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Frostbitten: Guide to All Rares, Part 2
We covered a number of rare spawns in
Beyond Bloody Rare: A Guide to Rares
last year, but we found even more fun ones we wanted to share with you!
While some rares drop a random assortment of greens, a fair amount have specific loot associated with them--some for transmog, some just for status or bank alts. Rares have a ton of personality with their unique models and names, usually after pop-culture references, so it's fun when their loot has some humor as well. We scanned all the rares in the database to see which ones had anything notable!
In this guide, we've provided mouseover images of the rares, maps, and links to any unique loot drops.
In the previous guide, we covered: rares for achievements, hunter tames, notably-named ones from classic instances and zones, and Cataclysm rares.
A note on droprates: many of these mobs had their levels and loot tables adjusted in Cataclysm. Drops that were nearly guaranteed from mobs are now extremely rare. If the loot's been rescaled for Cataclysm though to match a mob's new level, chances are it still exists in game--as several users have reported. If an item's level doesn't match a mob's l
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Transmogrification Guides, Part 7: Quest Armor (Updated for 5.4)
Our
Transmog database
contains quest sets from each expansion. Some of these items are only from one quest in the game--better to discover a set you like now, instead of after you've vendored that unique quest reward!
This guide covers all of the quest transmog sets in the game. They're organized by expansion and armor type with information on how to acquire them and basic colors.
Plus, you can mouseover each set to see what it looks like!
Check out the complete updated series of Transmogrification Guides:
PvE and PvP Tier Armor
Lookalike Tier Without Class Restrictions
Dungeon Armor
Quest Armor
[url=
http://www.wowhead.com/news=216211/transmogrification-guide
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Beyond Loremaster: Quest Achievements
and
Seeker
too daunting, but still like questing? There's still a ton of quest-related achievements out there. This guide covers all the achievements tied to specific dailies or questing zones. Some give cool rewards like pets, while others require you to do special challenging things while completing otherwise mundane dailies.
I've also highlighted several outstanding user guides and comments about achievements--I couldn't have explained those achievements better myself. We're always looking for more guide contributions, so if you have a favorite achievement you want to talk about--share it
here
.
Vash'jir
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
/
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Complete the Neptulon quests in Vashj'ir up to and including
Defending the Rift
.
This questline essentially expects you to complete most of Vash'jir--you must do so in order to unlock the Neptulon quest chain. Wharris provides an overview of the z
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Traveling Around Azeroth: A Transportation Guide
Getting around Azeroth quickly is important--especially with holidays requiring lots of travel like the Lunar Festival and Love is in the Air coming up. Basic flight paths can take you anywhere, but they're slow and easily up to 15 minutes across a continent. And which boat goes where from Stormwind anyway? There are numerous items, teleports, and portals that can shave minutes off your travel experience--whether you're looking to get to an Outland instance to farm transmog gear or have archaeology digsites scattered across the world. There's even breadcrumb quests that you can hold onto which will provide useful ports!
With this guide, you'll learn about all the travel options on each continent. You'll never have to spam trade looking for a mage to port you to a major city again!
Travel Basics
Flight paths are what most players will use to travel between nearby zones, and Cataclysm added many new flight paths to the game. You can view them for a particular region by looking at our zone maps and turning on the flight path option. Continent maps also show boat/zeppelin paths as well.
We've got a page covering
Riding
: skill levels, mount types, speeds, and training costs.
A warlock's
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Transmogrification, Part 5: Grey and Starter Look-Alike Gear
If you've ever wanted to transmog your Shaman's gear into the Twill Set, you're in luck! Today's guide rounds up transmogrifiable armor that resembles BoE greys and starter gear--armor that looks neat but can't be transmogged.
Players are not allowed to transmog their gear into uncommon/common-quality items--this means items like vendor trash, starter gear, and holiday rewards are out. However, there's numerous greens that share the same models--some are pretty stylish! Remember, you can mouseover the transmog sets to see what they look like. (Note: some cloth sets may display a robe instead of the relevant shirt.)
