The recent avalanche of information regarding Wrath of the Lich King got me to thinking. What are some of the changes I HOPED I would have seen? This is in part inspired by a post by Leafy at Leafshine: Lust For Flower. I quickly came up with a few things.

Start Experienced Players at Higher Level

What I mean by this is just what they’re doing with the new Death Knight class. Everyone starts at 55. Now, I’m not saying that we should be able to start all of our alts at 55, but it sure would be nice if we could get a little leg up. Maybe 30? 40 perhaps, and get to start out with a mount? Honestly, is there any reason an experienced player, who has seen the low level content at least once, can’t skip it? I don’t have anything to learn in Westfall any longer. I also don’t need my hand held through the development of new characters. I can learn what I need to know about a different class just as well from 30 or 40 on.

Of course you’d have to figure out what unlocks the ability to create alts at 30 or 40. Having one 70? 2 70s? I’d lean towards the former, but could live with the latter. Heck, maybe they could put in some quest to allow you to do so. Make it a fairly difficult group quest where completing it unlocks ONE character slot where you can “jump ahead.” Maybe something in the Caverns of Time? Like you end up pulling someone from in the past into the future?

I don’t really care if it’s cool or not, though. I just want to start my alts at 40!

Make My Armor Visible!

This is a druid centric wish. Like many druids, I don’t get to participate in the “fashion show” aspect of WoW as much as other classes. In 25 man raids, everyone looks all cool with their T5 level, fancy gear, and I look like…well, a tree. A boring, brown tree with boring, brown leaves. Can’t I look at least a LITTLE epic? How about make us get taller based on our gear level? Then people would KNOW what was up when a towering tree shambled around Shatt!!

Of course, I’d also be happy if they changed our forms to be more like shadowform. I mean, you can still see the priest’s armor, he just looks even more cool. Maybe have us take on a different hue or aura when shapeshifted. I’m just tired of looking like every other tree out there!

Insta-Mail For All

I don’t know about you, but I HATE having to wait an hour all the time. Sometimes I only HAVE one hour to play. So you can forget it if I’m waiting for a mat delivery sometimes. So why exactly is it that intra-account mail is instant, but mail to anyone else takes exactly one hour? Are they going for some kind of weird suspension of disbelief? Do they need to read everyone’s mail Big Brother like? I don’t get it!

Player Housing

Ok, ok. I know this is more a pipe dream than anything else, but I swear I remember Blizzard mentioning it while WoW was in development. My first big time MMORPG was Asheron’s Call, and one thing I loved was the housing. Just think of the money sink potential, Blizz! You could get a huge hold on the economy based on how it was done! Heck, I’ll take an apartment above Ironforge if that’s all I can get! (And yes, Asheron’s Call even had apartments!)  I’d just love my own little pad to decorate with, like, leaves and stuff!

Real REZ for DRUIDS, PLZ!

Yeah, yeah yeah. I think about 2.5 billion people have begged for this to no avail. Why are druids the red-headed stepchildren of the healing world? Yeah, I know, Battle Rez rocks. Does that mean we can’t have a real rez to go with it? Bizz, you realize this sometimes makes it difficult for us to get invites to 5 mans, right? If they don’t have another class to rez for us? Would you make tank class that wouldn’t taunt? No? Then why a healing class that CAN’T REZ??

Yeah, I’ve heard the argument. They want the healers to be different. That doesn’t mean you should hamstring us in a vital area. Oh well, at this point it probably isn’t happening. So where did I leave my Goblin Jumper Cables?

This is one of those posts that I’m sure in about half an hour I’ll come up with 8 more things I should have mentioned. This will do for now, though. So what’s one feature YOU would love to see?

There is quite a bit of shiny new gear in Magisters’ Terrace, and initially I wanted to do a more “all class inclusive” list, but there are just too many things to look at! So we’ll take a quick gander at some of the drops that might appeal to the healing-inclined Druids out there. I’ll split it up between the regular mode drops and the heroic mode drops.

Normal Mode

[Cord of Reconstruction] is actually a quite nice healing belt drop. Sure, it’s cloth, but armor doesn’t matter all that much to a resto druid anyhow. Let’s face it, in most cases, if we get aggro we go down as easily as any cloth wearer in the wrong situation. Now, it isn’t nearly as nice as our [Windhawk Belt], but not everyone out there has taken up Leatherworking. Like most drops from MagT in normal mode, this is a real nice piece for a healer who’s still trying to gear up for Kara.

