount of healing just doesn't sit well with me. Heal already healed for so much less than Flash Heal (about a third less) but had the exact same cast time as Greater Heal. I thought Heal was supposed to be our our normal heal; the foundation of our toolbox that was between Flash Heal and Greater Heal. Instead, we get this weird creature of a spell which is honestly just not fun to cast.

It's hard for me to say that, because I regard myself as a rather patient player, so maybe it's just the bitterness of Holy Nova's nerf affecting me. There is no big reward for being patient or instant satisfaction for spending a lot of mana; it's an indirect gain. Now, I love mana management and I love decision-making, but this doesn't feel like much of a decision. It feels forced. The cost of using our other spells is so huge that we must use this one, and this one is slow and small and acts primarily as a filler to help us get to our next spell. For holy, it's a cheap but slow way to refresh our Renew. For disc, it lets us get closer to a new Power Word: Shield. But does the anticipation of a new shield or the saved resources of a new Renew offset just how painfully un-fun it is to sit through those long cast bars and dinky heals? It's a huge loss in momentum every time I switch to using Heal, and it makes the playstyle seem like some sort of WoW version of the gun fights in Mirror's Edge (check out that link for nice beats). I suspect a tweak to the cast time would fix this, but who knows?

I know I'll deal with this. I know I'm probably just spoiled on Wrath's healing and romanticizing vanilla's healing. But I'm really starting to wonder if other people are going to find this fun. There is so much discipline and patience required, which could be enough to drive a lot of people away. I guess time will tell -- so until then, let me remind you guys we have a new animation for Life Grip! (Must save this from being the most depressing Spiritual Guidance ever.)

On the plus side, though, Surge of Light is back, after it went backpacking in Europe or something. (Between Surge of Light, Twirling Light, Deliverance and Serendipity, I'm wondering if our talents are suffering from an identity crisis in all these beta patches. Maybe this is a cry for help?) The return of the talent comes at a great time for us, given the Heal nerf; we'll want all the free healing we can get, and the new proc should work out OK even if it seems kind of low.

We also got a new talent for holy priests, which will tie in nicely with Archangel when you can grab that at level 85. Trinity will help you finish off the last two of five Smites you'll want to cast to get your best mana return from Archangel and help you get back into healing after your DPS downtime.

Supposedly our other new ability is Healing Focus, which is actually just the return of an existing talent on live that was "iced" (or whatever that means) when we went to the 41-point system. I say "supposedly" because I still haven't actually found it in the game yet, but maybe it'll pop up next patch, since it doesn't appear to be implemented yet. I honestly hadn't thought much of it until now, since the talent hasn't seen much use in Wrath outside of PvP. I wonder if this means we can look forward to more pushback in Cataclysm? Granted, if the ability is passive, we probably won't notice the pushback either, so what am I talking about? I think I just ran out of mana or something.
Tags: aspire, beta, cataclysm-beta, cataclysm-beta-priest, cataclysm-news, cataclysm-wow, chakra, class-help, death-grip, disc, disc-priest, discipline, Discipline-Priest, featured, guide, guide-to-priests, heal, heal-nerf, holy, holy nova, holy-nova-nerf, holy-priest, holy-word, HolyNova, leap-of-faith, leapoffaith, life-grip, lifegrip, mirrors-edge, Power-Word-Barrier, power-word-shield, preist-info, priest-guide, priest-talent, priest-talents, renew, revelations, talent, talents, world-of-warcraft-class-guide, world-of-warcraft-guide, wow-class-guide, wow-class-help, wow-guide, wow-priest, wow-priest-info, wow-priests, wow-talent-guide

Filed under: Priest, (Priest) Spiritual Guidance, Cataclysm

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Spiritual guidance: Mana will rain has collateral damage in 4.0.1 patch?

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by Fox Van Allen Sep 22nd 2010 at 8:00PM

Spiritual Guidance's shadow-specced Wednesday correspondant Fox Van Allen recently got his performance evaluation here at WoW Insider, and it wasn't pretty. While his ability to recall distant pop culture references and melt faces has been deemed "adequate," his people skills "need improvement." Action item: "Stop ganking Dawn Moore in the hallways." Salary action taken: "Convert salary from U.S. dollars to old America Online CDs."

If you're a regular reader of WoW Insider, you may have noticed an interesting trend about patch 4.0.1 and the upcoming class changes it brings: Almost everyone's freaking out. It's bad enough that almost every other class columnist on here is telling it's readers not to panic. It's as if we're running some kind of Douglas Adams convention around here.

You won't hear all that from me, though. And it's not just because I'm too cool for books. It's because shadow priests aren't panicking, for the most part. There are disappointments here and there -- mostly regarding the mastery mechanic and the (currently) low value of the mastery stat -- but otherwise, things are pretty decent in this neck of the woods. So decent, in fact, that there's someone complaining on the beta forums that shadow priests are probably so overpowered because Blizzard reps all play shadow priests. (I LOLed.)