Check out the other guides to Transmogrification:
Transmogrification: Tier Armor
covers all class-specific tier sets--both PvE and PvP.
Transmogrification: Matching Greens
covers all green-quality BoE sets.
Transmogrification: Unique Armor
covers unique armor, distinctive weapons, and item sets
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Transmogrification, Part 6: A Guide to all Cloak Styles
For the most up-to-date version of this guide,
click here
for additional capes and MoP styles.
Capes are the bane of transmogrification. There's so many options, they're never designed to match specific tier, and some of them cut into your cool weapons. Although there's a "show/hide cloak" option, hiding it is the easy way out.
This past week, Ashelia and I went through over a thousand capes in the database, sorting them by similar models for a different project and we decided to make it into a guide. With this guide, you can find the perfect cape to match the removed ones from Trial of the Grand Crusader, a crafted cape that's identical to a raid epic you've never seen, a completely unique model from a quest reward, or even a blue-quality version of your favorite tattered grey cape.
The capes have loosely been categorized by Unique Designs, Patterned, Two-Tone, Solid with Border, and Faction. From there, the capes have been further categorized as medium (hip-length), long (ankle-length), and split (two rectangles ending at waist). We've provided screenshots of all the capes we own, and you can always use
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Brewfest (Sept. 20th - Oct. 5th) Guide
Celebrated by both the Horde and the Alliance,
Brewfest
is a time to enjoy the fermented fruits of the harvest: pretzels, cheese, and booze! The competing breweries Thunderbrew, Barleybrew, and the Ogres, all come together outside of all the major cities in a bid to outdo each other with their special ales, meads, and beers. Brave adventurers are invited to sit back, take a pull, and sample the finest wares these brewers have to offer!
During Brewfest, players can acquire the title
Brewmaster
, collect fun mounts like
Swift Brewfest Ram
, and get epics like
Coren's Chilled Chromium Coaster
. Major quest hubs are located outside of Ironforge and Orgrimmar.
Brewfest, based on Oktoberfest, runs from
September 20
through
October 5
. Our very own Miyari put together an excellent guide for the holiday, covering every achievement there is as well as the series of dailies the event offers.
This year, trinkets and other items have been upgraded to ilevel 365 and are definitely worth checking out!
Coren's Chilled Chromium Coaster
Petrified Pickled Egg
Mithril Stopwatch
Brawler's Trophy
Bitterer Balebrew Charm
Bubblier Brightbrew Charm
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A Guide to Farming Vanilla Raids
Overwhelmed by what vanity gear to farm for your 4.3 Transmogrification gear? We've provided an overview of some quick instances to solo and start with--Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, and Ahn'Qiraj. Once challenging 40-player dungeons that left vanilla raiders with unforgettable memories, these can be done with relatively little planning. They've got distinctive tier sets, interesting lore, and some items with unique models for all classes. You'll need to convert a party into a raid to zone in, as well as clear some bag space, but that's about it.
In addition to summaries about the instance's history, how to farm them at 85, and notable items, we've provided drop-down tables to each boss' loot so you can scan all the drops easily after the break. Happy farming!
Molten Core
History:
Molten Core was the very first instance many vanilla raiders faced--there's timeless memories of forgetting to skin core hounds, blowing up the raid as "the bomb," and of course, seeing Ragnaros spawn for the first time. While it can be easily soloed now, Molten Core used to be a 40-player dungeon that caused painful wipes and granted players
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News Round Up: Tyrande Whisperwind, Tier 11 Acquisition, and More
It was an unusually slow Friday today, but it looks like Blizzard has posted the latest story to their lore section--this one is on Tyrande, one of the more overlooked leaders in World of Warcraft's lore scene.
In some exciting Wowhead news, we have a sweepstakes coming up next week that will give our users a chance at some fabulous gaming gear. We'll talk more about that once it's live, but I figured I'd give everyone a little heads up!
On Epics for Casual Raiders
We've offered players who don't raid a reasonable way to gear up, and achieve high levels of power. The JP/VP system makes a lot of sense to us, and gives everyone a pretty good personal progression track in addition to loot drops, and we feel pretty good about the system as it stands. That doesn't necessarily mean that we think that full sets are a necessary part of that picture, though.
