Kalu'ak Reputation Guide, 3.0.8 Maces for Druids, TCG Loot Card Giveaway

UPDATE: No patch this week

The EU server maintenance notice mentions rolling restarts, rather than a full maintenance, meaning the patch won't be deployed there so it's safe to say it also won't be deployed in the US.

Reputation Guide: The Kalu'ak

We have a new guide for you today thanks to community member Halbarad of EU-Daggerspine.  He put together a guide similar to the one we published for the Argent Crusade, but this one is for The Kalu'ak!  Whether you're looking to work on pet achievements, quest achievements, or others -- The Kalu'ak likely has something to help you along the way.  Check it out, and if there are any specific guides you'd like to request, let us know because we have quite a few more in the works for this week.

3.0.8 Druid Changes: Two-Hand Maces

Everyone knows about the changes to staves coming in 3.0.8, but did you know this change affects two-hand maces as well?  We've put together a few images of the various attack power values you will begin seeing on two-hand maces with patch 3.0.8.  And for those curious, yes, this even affects [Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros].  It appears that most 60+ two-hand maces are affected by this change, so below you can find a number of the upgrade choices beyond staves if you'd rather wield a mace in Northrend!

Item	Source
[Deadly Gladiator's Bonegrinder]	Nargle Lashcord (4500 )
[Inevitable Defeat]	Random Drop (Heroic: Naxxramas)
[The Jawbone]	Maexxna (Heroic: Naxxramas)
[Titansteel Destroyer]	Player Crafted
[Demise]	Heigan the Unclean (Naxxramas)
[Argent Skeleton Crusher]	Veteran Crusader Aliocha Segard (89  56  27 )
[Hammer of Grief]	Maiden of Grief (Heroic: Halls of Stone)
[Mojo Masked Crusher]	The Prophet Tharon'ja (Heroic: Drak'Tharon Keep)
[Dirkee's Superstructure]	Dirkee (The Storm Peaks)

Extended Maintenance for US Realms - January 6th, 2009

Note that there is extended maintenance tomorrow on the US realms from 3AM PST to 11AM PST.  Could this mean 3.0.8 is coming tomorrow?  I suppose we'll see!  In the meantime, don't forget to check out some of the changes coming in 3.0.8.

• 3.0.8 Patch Notes
• 3.0.8 Compendium

Blue Posts

"Bring the Player, Not the Class"

I think some of the other players have answered this the way I would. The idea is not that you can bring 25 prot warriors because they are all excellent players and expect to clear Naxx. I exaggerate, but you get the point. The idea is that you have enough coverage over "critical" areas with fewer players so that you have enough free spots to bring who you want. I put critical in quotes, because it varies depending on groups. Some players think Heroism is mandatory. It probably isn't for Naxx but it probably was for Sunwell. Some kind of poison dispel is probably mandatory for Naxx. Innervate isn't mandatory. Battle rez is useful while learning the encounters. And so on.

Having two priests is currently mandatory for heroic Naxx to do one encounter (that gates some others). We knew we were pushing the envelope with what we could expect of of raids with that design. I think most 25-player groups have 2 priests, but I'm sure not all of them do. If we had asked you to have say 2 Survival hunters, that would clearly be over the line. If we had asked you to have a death knight MT for Saph, that would have gone against the design. Perhaps we should have left up one crystal so you only needed one priest.

I think expecting one of each class isn't too much to ask for a 25-player group, provided we aren't asking for a particular spec or a particular role (like a druid tank or a paladin healer). But this is the kind of thing we're going to have to explore a little more to see how it feels.

Ulduar is going to be more difficult than Naxx, and we expect to see a lot more concerns or complaints about specific classes, specs or buffs being mandatory. We're not designing the encounters that way, but with tougher tuning, I wouldn't be surprised to see more given how much we've seen about relatively easy raiding content. We will deal with those problems if and when they arise.

Dual-Specs the Downfall of DPS Classes?

The best guilds in the world already send people to respec between fights or swap out classes between fights. We don't want this to be the standard way everyone raids, but we don't think it's worth implementing a lot of punitive measure to prevent either. So dual-spec won't affect those guilds much.

So then it comes down to what is most likely *your* guild (unless you are in one of those cutting-edge guilds, in which case I salute you). In your guild are all the players such amazing players that they can always hit the theortetical max dps predicted by spreadsheets and combat dummy tests? If so, then the pure classes should still be on top. If not, then you still don't have much to worry about. If you are an amazing mage and can out dps the shamans and druids, then you'll probably get a spot. If you aren't an amazing mage, but you have good friends in the guild and they like having you along then you'll probably get a spot.