But that's not to say we don't have our concerns. My latest concern is mana regen. While our damage has actually been buffed in some of the latest beta patches (most recently, Dark Archangel has been buffed from 3 percent per stack up to 4 percent), our mana regen continues to get hit with nerfs. Granted, Blizzard is really trying to aim for healers, but with most holy and disc nerfs to regen affecting our abilities too, are shadow priests becoming collateral damage?

Nerfs to mana regen: A beta testing retrospective

There are two major stories with regard to mana pools in Cataclysm -- and in patch 4.0.1, for that matter. First is that mana pools are bigger overall. The second is that Blizzard is actively trying to cut down on healers' mana regen, to put more "interest" into the healing side of the game. The nerfs have hit us in two different areas of our build:
Nerf No. 1 Our mana regen has taken hit after hit in Cataclysm testing -- it seems like every time a new patch comes out, Blizzard has found a way to keep our blue bars from filling. It's been a death by a thousand cuts, and it all started with the scrapping of our 51-point talent trees. Meditation, a hugely powerful regen talent, is now available only to healers. Improved Spirit Tap is gone. Shadow Focus is gone. Focused Mind is gone. Those abilities represented not only an awful lot of talent points, but also an awful lot of mana regen.Nerf No. 2 There are four key abilities shadow priests can use to restore mana; two of them, Hymn of Hope and Shadowfiend, are available to healing priests as well. We've already stated that Blizzard wants to slash regen rates for healers, so it was inevitable these would get hit. Hymn of Hope got its mana regen cut from 3 percent per 3 seconds to 2 percent per 3 seconds. Shadowfiend saw a similar cut, from 5 percent of mana per bite down to 3 percent. Granted, we can use shadowfiends more often than before as shadow priests, but it's very difficult to maximize their mana benefit while soloing/questing.
Given how "overpowered" our mana regen was getting at the end of Wrath, there's no doubt room for some "fair" nerfing. But did Blizzard go too far? Replenishment: The lastest nerf

In Wrath (and just as likely in Cataclysm), the ability to restore a party's mana through Replenishment is one of a shadow priest's key abilities. It's not a make-or-break talent, given the hearty mana regen rates we were blessed with for Wrath, but it certainly makes life easier for every magic-using class. I can't speak from the tank's perspective, but for healers, heroics are just plain easier with a shadow priest in the group. More mana regen plus bonus healing -- we're a healer's best friend. (Dawn, you're welcome.)

Sadly, though, Replenishment just got kneecapped the most recent Cataclysm beta build (12984). The cut is pretty harsh, too -- Blizzard cut the mana regen it provides in half. It used to restore 1 percent of your max mana per 5 seconds. It now restores 1 percent of your max mana per 10 seconds.

On the test servers, the difference was pretty noticeable right away. Prior to the nerf, I was able to quest freely, chain pulling mobs to my heart's content. After, I was forced to use my mana regen cooldowns at every opportunity to limit the amount of downtime between mobs. I cast Dispersion. I used my Shadowfiend. Replenishment was up at all times. And despite all that, my mana regen still wasn't keeping pace with the mana I was spending.

Either Blizzard sent shadow priest mana regen into the toilet, or I needed to find a new approach. (Maybe both!) I created a premade level 85 shadow priest with blue (ilevel 333) gear to investigate.

Level 80 raiding vs. level 85 raiding

Those shadow priests who came of age during Wrath of the Lich King know that there's a special shame the comes with running out of mana. Perhaps the reason for that is because it's just so damn hard to run out of mana these days. I grabbed a stopwatch, loaded up Wrath (version 3.3.5, of course) and hit the dummies in Stormwind. I ran a full rotation, trying to keep all DoTs and Replenishment up at all times. When my shadowfiend was available, I used him. Though it felt like it took hours, my stopwatch assures me that it "only" took 8 minutes to finally hit zero on my mana bar. That's as close to an infinite mana bar as you'll ever see -- it's certainly long enough to ensure I'd never run out of mana while raiding Icecrown.

The infinite mana bar of Wrath couldn't contrast any more sharply with what I experience at a training dummy in Cataclysm as a level 85 heroic-geared shadow priest. My first run at the dummy was abysmal -- I could only get out 1 minute, 38 seconds of damage before my mana ran out. My second run wasn't much better. (So much for being the mana battery.)

My preliminary failures encouraged me to take a serious look at my talents and start prioritizing. I decided I wouldn't cast Mind Blast at every opportunity, only when three Shadow Orbs had accumulated (for mana savings and max damage). I would cast shadowfiend almost immediately and follow that up with Dark Archangel for the 5% mana -- it felt important to start working on their cooldowns immediately. I even started casting Shadow Word: Death on occasion to try to benefit from the mana rebate built into the Masochism talent. I kept up my DoTs and used Mind Flay as filler as much I could.

All the little things I did clearly helped, but in the end, my results weren't much better. My best time at the dummy was 2 minutes, 38 seconds. That seems like a clear sign that either mana regen was slashed way too much, or Blizzard intends for us to be extremely miserly in our casts to the point where we're not supposed to have DoTs up on every time.
Will things be this bad when 4.0.1 hits?