[Boots of Resuscitation]. These dropped for me the very first time I hit up the instance, on patch day. I do still have them banked, and have kicked around the idea of using them in place of my [Boots of the Incorrupt]. Again, I’m looking at an epic item in comparison to a blue, but overall the blue boots compare pretty well. Sure, you’re losing the intellect entirely and losing some stamina and spirit, but you’re also gaining two gem slots to play with. I could offset some of the stat losses with gems. Or, I could just go all out for +heal, and carry them around for those nasty fights where I need all the +heal I can get. Overall, these are VERY nice boots for blue!

[Robes of Summer Flame] is the last normal mode drop I’ll look at. Again, I’m finding that it doesn’t compare all that unfavorably to an epic from Kara, [Stonebough Jerkin]. You’re losing 19 stamina, 17 intellect, 5 spirit, 9 MP5 and 4 heal, but you gain 3 slots for flexibility. With a little bit of cheap gemming, [Teardrop Living Ruby], [Luminous Noble Topaz] and [Solid Star of Elune], we’re not losing ALL that much off the epic, probably getting it sooner, and actually gain 23 +heal. For me, Druids are ALL ABOUT +heal. I rarely have mana problems! It’s not going to replace my [Windhawk Hauberk], but if you’re not yet into Kara, this is a GREAT chest to try to pick up.

Heroic Mode

Now, I know you didn’t come here to talk about blues. Let’s look at that shiny purple gear from the tough version!

First, [Vial of the Sunwell]. This is one of the first drops I heard tell of, and one of the most interesting. As a tree druid, one of my greatest challenges is overcoming spike damage. If the tank or multiple party members suffer a few huge blows in a row, I might be in trouble. The Tree Druid is designed to ease those hits, not erase them immediately like some of our healing brethren. With this item, I could finally have an additional instant heal to throw out in times of duress. Tantalizing! The added MP5 is a bonus, and it’s just too bad they didn’t stick some +heal on it just for kicks. Still, this is an awesome trinket for just about any healer, and I hope to get one soon.

[Rod of the Blazing Light] is an excellent healing staff, and when gemmed easily surpasses [Nightstaff of the Everliving] that drops in Karazhan. The new staff gives 3 additional stamina and 3 sockets, but loses 2 intellect and 14 spirit. That can EASILY be made up with even green gems if you so choose. I personally have no interest in this staff, as I’m nearly fully Kara geared and sporting the [Shard of the Virtuous] and [Aran's Soothing Sapphire]. If I were still trudging around with a blue like [The Essence Focuser], I’d take a hard look at this staff. If for no other reason, I love the flexibility of slots. You could make this the ultimate +spirit Innervate staff with 3 [Sparkling Empyrean Sapphire]s and a +spirit enchant. Uber mana regen.

[Eversong Cuffs]. This is the first pair of bracers I’ve seen in awhile that make me consider switching out my [Windhawk Bracers]. I lose a bit in stamina, but gain some intellect and spirit. And, as I’ve said before, I’m all about +heal and these are an upgrade, though mild, in that department. I would probably hold off on them until I could replace the other pieces of my Windhawk set, as once I break it up the set bonus of +8 MP5 is history. Still, these are very nice bracers and won’t cost you a single badge. You just have to get through heroic MagT to get them!

[Kharmaa's Ring of Fate] is one of the most intriguing pieces in the instance for any healer. From what I’ve read on Wowhead, there aren’t very many rings with sockets. Throw a [Teardrop Crimson Spinel] in these bad boys and you’re looking at +70 heal. It gets even better if your an enchanter and can bump that by another 20 +heal for a whopping 90 +heal out of a ring slot. Wow. I could finally retire my pumpkin ring from the Halloween event.

Conclusion

Well, there you have it. Those are the highlights, and I hope I’ve given you some goals to shoot for as far as drops in the new instance. If you’re a freshly minted 70 druid or healer type, you could do a lot worse than the stuff that drops in regular mode. If you’re fully Kara geared like myself, you still might find some nice upgrades in Heroic. Overall, I believe Blizzard did a great job itemizing this particular instance.  They just get better and better at itemization, and it makes me anxious to see what they will do in Wrath.

Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention [Sun Touched Satchel] and the [Phoenix Hatchling]. Anybody would want those!