The groups that might get caught are those that struggle with content and feel like stacking classes is the solution to get them through. But in nearly every case I see this, the group would do far better to just get better gear, talent builds, or learn how to handle the encounters or which buttons to push. The exception are the cutting-edge guilds that ARE struggling with cutting-edge content, but they are going to stack classes per encounter anyway (and 99% of us aren't in those guilds).

Updated 3.0.8 Patch Notes

We'll be able to share patch notes soon.

The PTR is a build, much like an actual patch. It represents the data at a moment in time. Since the PTR went out we have fixed other bugs and changed class spells and abilities, some based on feedback coming out of the PTR. If we think we are close to releasing a live build, we won't update the PTR. Otherwise, we will keep refreshing the data.

I am unable to tell you when we plan for the patch to go live for the same reasons we usually don't announce when we think a patch will go live.

Death Knight (Skills / Talents / Glyphs)

Gargoyle is Overpowered

Mr. Gargoyle is overpowered. His damage will be going down.

Dual Wield vs. Two-Hand DPS

There are talents that benefit DW more than 2H. We think that is more interesting than every talent always giving you the same benefit no matter what your gear choices. BCB, Killing Machine and Necrosis, among others, should benefit DW.

If DW is too strong now, as some players think, then these are talents we might change.

Druid (Skills / Talents / Glyphs)

Polearms Trainable in 3.0.8 Confirmed

We think this was a problem with the PTR build. Druids will be able to train and use polearms in the next patch (3.0.8).

Hunter (Skills / Talents / Glyphs)

Cat and Scorpid Damage Values: 3.0.8

Here are the cat and scorpid numbers for anyone who wants to theorycraft them. These will be in the next patch (3.0.8) even though they were not on the PTR.

We also did fix several pet families not getting their correct stat adjustment: Wasps, Spirit Beasts, Rhinos and Silithids were affected I believe.
Spirit Strike should work with Longevity now and has an initial damage component that can crit.
Not sure why it wouldn't work with Kill Command, but I'll look into that.

Rank 6 Scorpid Poison - 20 base Nature damage per tick, ticks every 2 sec for 10 sec, 0.04 coefficient, 1 stack max
Rank 6 Rake - 29 base physical damage, plus 21 base damage per tick, ticks every 3 sec for 9 sec, 0.06 coefficient
Rank 6 Spirit Strike - 50 base Arcane damage, plus 50 damage per tick, ticks every 6 sec for 6 sec (it ticks twice), 0.049 coefficient

My comment about many hunters caring about what their pets look like was just that, not that 51 BM was intended to be a cosmetic talent point. If you just hate dinosaurs and core hounds, I'm not sure what more we can do in the short term, but show me other exotics than don't stack up and perhaps we can adjust their numbers. Longer-term we'd like to explore just letting you be able to increase damage with the bonus talent points.

More Hunter Changes Planned for Future

I mentioned Ulduar because I suspected hunters would say "Our dps may be okay now but it won't scale." That may be true, but we are planning making some other changes to hunters so we will have a chance to reevaluate scaling before Ulduar ships. We're not ready to share these other change with you, in part because if we end up not going through with the changes players will be "sad" (which I use as a euphamism). Many of the changes we're talking about are designed to make hunters more fun to play, so you shouldn't be scared of them.

Blizzard has always had long term plans for every class and we still do. Perhaps we haven't always been as forthcoming about those plans as I have been lately. But you shouldn't intrepret the fact that we have long term plans to mean that we think your class is horribly broken and shipped it in a horribly broken state.

Warlock (Skills / Talents / Glyphs)

Warlock Changes Planned for Next Major Patch

We have some plans in mind for the next major patch, and I appreciate the players that have given us feedback now and in beta. We made a lot of changes for locks in Lich King. I'm sorry we couldn't get to more changes but we will. Our opinion is never going to be that a class is "done." WoW just isn't like that.

Community Contest: 1 ingame loot, 2 ingame tabards giveaway

First of all, this is not an official World of Raids giveaway.  Community member rizzler has put together a giveaway for WoW Trading Card Game items, including [Picnic Basket] for one person and a TCG tabard of choice for two!  Be sure to read up on how to enter, but also don't forget to thank rizzler!

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