Likely not. You'll have a lot going for you in 4.0.1 that I simply don't have going for me in the beta client test runs. When the switch-over happens, you'll keep your patch 3.3.5 level of crit -- for many of us, that's 30 percent. For comparison, the heroic-ready level 85 priest above has a mere 10 percent crit. All that crit is important, because more crits of Mind Flay means more benefit from Sin and Punishment, which reduces your shadowfiend's cooldown. He's going to be playing a major part in your mana regen from now on, so use him early and often.

You should also be prepared to change up your rotations a bit to start, including casts of Shadow Word: Death. It can be a dangerous spell to use in general, but recent patches have cut the damage you suffer from it. Further, the Masochism talent makes it an almost mana-free cast. If you're soloing, be sure to grab the new Glyph of Spirit Tap and Glyph of Shadow Word: Death to make the spell even more attractive as an execute.

And, let's remember, raid situations are a lot different than standing around in front of a dummy. You'll have other buffs to help you out, and any significant raid-wide damage will actually generate mana for you. You'll still notice a severe drop-off in mana regen, but you'll have enough tools to handle it. (Don't forget Dispersion -- you'll be really glad you took it in 4.0.1!)

But is Cataclysm DPS fun?

Does mana management mean more fun? That's something you'll all have to answer for yourself in the coming weeks. From my perspective, though, it's a mixed bag. Certainly, more thought goes into DPSing now. Rather than spamming the same few spells, a modicum of thought goes into each button press. Strategy will be required to balance mana expenditure and DPS. I'm growing to enjoy that aspect. It means that being a good shadow priest in Cataclysm will be harder, but the most skilled shadow priests will truly shine above the rest.

Still, there's a definite downside: You will run out of mana, and chances are, it'll be when you need mana the most. Those moments may not come immediately when 4.0.1 hits, but with each passing level in Cataclysm, the mana balacing act gets harder to manage. Running out of mana is never fun, and you'll be running out a lot as you try to find a new, comfortable rotation. Even severe mana management isn't fun -- if you're doing nothing but casting Mind Flay to try and force your shadowfiend off cooldown, is that really that much better than just sitting around wanding?

Overall, I do think the developers went a little too far with the mana regen nerfs, but there's no need to crack each others' heads open to feast on the goo inside ... for now. Removing the infinite mana bar from the game isn't necessarily a bad thing, and it's always worth reminding everyone that this build (like the hundreds preceeding it) is not final. Expect mana regen rates to continue to be tweaked (for better or worse) in the future, even after 4.0.1 goes live.

In the meantime, though, don't leave home without your Basilisk Liverdogs. It looks like we'll be snacking a lot this expansion.
Are you more interested in watching health bars go down than watching them bounce back up? Think it's neat to dissolve into a ball of pure shadow every few minutes? Hunger for the tangy flesh of gnomes? The darker, shadowy side of Spiritual Guidance has you covered (occasionally through the use of puppets). Tags: cat-beta, cata-beta, cataclysm-beta, cataclysm-game, cataclysm-guide, cataclysm-news, class-help, expansion, expansion-three, featured, guide, guide-to-priests, Hymn-of-Hope, mana, mana-regen, next-xpac, patch-4.0.1, preist-info, priest-guide, priest-talents, Replenishment, replenishment-nerf, shadowfiend, talent, talents, third-expansion, world-of-warcraft-beta, world-of-warcraft-cataclysm, world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-beta, world-of-warcraft-class-guide, world-of-warcraft-guide, wow-4.0, wow-4.0.1, wow-4.0.2, wow-beta, wow-cataclysm, wow-cataclysm-beta, wow-class-guide, wow-class-help, wow-expansion, wow-expansion-beta, wow-guide, wow-priest, wow-priest-info, wow-priests, wow-talent-guide, wow-third-expansion

Filed under: Priest, Cataclysm

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Live pre cataclysm world events on the PTR

by Mathew McCurley Sep 22nd 2010 at 7: 23 pm as we speak, fires rage in Orgrimmar, the heads of State and Government called an emergency meeting have and Azeroth reveals new enemies have been. The disaster is very on our doorstep! The calculated events are now live on the public test realms.

Here are some cool things that we hear are so far are:
New bosses in five-man dungeons, quests for Grand Ambassador Flamelash in BlackRock depths, Theradras in Maraudon Crown Prince, Prince Sarasun in the ruins of Ahn, and Kai ' ju Gahz ' rilla in Zul'Aman ' Zul'farrak. these instances including holiday Bosse - queueing for you are very similar to access a special version of the instance where you fight next to leader group. This instance bosses will drop ilevel 251 neck and rings for courageous adventurers.Horde and Alliance cities are attacked by waves and waves elemental opponents. The twilight Cultist quest lines are active.Orgrimmar is on fire. Like all it.Magni Bronzebeard has called for an emergency to discuss meeting of the leaders of the Alliance what he believes that a terrible event that is over existing - in his words, dwarves are "to the ground" and can feel that something will happen. But what can you do?May continue to update these tablets found... could help Brann in Ulduar, which is plenty more.We site with more information, as soon as they are available.You also review our write-up Tablets of Fire-quest line the twilight Cultist event Gallery unten.Get Folks.The reckoning, excited, and is almost upon us.Tags:break Cataclysm game, Cataclysm Guide, cataclysm news, event, expansion, expansion-three, Facebookfeed, Ironforge, Next Xpac, Orgrimmar, patch 4.0.1, patch4. 0. 1, ptr ptr patch 4.0.1, weather, Third expansion, World, World events, World of Warcraft disaster, wow 4.0, wow 4.0.2, Wow disaster, Wow Expansion, Wow Guide, wow third expansion