We still want to preserve some of the most prestigious PvE loot for players who face down raid content (even if it's a tier behind), and we feel that completing a tier set means that a raid needs to fit in there somewhere. That design makes sense to us, and we want to preserv
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Fine Dining: A Guide to the Food and Drink of Azeroth
No matter how you choose to level or spend your time at 85, it's a sure thing you'll be needing to eat or drink at some point. On one hand, in-game refreshments seem quite simple--they restore health and mana. But there's over 600 types of food and drink in our database. Some require specific levels, some are only sold by one vendor in the middle of nowhere, and yet others can get you completely drunk. We'll cover basic food-related things like what to use while leveling and how to complete achievements, as well as featuring some of the stranger things your character can eat.
The Basics
Here you'll learn about the basics: what to eat and drink while leveling, what quests grant food and drink, and how to easily complete related achievements.
It's Happy Hour Somewhere
: Once requiring alcoholic beverages, this now works on any drink in the game. Again, find various innkeepers and bartenders--should be an easy achievement.
Drown Your Sorrows
: Added in 4.1, you'll need to track down new beverage added in Cataclysm. Here's an easy table:
[table border=2 width=60% cellspacing=3 cellpaddi
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Professions 201: A Guide to Collecting Recipes
Finding recipes is the mark of a dedicated collector--beyond dutifully ticking off achievements and diligently doing tasks simply for points. You are solely responsible for setting your collecting pace; the freedom can be frustrating at times, but exhilarating when you've finished a subset of recipes and feel like you've solved part of a large jigsaw puzzle, hunting down recipes from obscure instances and reputations. It's fun to chase down patterns across Azeroth, when so many achievements and quests are now straightforward. Plus, you may even find generous twinks willing to tip hundreds of gold for obscure recipes!
I began to collect recipes seriously during the dog-days of ICC. I rolled a priest to learn inscription techniques and tailoring patterns, as well as a deathknight to learn most blacksmithing. I began to care more about enchanting on my rogue, finished up most engineering schematics on my warlock, and hoped for transmute discoveries again on my alt rogue. For obscure reasons, Jewelcrafting and Leatherworking have never held a particular charm--perhaps it's because I rolled these professions purely for raid benefits and blithely unlearned them to pick up Tailoring and Engineering mounts.
It's been over a year, and
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Littlest Pet Shop: A Guide to Vanity Pets
With new rewards for obtaining 100, 125, and 150 pets in 4.2, there’s been a lot of talk on how to get those few remaining elusive pets. Many players stopped after collecting 75, as there were no more incentives. Well, in 4.2 there are three new pet rewards as shown in
our video last week
, as well as several more from Firelands, so it’s time to start collecting again. (Edit: We've updated the guide for 4.3 and there are even more with the Darkmoon Faire.) Some pets are easily obtainable from questing, vendors, and achievements. Others may take some time and luck to farm up. We've got it all organized and covered for you though, so you should be able to get 150 pets easily!
Here’s a
complete list
of pet companions one can obtain. As you can see, there’s a good deal more than the 150 needed, but some are no longer obtainable or cost money from the Trading Card Game. You can keep track of pets on our very own Character Profiler;
Warcraft Pets
is also a great resource, as well as in-game addons like Collectinator.
Here'
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New Dev Watercooler Blog: Content for the Casual 85
This new dev watercooler blog covers casual content for 85s. As we've covered in recent posts, there's a ton of content to do even if you don't raid with Firelands coming out: dailies, epic questlines, new achievements and zones. Blizzard has created great quest hubs and events that tie into the current plotlines before--Isle of Quel'Danas, the war efforts for Ahn'Qiraj, the Argent Tournament dailies to name a few--and now we get to read a dev's perspective on Firelands.
