Val'anyr and Algalon stats, Blue posts

[Boubouille]

Update: - Added today's blue posts and announcements.
Update: - Added the quest rewards from the quest you get after killing Algalon (10-Man) and Algalon (25-Man).

Legendary Mace - Val'anyr stats discovered!
That was fairly unexpected but the stats of Val'anyr, the legendary mace of Ulduar have been discovered ... on the official armory. For more information on the mace please check our dedicated page:

• Val'anyr - Legendary Mace

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Algalon - Quest Rewards
The rewards of the quest you get after killing Algalon the Observer have been discovered as well.

Recent In-Game Fixes - 04/24

• Glyph of Overpower will now properly provide a 100% chance to enable Overpower after a parry.
• Ghostly Philantropists have gone broke and will now drop zero gold.
• Replenishment has been changed in Arenas: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=16474152841&sid=1

Noblegarden Comes to Azeroth

The Noblegarden event is returning to Azeroth with some new additions. Players can take part in the druidic festivities spreading ‘round all corners of the map all week beginning Sunday, April 26, and ending Sunday, May 3. Features include:

• Noblegarden egg hunt and daily quests located in starting towns such as Goldshire, Razor Hill, Kharanos, and Brill
• All-new Noblegarden treats and prizes found rarely in eggs
• Chocolate as a currency! (Or just indulge your sweet tooth)
• All new achievements found in the World Events tab

Please join us in celebrating this annual event like never before. Whether you celebrate Noblegarden in a traditional manner or you have a longing for sweet chocolates and festive garments, we hope you’re able to come together and give yourself a break from competing in cutthroat Arena battles or laying siege to Ulduar.

See the event page here: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/events/noblegarden/

Europe - Arena Tournament Online Qualifier concludes

After several weeks of fierce and exciting arena matches the 2009 Arena Tournament online qualifier has come to a close. We have seen a lot of changes to the top 10 during the Online Qualifier phases and would like to thank all players for their participation.

The top 10 teams of the 2009 Arena Tournament’s online qualifier as of April 22, 2009 are listed below:

Rank. Team NameClassesWin - LossRating
1. seriously ure outDruid, Warlock, Warrior307 - 1642433
2. cowsgomooRogue, Mage, Priest244 - 882407
3. eDawgsRogue, Mage, Priest217 - 862402
4. àAà RATRogue, Mage, Priest317 - 1682374
5. àAàRogue, Mage, Priest405 - 2952363
6. gqwgqwgqgqgqRogue, Mage, Priest155 - 482362
7. tera gaming comPaladin, Warlock, Warrior246 - 1382360
8. rest in piecesRogue, Mage, Priest148 - 832357
9. wannabemäßigRogue, Mage, Priest224 - 1042354
10. Improved ClickzDeath Knight, Hunter, Paladin291 - 1532345

You can follow the full ladder rankings of the online qualifier on the World of Warcraft Armory (http://eu.wowarmory.com/arena-ladder.xml?b=Coliseum+1&ts=3).

After a thorough check of eligibility we will be inviting the top eight qualifying and eligible teams to the Regional Finals. Be sure to check back here to see who’s attending as the event nears.

Blue posts

Val'anyr - Hammer of the Ancient Kings
The proc is probably better than you guys are assuming (even for druids). I'm not going to spoil it though. (Source)

Keyring-like bag for Tabards?
While we have the vendor in the game that sells a bunch of them and they are very cheap, it's possible we will add something in the future that is like the keyring, but there is no eta on this at this time. (Source)

World Bosses in Northrend
We don't have anything definitely planned for these in Northrend right now. They have their pluses and minuses as players are very limited in experiencing them as it only takes a couple of top guilds on a realm to farm them and nobody else ever seems them. At the same time they can be fairly quick and easy to implement and provide an additional thing to do for some players.

It's possible we will add more in the future but we will have to wait and see. (Source)

Burst damage in PvP
The term "Burst" has kind of taken on a life of it's own, much like "scaling" and "stealth nerf." It's not a bad word. Too much burst is bad, just like too much CC, too much healing or too much mana regeneration are bad.

Burst on demand is a useful mechanic. But we don't think the matches are as fun when someone just crushes your face in while you have very limited options in countering it.

It can be frustrating to be crowd controlled too much, but at least in that situation every player has a trinket, and many classes have additional ways to break out. Being blown up in just a few GCDs doesn't leave you a lot of options, and it often doesn't even require much skill or finesse from the burster. On the opposite extreme, not being able to finish someone off before a heal lands, means that fights go on forever. (Source)

Druid (3.1 Skills List / 3.1 Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Potential changes to Innervate
A change to scaling % of mana would be good for all the druid specs. A flat non-scaling number is more problematic in the long run, since eventually a new expansion will come out with new #'s, and you'd have to balance how much mana it gave at each rank, and would be a pain in the neck.
I was actually talking more about a flat number (or a relatively flat number). If it’s a percentage then it still risks being too good in PvE and too weak in PvP. In this case the difference in mana pools is the whole problem, so scaling the amount regenerated to the size of your pool doesn’t fix the disparity. (It would be different if say the PvP boomkin had less mana but also cheaper spells.)