Filed under: news items, cataclysm

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World of Warcraft and other Mmo guides

More than 80 strategy guides for Mmorpgs - for city of Heroes to World of Warcraft.

Check it out!

Blood sport: bad Dynamics

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Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com's arena column.

Listening Music: Bill Withers is amazing. I dare any of you to challenge him to a duel. He'd win, then write a song about it while your entire family recites it word for word because it's so catchy.

It's our anniversary! I bet you forgot. Shame on you. You sleep on the couch tonight.

About a year ago, I started writing our favorite column. We've been through two arena seasons together, and I've never loved you more. I just wanted to say a special thank-you to all my readers who have made it an incredible joy to be a part of WoW.com... err, WoW.joystiq.com... err, WoW Insider. I suppose it doesn't matter. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Thank you for all the comments you've left and the emails you've sent. Here's looking to many more to come!

Enough with this mushy stuff; let's get down to business. It's business time.

Momentum is extremely important. Two weeks ago, we talked about good momentum and the effect it has on our opponents. Today, we'll be looking at the other side of the coin.

Action The enemy team heads directly for you, leaving you no time to talk strategy before engaging combat.Bad reaction Panic.Good reaction Punish their positioning and tempo loss.
Panic is the norm when it comes to new enemy strategy. Very rarely, if ever, do people sit back and think, "Well, this is a completely new challenge for me to face; let's try to think about this rationally to see how to best handle this situation."

Don't feel bad if you've panicked before; everyone has. Even the best players have had moments when they are overwhelmed by an enemy strategy. When you get overwhelmed, the game speeds up incredibly. You don't realize what's going on, everything turns into a blur and figuring out how the enemy defeated you is very hard to do.

When I first started arena, I was like everyone else. We faced teams that were top 10 on the battlegroup, and they cut through us like a knife through hot butter. They seemingly killed our entire team in 15 seconds. It wasn't 15 seconds, but it seemed like 15 seconds. I had no idea how they did it; I just saw my healer's health go from 100 percent to 0 percent in the matter of a few globals. I was dumbfounded.

Punish them.

The relative value of shock value

Teams that rush forfeit positioning to attempt a quick victory based on shock value. Sometimes teams can do very well without initial positioning advantages. These teams have usually played together for quite some time and are comfortable working from a deficit early on to make games go quicker. However, chances are you're not facing these kinds of top-level-synergy teams. You're probably going up against a team that got demolished by being rushed, so they figured they would try it out. This is precisely the type of team you can punish via advantageous positioning early on.

If you have a shaman on your team, quickly place totems in an area that will be accessible to your team but distant from the enemy team. Chances are, the enemy shaman will just drop his totems in the center of the arena, which will give your team a distinct advantage.

If you have a druid on your team, try opening with a Cyclone on an enemy DPSer. This will force the opposing team to play defensively when they planned on playing offensively. This will give your team the shock value element. Similarly, try to pump as much damage as you can into the nearest target. It doesn't have to be the best target on the team -- they're rushing, so they have a very offensive mindset. Even if it's a "bad class" for you to target, it might turn out to be very good, because he's not planning on being attacked.

Adapt or die

Lure enemies behind pillars where your team can tear into them. Make sure your team isn't hiding behind different pillars; that's what the enemy wants you to do. You should concentrate on going on the offensive instead of curling into a defensive ball -- it will throw their offensive game plan off and they will most likely have to adapt a new strategy quickly or die.
Action Your healer is out of line of- ight (LOS).Bad reaction Ignore it.Good reaction Move towards the center of the arena.Most deaths (and subsequently, losses) don't revolve around incredible crowd control rotations and spell interrupts from the enemy team. They come from lack of positioning detail and misunderstandings of role (i.e., momentum shift).

I'd say as many as 75 percent of kills in arena happen simply because teammates separate from each other and either move out of range or out of line of sight for heals. If you've played arena, you've experienced this. If you play with any kind of voice communication, you can hear the sigh of disapproval eerily clearly.

I'm out of LOS of you. Go around the other side of the pillar. No, the other side. I need to heal you, you're taking a lot of damage.

...

/sigh

Ignoring LOS is a very poor strategy, even if it seems like you're in a very advantageous position. As I mentioned recently, separating yourself from your healer to kill the opponent is often a trap. Warriors fall into these traps easily when they Charge or Intercept opponents who are just about to get out of LOS. Then they follow them around the pillar and get spell cleaved to death.