You may not know this off the bat, due to my normal Druidic (is that a word? -Ed) slant, but I also play a 70 Beast Mastery hunter. He was actually my first 70, but due to a lack of healers in guild I picked up the Druid, and he’s been my main ever since.

Anyhow, since my post about Druid Casual Gear in 2.4, I’ve kicked around the idea of doing something similar for the hunter class. Without further adieu, let’s get cracking.

Updgrades on the Cheap - For Those with No Patience

[Angelista's Revenge] - 60 Badges

Wow, what a good place to start on the cheap! If you’re not the type that can generate 50+ badges per week (and I am most certainly one of you!) this could be an excellent place to start if you want to upgrade NOW. There are many classes that could benefit from this ring, and the Hunter is certainly one of them. It has GREAT stats for a ring, and manages to take care of 2 of the big 3 for hunters. The AP is great as is the armor penetration. You’d be hard pressed to find a better ring, and at 60 badges it’s a steal. It even rivals the rep ring from Hyjal, [Band of the Eternal Champion].

[Gauntlets of Rapidity] - 75 Badges

Ok, if you can manage to hold yourself off of buying anything for 3 more heroic runs, you can get your mitts on these….mitts. Isn’t it nice that there is now loot comparable to T6 gear for us casual types? These most certainly are comparable to [Gronnstalker's Gloves]. If you pick these up over T6 here is the difference:

• -1 Agility (Nullified if you gem for the socket bonus)
• -1 Stamina
• -2 Intellect
• +3 Crit Rating
• +16 AP
• -140 Armor Ignore

Now, I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know much about Armor Ignore, but it seems like hardly a loss considering you don’t have to raid T6 content or roll against anyone for the token! These are a great pair of gloves and a nice investment for you impatient types.

For the More Patient

[Leggings of the Pursuit] - 100 Badges

Ok, now we’re into 100+ badge territory. (100 badges = 1 Kara clear/week+ 2 heroics a week X 4 weeks….not so bad!) Anyhow, about those legs. Are they worth the 100 badge investment? Let’s try to compare them to [Shifting Camouflage Pants], the “old” badge gear pants for hunters.

• +10 Agility
• -9 Stamina
• +15 Hit
• +14 AP
• -175 Armor Ignore

Again, we find ourselves looking at a loss of armor ignore. If you look at the many gains, however, these are certainly a nice upgrade. You’re going to lose some hitpoints, but gain overall AP, crit and some +hit. This can be VERY helpful if you’re getting into content beyond Kara. They are also comparable to [Bow-stitched Leggings], a drop from Mount Hyjal, which most casual hunters won’t get a crack at! They come for only 25 more badges than the old pants. (Too bad you can’t trade in your old ones like a car, eh? :))I think these are a solid investment of 100 badges.

[Scaled Drakeskin Chestguard] - 100 Badges

In the case of this chestpiece, there really is no “old” badge gear mail chest for hunters. We could look at it in comparison to [Ebon Netherscale Breastplate], though that only applies for the leatherworkers out there. Maybe compare it to [Scaled Breastplate of Carnage]? IMO, this is a slam dunk upgrade over the chest from Kara. You’re losing some MP5 and some Int, but you also get a gem slot, and a boost of 69 attack power. I would call this one of the first upgrades you should look at, though I might hesitate if you already have your T4 chest, [Demon Stalker Harness]. I’d also make sure that the haste on this chest won’t interfere with an effective 1:1 shot rotation.

The Big Ticket Items

[Crossbow of Relentless Strikes] - 150 Badges

That’s a lot of badges. It’s also a lot of Crossbow! Do I really have to talk about this one? If you’re a BM hunter for sure, this is probably the best ranged weapon you can get short of the new legendary bow in Sunwell. It’s got +hit, +crit and AP, along with a nice, big DPS number. What else could a hunter want? The speed rating, coupled with some haste, will help you reach that 1.7 or so weapon speed for an optimal shot rotation. Score!

[The Blade of Harbingers] - 150 Badges

Where 150 badges is well spent on the crossbow, I’m not so sure about this axe. Sure, it’s a nice weapon, but after already blowing 150 badges (and don’t fool yourself, if you’re going to blow 150 badges, use them for the crossbow), I would be hard pressed to blow 150 more on a melee weapon. Still, it’s a strong axe, and the haste rating might help us get that new crossbow down to the speed we want. 150 badges, though? Just grab [Legacy] or something and live with it.

