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Hard Mode Mimiron nerfed to the GROUND! (yay!)

The easy mode of this fight really isn’t that hard at all, people just need to uhm you know, not suck. Anyway, in contrast the hard mode of this boss was pretty much a complete mess not just for video cards but hands down harder than the other Keepers’ hard modes. So Bornakk posted today in his hot-fix thread that the hard mode for Mimiron has been nerfed. This would be one nerf that I openly back 100% without question. It kind of sucks that he’s dead for my raid group but hopefully we’ll give this a shot next week. So let’s see that checklist:

• Damage dealt by Heat Wave reduced? Check
• Damage/health gained from pushing the button reduced to 25%? Check
• Range of Emergency Fire Bot’s Deafening Siren reduced in heroic? Check
• Silence aura off above bots compeltely removed for 10man? Check
• Damage from the spreading fires reduced? Check
• Damage from Plasma Blast in phase 1 reduced? Check

Yeah that’s pretty much a complete nerf.

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Avant Garde scores the World first Val’anyr

I hate to post these world first things because it doesn’t really interest me at all but this here healing legendary mace is too cool to not follow. So major kudos and congratulations to a druid named Snuggleme (seriously?) in the guild Avant Garde on the U S-Kil’jadin server. Down below is a screenshot of the worst UI I’ve seen in a while but also of Snuggleme with her new Val’anyr, Hammer of the Ancient Kings! That big blue bubble that looks completely beautiful would be the shield that procs from the mace. All joking aside, congratulations; it looks like we’re nearing the end of Ulduar so soon…

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New Ulduar Bosstiary revealed

You know this is actually pretty damn cool. A lot of players do complete quests and follow at least some of the lore so they have a pretty basic understanding as to why we’re raiding a particular area. The blizzard created intro cinematics for these help obviously but those do little to really bring the bosses to life (other than the final boss).

Blizzard’s new Bosstiary is a new little feature just launched that provides an interactive map of the Ulduar raid zone and shows you where each boss is located and gives a very short blurb about each one’s origin and purpose. This should be done for every raid dungeon (past included) since it’ll help bridge the gap between folks just looking for loot and those following the story. Personally I’m more motivated in a raid if I know who I’m fighting and why.

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World of Warcraft Patch 3.1.3 Live today

If you haven’t heard yet then you know now, Patch 3.1.3 is going live today and it is a very minor patch with some major changes for certain aspects of this here game we play. Paladins are getting nerfed and we’ll see what that truly does to affect the PvP game. Mimiron in Ulduar is getting nerfed considerably which I personally think is a good thing since tanking him in Phase 4 is a goddamn nightmare sometimes, and dodging missiles and mines as a tank seems to be a little fucking redundant for the whole “we want to make Ulduar challenging so you have to play while constantly moving or jumping” thing.

That’s Blizzard’s solution to making raids more complicated for us, do what you’ve always been doing (dodging fire, switching targets, controling DPS and adds) but do it all while moving endlessly or with no mana or with no healing or with no armor or some other silly ass gimmick. Anyway, here are the patch notes with hot sexy linkage from Wowraid. Thanks Teza.

The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/
The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

Death Knights

• Frost Presence: Armor bonus is now 60% down from 80%.

Druids

• Improved Barkskin: This talent now also grants 80/160% additional armor while in Travel Form or not shapeshifted.
• Improved Tree of Life: The armor bonus to Tree of Life Form from this talent has been reduced to 67/133/200% bonus armor.

Hunters

• Hunter’s Mark: The ranged attack power bonus from this ability has been increased from 300 to 500.
• Master Marksman: This talent now also decreases the cost of Aimed Shot and Chimera Shot by 5/10/15/20/25%.

Paladins

• Eye For An Eye: This talent now deals 5/10% of the critical strike damage taken by the paladin back at the attacker.
• Hand of Freedom: The base duration of this buff has been reduced from 10 seconds to 6 seconds.

Rogues

• Overkill: Talent redesigned. Now increases energy regeneration by 30% while stealthed, and for 20 seconds after breaking stealth.

Warlocks

• Chaos Bolt: This spell no longer ignores damage reduction effects of the target.

Warriors

• Blood Frenzy: This talent now provides 5/10% haste instead of 3/6%.
• Bloodthirst: Cooldown reduced from 5 seconds to 4 seconds, and rage cost reduced from 30 rage to 20 rage.
• Juggernaut: This talent now also increases the cooldown on Charge by 5 seconds.

Items

• Death Knight PvP Gauntlets: The chance to refresh a Frost Rune when casting Chains of Ice has been removed. When equipped, these gloves now generate 5 additional runic power whenever Chains of Ice is used.

Dungeons

• Ulduar
  • Mimiron
    • The flight time of Rocket Strikes has been increased, and Rocket Strikes will try to prefer players at range.
    • The Leviathan Mk II component of the V-07-TR-0N will become stunned during Phase 4 when the VX-001 component begins to cast the P3Wx2 Laser Barrage ability.
    • Proximity mines now deal less damage and have a lower duration. A small arming time has also been added so proximity mines will not immediately detonate on creation.

Bug Fixes

• Druid Tier 8 Balance Set: The 4-piece bonus no longer has its effect consumed by Starfire casts in progress when it triggers. The chance for the effect to be triggered has been reduced down to 8%, as it was originally inflated to compensate.
• Ice Layered Barrier: Upgraded to item level 232. In addition, the stats in the tooltip have been correctly adjusted to 78 spell power, 48 haste rating, 16 mana per 5 seconds, 52 Intellect, and 50 Stamina.
• Pulsing Spellshield: The stats listed in the tooltip for this item were incorrect and have been adjusted. This item provides 69 spell power, 34 haste rating, 42 critical strike rating, 45 intellect, and 45 stamina.

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Ulduar Proto-Drakes to be removed in patch 3.2 in lieu of New raids…

Meh, the patch is pretty far away still but at least this is a heads up for folks gunning to get the Ulduar raid achievement proto drakes. The policy might change but somehow I doubt that if they didn’t change thinking when the plagued and black proto drakes were discontinued back in 3.1.

Last I heard they would be removed when 3.2 comes out, if this changes we’ll let you know.

We’ll also be getting an entirely new tier of gear and new season when 3.2 launches so this has me even more excited for the mystery raiding involved in the Argent Tournament. I have the feeling that we’re going to get very class specific looking loot so marching into Icecrown players will look more like soldiers than adventurers.

In patch 3.2 the coliseum will hold new 5, 10, and 25 player challenges, so gear has to come with that especially since Arena Season 7 will start and we can’t introduce new PvP gear without PvE gear.

We have some new things in store for the badge system to help with the current end game progression curve that exists (as you noted: Heroics > Naxx > Ulduar > 3.2 > Icecrown ). We’re looking to put together this information for you and will provide it as soon as it’s ready to go.

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