Go center, young man

Move toward the center.

The near-universal strategy among high-rated players is to move to the center when you get low on health (both for healers and DPS). There are exceptions to the rule, for sure, but the general rule is a great starting point.

Moving toward the center allows your healer to know exactly where you are going at all points whenever you get low on health. Every arena has a center, and there's only one center. When you're on one side of the boxes in Dalaran Sewers and he's on the other, trying to communicate which direction you want to go is time-consuming and often confusing.

Heading to the center alleviates these communication issues. Walking into enemy fire is actually less of an issue than you would normally think -- usually, the entire enemy team can already switch to you if they need to as you're in an unadvantageous position to start with (probably the reason you need heals).

Creating that central focal point allows your team to stop enemy DPS with crowd control or interrupts far more easily than trying to run around pillars. Your healer can also set up shop at a pillar away from the action for drinking and overall better positioning. Don't take my word for it -- try it for yourself!

Blood Sport is moving to Tuesday!

We're shifting Blood Sport from Monday to Tuesday to better accommodate our editors (they make my life so much easier) and yours truly simultaneously. Don't worry, you'll still be able to get your weekly dose of pwning and pillaging -- and you might get to read it during server downtime!
Want to ascend the arena ladders faster than a fireman playing Donkey Kong? Read Blood Sport for pointers on arena play. Don't miss our interviews with successful arena PvPers, and see The Art of War(craft) for the inside line on battlegrounds and world PvP. Tags: arena, arena-guide, arena-strats, arena-tips, arenas, bad-momentum, featured, guide, how-to-play-battlegrounds, how-to-pvp, momentum, pvp-guide, wow-arena, wow-arena-guide, wow-guide

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, PvP, Blood Sport (Arena PvP)

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Know your Lore: Orgrim Doomhammer, part 2

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The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

See last week's Know Your Lore: Orgrim Doomhammer, part 1.

When talking about the second Warchief of the Horde, a few salient facts must always be discussed.

Orgrim Doomhammer did not drink the demon blood. Frankly, as purely subjective and biased as it may be, I don't find the idea that, "Oh, well, they were addicted to the demon blood," is anything like an excuse for what the Horde did in the First and Second Wars. Objectively, the Horde burst through the Dark Portal, murdered everyone in their way (people who had never done anything to them), sacked whole cities, and in general were akin to a plague of gigantic green locusts. It's not forgivable simply because they willingly choose to slurp down on the ichor of Mannoroth first. Nor is Doomhammer any more laudable for having engaged in those selfsame actions without having drunk. Doomhammer never made even a token effort to parley with the humans. He saw them as vermin to be exterminated so that his people could have their fertile lands for their own, and had the Horde won the war Doomhammer waged across the Eastern Kingdoms, there is no doubt that he would have gleefully put the entire human race and its allies to the sword -- and entirely without the "curse" to in any way explain his actions.

Whatever else he may have been -- quick to anger, reluctant to challenge his people's direction as his old friend Durotan did, overly eager to display his own prowess (even if doing so meant becoming as battle-hungry as any blood-drinker) -- Doomhammer proved himself to be a superbly able tactician and relentless force both on the battlefield and off it. It must be said that the Horde came within a few hours of totally destroying Lordaeron as it had Stormwind. Pretty much every Forsaken active today would have lost someone to the orcish Horde of the time, and it was only the betrayal of and defection of Gul'dan that ultimately ended the Horde's chance for final victory.

Doomhammer Triumphant

Try to imagine the scene as the First War comes to a close. The humans of Stormwind have fled their ruined city on a ragtag fleet of ships, leaving the Horde in effective control of all of the territory between the Dark Portal and the human city. Gul'dan lies comatose, Blackhand as dead as the human King Llane Wrynn. Garona, the half-orc assassin who killed Llane, returns to the orcish ranks to find not Gul'dan, not Blackhand, but Doomhammer waiting for her.

He was anything but pleased with her, and her homecoming was not one of triumph. Having just assassinated Blackhand, Doomhammer now had his eyes set firmly on wiping out Gul'dan's cabal of warlocks, the Shadow Council, so that they could not provide the so-called Elder Shaman with any support. Garona found herself at the mercy of Doomhammer's rather effective torturers. Under their ministrations, she eventually broke and told them where to find several members of the Shadow Council. (One wonders why she needed to be tortured at all, but we do know that Garona was under magical compulsion to obey them; perhaps it was necessary to break those compulsions.) Armed with this information, Doomhammer proceeded to wipe out every single warlock he could get his hands on.

These actions and what came after them showcase how Doomhammer often let his pragmatism override what might be considered better judgment. Strictly speaking, Orgrim Doomhammer was a tactician, and he was loath to let any possible advantage slip through his fingers. He killed the warlocks because they were a detriment to him and his goal of unopposed leadership of the Horde. But having killed them, he now worried that he would lack the magical power necessary to overcome the humans. Finding himself as Warchief on an alien world with an unknown enemy to the north, he was therefore receptive when, upon awakening, Gul'dan prostrated himself at his feet and told Doomhammer exactly what he wanted to hear: that he, Doomhammer, would of course reign as uncontested Warchief, and that Gul'dan could and would replace the slain warlocks with a new order of mystical warriors. And so Orgrim Doomhammer countenanced the creation of the first death knights.