Conclusion

So, we’ve established that these are all VERY nice upgrades. Which should you buy first? Well, a lot of that depends on what you have now. If you have a decent pair of legs, maybe start with the chest, or vise versa. But, all things being equal, with a gun to my head I’d say go for the Crossbow first. It’s a huge upgrade over just about anything, and I’m usually a “weapon first” upgrader. There’s a good chance, however, that I’d crack part of the way through and pick up the gauntlets or the ring. If I could control myself, though, I’d start with the Crossbow, then grab either the ring or the legs. Any way you go with this stuff, though, you can’t go wrong!

Tune in later this week and I’ll take a look at the drops from Magisters’ Terrace. (Not the Sunwell, though - this is a CASUAL blog! :))

There has been much discussion over the past couple of days about the newest five man instance, Magisters’ Terrace. I shared my initial thoughts about the instance yesterday, and I was not alone. A lot of folks in the blogging world took the time to share their experiences as well.

Big Bear Butt Blogger, Asleep at the WoW, and Ferocious Bite are just a few of the bloggers to have thoughts about the new instance. It’s also not hard to find approximately 1.2 billion posts on the subject over on the official WoW forums. Everybody’s talking about it, so what are they saying?

Well, my take is that the overall reaction is positive. I think most everyone can agree that it’s a very pretty instance with great music. For the most part, people agree that it is also quite challenging, even on normal mode. The reaction loot-wise is that there is some good stuff in there, but perhaps not great. I would suggest that the loot in normal mode is better than any other five man out there overall, and the heroic loot is perhaps slightly better as well.

There is some divergence here, however, and I thought we’d take a look at that. It seems that overall the instance can be a bit of a “gear check.” Even in normal mode, you can’t take a freshly minted 70 in mostly green quest rewards and expect to succeed, as you can in other instances. This is even more true in the exceedingly difficult heroic version of the dungeon. I haven’t personally been in the heroic as of yet, but from what I understand it is VERY challenging, on par with or more difficult than the other “tough” heroic instances, like Arcatraz.

People also differ in how hard they judge the instance to be. I personally started a thread on the official forums asking if Magisters’ Terrace was now the most difficult 5-man in the game. A lot of people agreed with my assessment, that it is the most difficult 5-man, but a few people did not.

I noticed something interesting about the posters who claimed the instance wasn’t all that difficult. When looking at their respective armory pages, most of them were sporting Tier 5 gear and beyond. Well, in all honesty, I would HOPE that someone in tier 5 gear wouldn’t have too much trouble with those encounters. If you’re working on or have downed the real Kael’Thas, I would hope you could handle his watered-down twin brother!

But of course, as is the case with most topics on the official forums, you have a large swath of board trolls who like to brag about their accomplishments incessantly. I’m used to it.

As a player in mostly Kara gear, I found the instance to be a nicely tuned challenge. It’s tough, but I think it’s doable. I also believe it will actually help me progress as a player, as some of the trash pulls and boss fights required more “advanced” strategy. Frankly, this is the kind of thing I was hoping to see with ZA. A nice difficulty progression from Karazhan. As it turned out, ZA is too tough for most Kara geared guilds, and doesn’t act as the bridge to 25 man content we maybe hoped for.

Overall, I think Magisters’ Terrace is just the kind of instance to keep guilds that are stuck in limbo somewhere between Kara and SSC occupied until Wrath hits. It is challenging, but I wouldn’t say frustratingly so. It might take some time to get all the fights down, but at least you only need to drum up 5 people to try it. I think it’s a find addition to the available 5-man instances, and goes to show that Blizzard doesn’t necessarily need to create bloated, ultra-difficult 25-man raids to please a lot of players. Some of us out here are awfully happy to have our new 5-man to master, Magisters’ Terrace.

I logged on around 10:30 last night. I just wanted to mess around with the new dailies and run around the new zone a little bit. Well, after a few minutes someone decided to put together a group for Magister’s Terrace. It’s way late for me already, but I figured what the hell. I can go short on sleep to see the new instance.

**Disclaimer: There are some minor spoilers below. I won’t get into full on strategy, but if you want to go into MagT completely green without knowledge of any bosses, quit reading now.**

My very first impression? VERY NICE! I loved the art direction in this place right away. I should add that I play Alliance, so I’m not as used to that architectural style as some of you horde players might be. The colors are rich, the layout is interesting, and it’s straightforward. The music is also excellent, on par with the music from Kara, which I think is some of the best in the game. Here’s a shot from the very first hallway.