It would have small scaling problems for the next few content patches, but I don’t think we are going to see many druids with 40K mana anytime soon. Long-term we could always add ranks (the way Wrath has ranks) to keep it scaling at higher (or lower) levels. (Source)

[...] The cooldown is long, and that is something we would consider lowering if we continue to see mana problems. We just want to be cautious, because such a change would just mean free mana for a raid. You may not be running out of mana healing Ulduar, but the healers on the hard modes are. (Source)

Innervate and Balance Druids
I don’t think many Balance druids were stacking spirit for its benefit to Innervate. Crit is almost as good as spirit for regen, and when you consider its non-regen benefits, you probably will want it over spirit every chance you can get. Longer term we might look at something like Lunar Guidance or Dreamstate tying into spirit instead of int. However as I said (was it above or in another thread?) we need to make sure we’re happy with the way spirit works overall before we monkey around with it too much. (Source)

Paladin (3.1 Skills List / 3.1 Talent + Glyph Calc.)
Changes to Paladin mechanics
I started with "That's a fair point" because the OP mentioned that paladins have more to contend with than just maximizing damage. They do have heals, bubbles, cleansing and similar mechanics going on. That is why I said we can't take something as complex as a rogue's combat system and shoehorn it in for Ret.

But we can (and most likely will) change up the basic Seal, Judge, DS, CS, Exorcism buttons so that they can't all be brought to bear at once AND to make pushing those buttons a little more interesting from the paladin's point of view.

The model of "I bring burst" is not a good one for the game. You can counter stuns and bubbles and heals and even people running away from you. You can't counter someone unloading five digits of damage within just a few GCDs. That makes the combat shallow and frustrating. We're not convinced that is all Rets are about (because they do have heals, bubbles, cleansing and similar mechanics), but if we think the damage mechanics are too easy to counter, then we will compensate in other ways.

This isn't anything you will see get hotfixed in next week. I am more trying to explain our thought process so that the Exorcism change makes a little more sense in context. (Source)

[Veliane]

Looks good, was expecting more though.

[Pally_Power]

The sells for 35g note on the side makes me want to cry.

[Throrion]

Was expecting more spellpower on it, but definitely not bad.

And I doubt you'll be able to vendor it

[soulsmiter]

Seems to be a perfect holy paladin weapon.

[elana]

procchance %age would be nice to know

otherwise ~36g is not that bad

[Iselian]

Val'anyr: Guiding Star Runescribed Blade
52 stamina 36 stamina 43 stamina
54 int 48 int 51 int
47 crit 0 crit 52 crit
46 haste 48 haste 0 haste
587 spellpower 550 spellpower 550 spellpower
Fancy equip effect that 15 mp5 37 spirit
may indeed turn out to
be fantastic


A little comparison to other possible healer maces from Ulduar. I would just link the simple comparison to WoWHead.. but WoWHead doesn't have Val'anyr up yet >_<. Shamelessly copy/pasted from my previous post.

[Diaar]

And I doubt you'll be able to vendor it

lol why not?

without the procc its good but not fantastic but that goes for glaives aswell

[kailtas]

is this legendary?

only legendary about it is the 15% shield.

theres a mace from razorscale (heroic hardmode) with 550 SP

[Cormias]

I'm guessing that the proc chance is gonna be rather good.

[harbinger]

Unless the proc has a massive chance (like Thunderfury) the stats themselves are weak for an orange.

Then again, Thunderfury was all about the proc so something tells me this will be the same.

[Deleted]

It isn't unique. Go, dual wield shammy!

i didn't know shamans can dual wield 2x MAIN HAND weapons -_-

---

It has better stats than any Ulduar weapon PLUS a proc which makes it one tier higher than any ulduar weapon is. Shouldn't be legendaries be just one tier higher than any other epic weapon anyway? The stats are totally fine.

LOL at the ppl qqing.

Btw legendaries are all about special procs/effects anyway:
Sulfuras: nice Fireball burst
Thunderfury: insane proc
Atiesh: Auras
Glaives: quite good Haste proc
Thoridal: LOL EXTRA BAGPACK.

remove the procs and you have an averange weapon.

[LavaDuck]

That proc better be damn worth those 30 fragments.

[Doddilus]

I was expecting a couple different maces with different stats like Atiesh

[galvin]

Can't dualwield its main hand only

[Instant]

Seems like spirit healers were kicked in a nuts ;p

[rhiannan]

best in slot for shadow priest? with the right off hand =p

[bigbaddan]

is this legendary?

only legendary about it is the 15% shield.

theres a mace from razorscale (heroic hardmode) with 550 SP

Razorscale doesn't have a hardmode

[Dumpapumpa]

i assume for the buff you have 15 sec to heal as much as you can and then the shield goes on the tank?

[Jukaï]

Being a Druid, I'm so glad I passed this up to my fellow Priest the other day. Now I'm rocking out with my Rapture.