Again, Doomhammer was a so-called "uncorrupted" orc. He had not drunk the blood of Mannoroth. Yet he was so obsessed with victory that he let his sworn enemy create the walking undead in order to achieve it, a man he suspected was behind the death of his best friends Durotan and Draka, the mother and father of the orc child who would grow up to be known as Thrall. The Backstabber (as those still loyal to Blackhand would call him) proved time and again that there was absolutely nothing he would not do when victory was at stake.

From Stormwind to Lordaeron

Striking north from their conquered territory, the Horde soon made new allies in the goblins and trolls. Zul'jin initially refused to ally with Doomhammer, but a timely rescue from the high elves of Silvermoon changed his mind, and the legendary Amani warleader brought his forest trolls into the Horde. Various goblin groups served Doomhammer's Horde as mercenaries, combining their love of profit and their love of explosions. The initial push north went very well for the Horde. It was this drive, spearheaded by Doomhammer, that led the Horde to conquer and use Blackrock Spire as a primary base of operations on Azeroth. Despite their hostility to him (as he had, after all, killed their father), Orgrim let Rend and Maim Blackhand actively control the mountain for the Horde. Similarly, as the drive north pushed into Khaz Modan and the Wetlands (forcing the dwarves to retreat into Ironforge itself), Orgrim's ruthlessness showed itself again.

The orc shaman Zuluhed the Whacked was one of the few remaining who could still talk to the elemental spirits to some extent. Almost all of the orc shamans had converted to warlock practices when the elements turned their backs on the orcs due to their waging an unprovoked war against the draenei. Zuluhed, however, still had some contact, and apparently he used those spirits to help him find a powerful magical artifact, a golden disc. Later, it would be revealed that Deathwing had arranged for Zuluhed to find it, so it's possible Zuluhed wasn't actually still a shaman at all. Zuluhed reported his finding to the Horde, and Doomhammer gave him and his Dragonmaw clan permission to use the device for the good of the Horde. Using it, they enslaved the Queen of the Red Dragons herself, Alexstrasza, the Aspect of Life.

It's doubtful that Doomhammer understood that Alexstrasza was an intelligent, nearly immortal being of ancient power with direct responsibility over life itself. It's also doubtful that he would have cared. To him, her continuously being forced to breed with her consorts and lay eggs that were taken from her and used as mounts for Dragonmaw soldiers meant nothing. In essence, she was raped by means of a magical artifact, forced to bear young, and then those young were turned into weapons -- again, all on Doomhammer's orders.

Doomhammer's strategy unfolded as a salient sent into the heart of the Eversong Woods drew off half of the Alliance forces, while a secret deal with the traitorous Lord Aiden Perenolde of Alterac allowed the Horde to move the majority of their forces through the Alterac Mountains and into Lordaeron itself. There, they besieged the city and nearly destroyed it. Two things managed to derail this assault. The first was the arrival of Turalyon on a fleet of elven warships from Eversong, the Horde's salient having finally drawn the elves into a full commitment to the Alliance cause. The second, and more important, was Gul'dan's betrayal and the sudden withdrawal of the Stormreaver Clan and Cho'gall's Twilight's Hammer from the Horde forces.

Driven back first to Tol Barad, Doomhammer manifested his fury at Gul'dan's betrayal. No, not at Gul'dan's having killed his best friends. Not at Gul'dan having used foul necromancy to twist and defile nature. Not even at Gul'dan's disloyalty and lack of honor. No, Doomhammer's fury was raised at Gul'dan entirely because, at the very doorstep of victory, he was denied it. Having sacrificed everything, every scruple, every moral and ethical objection at the altar of victory, Doomhammer saw it taken away from him by the very orc he'd allowed to live entirely because pragmatism demanded a countermeasure only Gul'dan could provide. Pragmatism brought Doomhammer to the very gates of the last true redoubt of humanity, and pragmatism slammed those gates closed on him.

Doomhammer's End

The Stormreavers and Twilight's Hammer paid the price in blood, but Gul'dan was already dead and thus beyond Doomhammer's reach. Meanwhile, the Alliance forces now hemmed him in on every side. A painful retreat, driven back in an excrutiating series of defeats, led to the final battle on the slopes of Blackrock Mountain. If you played Warcraft II, you saw the Backstabber use treachery and an ambush to slay Anduin Lothar. If you read Tides of Darkness, you saw Doomhammer defeat Lothar in single combat.

Frankly, neither was impossible for him. Lothar was a great warrior but much older than Doomhammer, and it's certainly possible that he could have lost in single combat. It's also quite possible that Doomhammer wouldn't have taken the chance and simply would have had his enemy jumped by goons. Either way, Lothar's death did not at all demoralize the humans. Doomhammer expected that as much as the Horde was often rendered confused and unable to act by a sudden power vacuum at the top, the humans would also be demoralized by Lothar's death. That's not what happened.