The mobs are pretty normal to begin with. Just your garden variety blood elves. They have a few painful and irritating abilities, though, and I’m not even sure who had them or what exactly they did. One was some kind of glaive that seemed to stun me for a few seconds. (Never good if you’re a healer!) Another was a silence (Again, no good for healers!). Those abilities popped up again and again throughout the instance, and by the end I HATED Glaive and Silence!

The first boss, Selin Fireheart, was pretty straightforward. We wiped the first try, though not due to difficulty. There is a door that appears when the boss is triggered, and myself and a mage were trapped behind it. Doh! Anyhow, once we got a REAL try in, he was easy. He is a lot like Kalithresh in Steamvaults, only with Crystals in lieu of tanks. If he starts sucking on a crystal, destroy the crystal or else. Other than that he was pretty easy. As far as drops, he dropped some blue mail +attack power thing, [Bracers of the Forest Stalker]. Nobody in the group could use it. Oh well.

Selin Fireheart before:

Selin Fireheart after:

On to the second boss. If you’ve ever done Curator in Kara, you’ll find him familiar. He’s in a room filled with flying mana worm dudes, like a LOT of flying mana worm dudes. The boss himself is like a steroid enhanced version one of those Arcane elemental guys that hung out in the Curator’s room. He played somewhat like the Curator as well, with some flares and the like. He was easy enough to down on the first try.

And, wonder of wonders, I got a drop! I don’t know if what I got will replace [Boots of the Incorrupt], but [Boots of Resuscitation] would be real nice boots for a druid not already in Kara purples. I’m still debating whether I can live with some of the stats I’d lose, because they do have two gem slots. I could easily slot a stamina gem or something else to make up the stats. We’ll see. Anyhow…

Around this point in the instance there is a crystal you click to enjoy a little cutscene. It was a VERY nice touch. From what I could tell, it looked like a preview of the 25 man Raid in the new zone. Little things like this are the reason I have played this game for so long, with no signs of stopping. Let’s face it, Blizzard is STILL on its game! I loved it!

Onward we go. The third boss is in a nice, big open aroboretum type area with fountains. Very nicely designed room, just as the rest of the instance is. The third boss is a lot like Moroes, in that you have a boss and four random adds of different classes. We got some kind of Paladin, a rogue, and I don’t know what else. We spanked her pretty well on the first try, as we cleared the room so the Lock in our group could CC two of them with Banish and Fear. One sheep from the mage, and the fight was pretty easy. I could see it being tough if you didn’t have appropriate CC. Here is a shot of the third boss, Priestess Delrissa.

What did she drop? She dropped a pair of blue spellcaster shoulders, [Duskhallow Mantle]. From what I’ve seen of the loot so far, it’s some fairly nice pre raiding blue stuff. If you’re clearing Kara on a regular basis, maybe not so much.

Here is where it got ugly. I’ll be honest, we didn’t finish. Next on the list, and the last boss was Kael’Thas Sunstrider.

I won’t mince any words here. Kael’Thas is one TOUGH cookie. He beat us like red-headed stepchildren, repeatedly. He’s simply a very tough fight with a lot of different elements you have to get right to succeed. We had a few specific problems with this fight.

• It was VERY late - Everyone was a little tired by the time we got here, it was close to 2 am
• There is flat out a LOT of damage being thrown around to multiple group members - as a Druid I struggle in that kind of situation
• In the second phase, everyone takes a lot of damage on a constant basis…something like 300 or more damage per second, on EVERYONE (again, tough for a Druid)

So sadly, our run ended in failure. We wiped on him five different times, for a different reason each time. I didn’t realize until it was too late that what I had to do was try to get Rejuv on EVERYONE before the second phase, and keep refreshing it along with tossing lifeblooms. Oh well. I did get to see most everything there, and got a decent drop to boot. (Pun intended.) I look forward to trying Kael again soon.

Overall, I give the instance an A+ on first impression. It is quite challenging, and could be the most difficult five man in the game now. There are some tricky pulls and some tricky bosses, and it really keeps you on your toes in a good way. I shudder to think of trying this in heroic, but at the same time really look forward to it.