As this is my first dev watercooler, I thought some introductions would be in order. I'm the lead quest designer for World of Warcraft, but many of you may already be familiar with my writing and webcomics under the pen-name "Fargo" from years past. To all my new and old friends: Hello! I hope to have the opportunity for more chats like this in between cramming our game full of epic experiences capable of melting your frontal lobes with pure liquefied awesome. (It says that on my business card.)
I'm 85. Now What?
World of Warcraft has a pretty big footprint: we try to create a world that appeals to casual and hardcore players alike. There's a whole body of players -- be t
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Shifty Hands: A Guide to Picking Pockets
Pick Pocket
, for the less-agile and uninitiated, is a unique ability allowing rogues in stealth to loot special items from hostile mobs without entering combat. If done sloppily, it can aggro mobs, annoy your party members, and make you look pretty clumsy. If done correctly (and with enough bag space), you can amass a collection of unique items, and if you’re lucky, some epics inside of a lockbox. There's a lot of mundane objects in the pockets of Azeroth, but one's trash is another's treasure--you might find something amusing like a trashy novel or loaded dice.
This is a guide using Wowhead's vast database to show you every fun item you can pickpocket in World of Warcraft. Either for vanity item collections or just to send your friend something fun, this list will help you rediscover Azeroth and more.
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Are Heroics Too Hard? Blizzard Doesn't Think So (And Neither Do I, Hah!)
As many players hit level 85 and begin to queue for Heroic dungeons, there has been a resounding echo among the users of the official forums and pretty much everywhere else, all preaching a single thought: Heroic dungeons are too damn hard! Many of these players are skipping straight into Heroics as soon as their item level average permits, since (after all) this is the intended "ready" point for the content. But is it too low? Or are the Heroic themselves too difficult?
Today, Blizzard poster Zarhym responded to an angry poster, admitting that Wrath of the Lich King content was actually
too easy
and the Heroics are supposed to be as difficult and as much of a test of skill as they now are.
Players were conditioned at the end of Wrath of the Lich King to mow through Heroics at lightning speed. Not only were they too easy to begin with, by the time Dungeon Finder came out players greatly out-geared the majority of these dungeons.
The reality is that it makes sense for Heroics to be a true and necessary stepping stone into raiding. They are more difficult
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Finals Season
So here I am, writing a blog post when I should be studying for a chemistry and physics final for next week.
I've got a question for you all who go to school, or even those who go to work (wait, those things don't happen if you play WoW!): How do you balance WoW (or another video game of your choice) with the obligations you have in real life?
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Elekktion Day
I'd like you to meet my good friend World of Warcraft. We've been friends for about two years now, off and on.
I could talk about all the positive qualities that my friend WoW has, that he's always available to hang out when I'm free, that he's got a bunch of other friends, invites me to parties, all those things.
More than anything though, I've always thought WoW was awesome because WoW
wants me to succeed
.
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The Casual MMO?
So I've taken to reading
Allakhazam
's news posts lately, and just recently they came out with one that I think was an especially interesting read.
You can find the full story here:
http://wow.allakhazam.com/story.html?story=16670
Their new editor, "Pwyff", writes a topic that has some striking similarities to the things we've been discussing
here on the blog
for the last week or so, so I thought I'd take a moment to point it out so as to add to the discussion. Feel free to post your comments and thoughts here, or in the comments thread on the story if you happen to have an Allakhazam account.
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When Is a Newb Not a Noob?
Just a short philosophical question for you today, with any luck the real action will be in the comments. :)
I was having a conversation with a friend of mine today, someone who just started playing recently. Her priest is somewhere in her thirties now, and she asked me a question that I had never really stopped to consider – one of those questions that must
have
an answer, if you could only put your finger on what it was.
She asked me, "When do you stop being a newb?"
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WoW: The Schizophrenic MMO
ArgentSun
posted a comment
here
a little while ago, and it started to get me thinking.
I love WoW. It's clearly the most successful video game ever made. It's a beautifully tailored, wonderfully epic experience, that gets better each time I look at it. But ArgentSun's comment made me realize that aside from all the things we love about WoW, as a
game
, it's completely schizophrenic.
WoW, I would argue, is built around a blatant self-deception.
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