Turalyon and his men savaged the orcs. Turalyon himself slapped Doomhammer to his knees and took him in irons, a prisoner, to Lordaeron to be judged for his crimes against the people of Azeroth. For Doomhammer, an orc who had seen victory as the only hope for his people and the only goal worth pursuing, this defeat was shattering.

Doomhammer spent an indeterminate amount of time held captive in the palace of King Terenas Menethil of Lordaeron. He eventually escaped, possibly because they apparently let him keep his hammer, based on the fact that he had it when he died; I don't eally know why you'd let the dude who killed Anduin Lothar keep the hammer he killed him with, but I apparently lack the keen mind of the Lordaeron prisonkeepers. He made his way to an internment camp, where he beheld his people in their near-catatonic state. Whatever one can say about Doomhammer's treatment of other peoples (and one could say it was monstrous butchery in many cases), his concern for his own never wavered. Seeing the orcs broken and defeated nearly destroyed him. Shattered by the plight of his people, he retreated to a hermit's life. He remained there until contacted by Drek'Thar of the Frostwolves and told of the young orc who had found them.

Doomhammer went to the Frostwolves and tested the young orc calling himself Thrall, ultimately finding himself bested in single combat. Thus convinced, Doomhammer explained his true identity and outlined a plan for the liberation of the orcs from the internment camps. After several such raids, Doomhammer met his fate in battle with the humans guarding the camp in the Arathi Highlands. The Backstabber died stabbed in the back by a human lance. His last act was to pass the hammer of his ancient family line on to Thrall, in so doing, fulfilling the prophecy so long spoken of it -- the same prophecy he had discussed over dinner with the Prophet Velen before the wars, before he himself slaughtered so many of Velen's people, before Ner'zhul's war, Gul'dan's war, the rise of Blackhand, the demon blood, the Dark Portal ... With the death of Orgrim Doomhammer the end of an era came, as the first orc born on Azerothian soil rose to lead the Horde.

The Legacy of the Doomhammer

Doomhammer's legacy is more ambiguous than that of, say, Grom Hellscream (who despite many questionable deeds is still revered as a savior by the orcs for his part in slaying Mannoroth) or Gul'dan (who is reviled wholly for his role in helping bring the orcs to the brink of eternal slavery). Even when compared with his old friend Durotan, Doomhammer is hard to objectively judge. Like Durotan, he questioned the path the orcs were taking. Unlike him, he did not take any actions to personally try and move them off of that path. His leadership of the Horde was far more effective than that of Blackhand, and it's absolutely unquestionable that had Doomhammer not been the leader, the Horde may never have even reached Blackrock Mountain, much less nearly conquered all of the Eastern Kingdoms.

Doomhammer's pragmatism and brutality made him a remorseless force on the battlefield and effective as Warchief, but they also pushed him to make too many deals that ended up costing him the very victory that had motivated them, as well as any honor he might have held onto. Rape, torture and even necromancy were allowed if they brought results. In the end, Doomhammer might not have been able to win without them, but he didn't win entirely due to their presence.

His role in the liberation of his people is also far less of an atonement, because he didn't seek to atone for anything. He sought to free the orcs from the camps not out of any feeling of guilt over their fate or his role in the war, but purely because they were his people. From the moment he ascended to the position of Warchief, victory for his people was his primary concern. Nothing else mattered. It made him a great war leader, but it also cost him the war -- and ultimately, his life given in their service. His name lives on in the name of Orgrimmar itself and in the warship Orgrim's Hammer. He will not easily be forgotten by either the Horde or the Alliance.

He was an orc, for good or ill, all the days of his life and to the last day of it.

For more information about the lore of this column, please look at our other Know Your Lore articles, such as:

While you don't need to have played the previous Warcraft games to enjoy World of Warcraft, a little history goes a long way toward making the game a lot more fun. Dig into even more of the lore and history behind the World of Warcraft in WoW Insider's Guide to Warcraft Lore. Tags: Draka, DrekThar, Durotan, featured, guide, guide-to-lore, Guldan, lore, lore-guide, Orgrim, Orgrim-Doomhammer, role-play, role-playing-guide, rp-guide, Thrall, world-of-warcraft-lore, wow-guide, wow-lore, wow-role-playing, wow-role-playing-guide, wow-rp, wow-rp-guide, wow-rping

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A quick note to our RSS feeds and iTunes problems

by Michael Gray Sep 20th 2010 at 12: 30 pm if you have noticed your intrepid WoW Insider team has it by some ch ch ch ch changes lately. And sometimes when you take such vital and overwhelming upgrades are requiring certain parts of the ship a little more loving care than others.

Right now, our Goblin engineered RSS-feed and gnomish iTunes systems are always outdated and fix and finished. Both services are cranky, but the brave code Slingers at AOL are working on fixes.In the meantime there are with us a little länger.Es will be soon enough OK and we can all enjoy our shiny new WoW Insider.

