Well folks it's that time again, for another blog that is! I have lots of things to talk about this time. Over the past week I have been fortunate enough to run around in the Cataclysm Alpha. The game as a whole looks and feels potentially promising. The graphics and art stylization are lush, there also may be a possibility of coding improvements. The alpha client does seem to run a hair bit better than my Wrath client, but that may be for an unforseen reason. The new water engine doesn't seem to be a FPS hog at all, which is very nice also because a lot of the new areas are dependent on water (or lava). Most of the Old world zones have their environment changes already, and also there are many new zones to explore. Due to being able to fly as well, I have also uncovered many cool spots which were once unreachable in the previous expansions. The old zones are definitely refreshing to see from an aerial view, as they were not able to be seen that way before. Some of the shots are simply breathtaking, and it's almost like playing a new game. Outlands and Northrend simply don't compare to what you can be amazed by when flying in Azeroth. Unfortunately due to the NDA that is binding me, I cannot show show any screenshots of many of the cool places I found. There has not been a lot of mechanics changes to Warriors in the latest patch compared to a few other classes, except for a few things. Improved Heroic Strike, Improved Cleave, and Improved Execute are all ported to damage by this ability increased by X% models. Heroic Strike and Cleave go up to +15% and Execute up to +20%. We may see again Execute being a strong finisher, since at the moment it is scaling faster than Heroic Strike unbuffed. Heroic Strike and Cleave do not seem to be using weapon damage anymore still, and Slam does. Also, Cruelty has been completely changed to grant critical strike chance on primarily Fury abilities: Bloodthirst, Slam, and Victory Rush by up to 10%. I don't know why they did that, as once you are able to get the talent at level 10 you only have Victory Rush, and that's only once everytime you score a kill on something. Also, Blood Craze has been ported to a chance on being hit instead of crit, which is going to be rediculously good for leveling or farming in conjunction with high armor and Glyph of Bloodthirst. Not to mention, that ability plus Death Wish, Enrage (up all the time when levelling), and self heals will be scaled by up to an additional 80% with 0 mastery rating and standard fury talents. If that's confusing, as an example, Enrage when up will give you +18% damage instead of +10%, and Death with will be +36% instead of +20%! That's kind of crazy when you can exploit them.

A second topic I wanted to briefly touch on was that I recorded a Heroic Lich King 25 kill as requested by a few fans. People seem to like watching my POV. This kill was our time-before our last one. We ended up missing our 2nd Holy Paladin and had to replace him with 2 healers, meaning running with 6 healers instead of 5, which made our DPS kind of sluggish. At the end of the fight, Arthas was running around enraged one-shotting everyone, and finally casted his last Harvest Soul. Only 2 players made it out of that Harvest Soul alive, and you will have to watch the videos to see what finally happened in the end! You can view these videos on my youtube page: http://www.youtube.com/user/LandsoulWoW This was one of the better 25 man raid Fraps's I've done, since my computer was able to record the whole thing at 15+ FPS and no stuttering. Unfortunately due to my maximum monitor resolution, I can't upload in 1080p, otherwise I would have.

The thinktank article on Elitist Jerks which I had been working on and off since December 2008 is finally finished. It has many many morsels of in depth and detailed information about Fury Warriors. You should read it if you are any skill level. Be warned though, as it can get unnecessarily technical at times. But hey, that's what theorycrafting is. Just to give a perspective of its vastness, I put it into Word and single spaced, it spans 75 pages with over 40,000 words. That my friends is pretty intense for a gaming article. It has charts, graphs, and formulas to supplement the material. Topics cover pretty much everything from talents to rotation comparison to UI modifications, and many more. Definately check it out! You can find it at: http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t37804-fury ... ompendium/

Since I get constant whispers, emails, and PMs on various forums about helping people improve their performance in raids, it's been difficult to answer everyone in the detail I would like. It's very difficult to give someone a straight one line answer to problems people may be having. This is why I started my Warrior DPS coaching service a few months back. Because of this, I have been able to help dozens of players so far improve their game by breaking down their gameplay and identifying specific areas of improvement. I have gotten nothing but positive feedback from my clients so far, and several players have signed up for multiple hourlong sessions. If you want to sign up for some help, all you have to do is email me and we can setup an appointment. The cost is only 20$ for one hour, which definately beats banging your head against your desk or sifting through forums for hours to find your answers. You can talk with me and get your results immediately as long as you are willing to improve. My email adress is technodragon@hotmail.com if you want to get a session going.


Sadly, the Starcraft 2 Beta will be going on a hiatus starting on the 31st for a few weeks. So, if you want to test out your superfast Mothership or mass Queen strats on yoru buddies or lowly Bnet goers, then get your gametime in soon before you won't be able to! I myself have not been playing too much Starcraft 2 lately as I have been doing finals, moving, putting hours into Lich King and Arena, playing the Cataclysm Alpha, and looking for a job. I do hope to get back into it. I was able to maintain rank 1 in my platinum 2v2 random division for a little while, which means I haven't been doing terrible. I kind of enjoy 2v2 random a little bit more than solo league because there's not as much pressure involved. If you make a aimple mistake you aren't as punished because your partner can back you up. Versus in top solo leagues, simple mistakes can easily cost you the game. If I am going to be playing Sc2 casually for any amount of time, I do enjoy not being pressured all the time, I just want to have fun.

Well, that's it for this time, and until next!

Thanks for the updates. Without breaking The NDA for Cata, are you seeing good results for the single and multi-target rotations? Do you think fury warrior single target dps will be competitive? I believe that whirlwind will become very situational and a trash pack ability, do you see otherwise? Also what would you think about rend becoming a trainable ability, so that every warrior could use it?

Thanks

Hey, you updated and I didn't see it! Awesome. Amazing vid btw. I was freaking out at the end, and nice music choices. I'm not even half way through that compendium of yours. It's a goldmine. And thanks for the description of Cata Alpha. I'm all excited now. I'm so glad you have this blog.