We want us to ensure that we know about the RSS feed, podcast and iTunes questions thank those of you who have written.Our community is a wonderful group of people, whose Feedback has helped us exceed.We appreciate the time, that took you in to schreiben.Es shows are interested in and we'll return the best content possible.Tags: break iTunes, podcast, RSS feed, WoW Insider show

Filed under: bugs, news items

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Select my adventure: Letters to the heads of State and Government of the Group

Choose the adventures of WoW Insider staff as we level our characters in on Zangarmarsh (U.S. PvE H).

Spoiler alert: The above image links to a video that otherwise cataclysm will be spoilers.Peenk's story after the break is the gleiche.Sie were warned.

Last Wednesday I debuted choose my adventure live: cataclysm beta output stream at its new time.We continue EDT Windows the 1 pm for the foreseeable future.Please join me this Wednesday again and help, my adventure to wählen.In, Robinemia of abandoned Hunter in the polls is not like the choice gewinnen.Wenn vote now this letter!

Recaps and stories are after the break, but first, here is the schedule.

Schedule
Adam Holisky like Adammentat the level 65 Tauren Druid, EDT.Anne Stickney as Annephora, the level 42 troll Warrior, play at 10 am on Monday is on Tuesday at 1 pm EDT (Monday the Zangarmarsh time 11 am) .Robin play Torres, who wins the polls: Wednesday, 1 pm EDT.Hinweis: this will be streamed.Adventurers playing if you can
Fox Van Allen as Foxlight, level 26 blood elf-PaladinLisa Poisso as Prupher, level 11 Tauren DruidMichael Sacco as shock broker, the Goblin ShamanChristian belt as Selfloathius, level 16 blood elf WarlockRobin Torres, as Robinemia, level 29 abandoned MageMatthew Rossi Andrenorton, level 17 - troll - MageMichael gray as Grayfields, the stage 17 Tauren HunterGregg Reece as Sandwichdoc, stage 17 troll shaman

Stories

Gregg Reece as Sandwichdoc, the troll shaman

Shadow Hunter wow

I be upset dat a little, you will be too usurpin since Echo Isles ' Zalazane as traitors and raidin ' his lettin me go. I was able to joke since logistics matter as the helpin, by the frogs for Vanira for your Druid Voodoo and findin 'and recruitin' because Zentabra collectin '. it would be only nice ta actually be there to reclaiming our home, Mon witness obscured as traitors and us.As bright side, at least not I using DAT-a buggy meeting... uh... was kept to withdraw bugging some nasty Voodoo to avoid death to use...

Stay away from da Voodoo
Sandwichdoc

Robin Torres as Peenk, the GNOME Priestess

High tinker Mekkatorque

Hurray for the high tinker!I'm so happy in your work, that I so well on the tasks you before me... until last set.I was especially happy to remove this annoying Troggs annoying troll cave hatte.Aber taken I am so sorry about the incident.

I try not to make excuses, but I have these voices in my head that tell me, what to do by journals you monkey faces and dyed, name and say things like, "are in the stream," and "Heal.HEILEN!"You are sometimes wrong (I was the one, the shooting of the ray) and you are right sometimes (I'm a priest; duh), but it is all a bit verwirrend.Nicht I you want to get rid of! no! I need to be better attention.

Think I'm probably mentally unbalanced, right? well, my mental imbalance is great tinker forever at your service, O.

Anyway, the incident was caused by my attention to the minions to beat, while I was shooting the bar so that your gadgets, you win the fight against the bad guy could help me.Happy, a spirit chickie sent me back to my body and I allowed, to restart the fight.I am not sure how this works.I don't think time turned back, but I was dreaming tracks to start the battle as if it were new to Sie.vielleicht only the incident?

Hmmm...

/ crumples letter

/ Starts on new paper

High tinker Mekkatorque

Hurray for the high tinker! let me know if you ever need my services again!

Your humble servant,

Peenk

Robin Torres as Robinemia, abandoned Hunter

Lady Sylvanas

I am to be humiliated in your presence, and I feel something close to excited to do your bidding.

Please contact me at any time you me to do even the most menial task brauchen.Meine work is your to do with as you want to particularly kill people to kill each time am very fond of Menschen.Ich, you need someone, of our army abandoned add I even more eager to serve werden.Meine crossbow seems sing, when pointed at people, and my pet seems the taste of their Blutes--enjoy as I.

In fact, if you need me, I will triggered more bodies will create.

Robinemia

Please visit us Zangarmarsh (U.S. PvE H) in .Gilde series of "Blog lurkers" or higher can load, so / whisper, Robiness or online Mitglieder.Sie are all welcome, as long as you play through our simple rules-in fact, be no Funsucker! visit the Guild FAQ for more details.Tags: featured, Guild event, Guild events, Peenk, Robinemia, Sandwichdoc, Wow com Guild, Wow dot com Guild, Wow event, Wow events, WoW Insider, WoW Insider Guild, WoW Insider Guild event, Wowinsider

Filed under: it came from the blog, choose my adventure

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