This story was difficult to believe, but it comes around every so often. With each passing expansion, the feat becomes more and more difficult to do, but it’s happened once again: someone’s managed to get their character all the way to level 85 — the level cap — without killing a single mob. They managed to get experience from exploration and gathering only, specifically herbalism and mining. Here’s the scoop from PC Gamer:
Playing on the US RP server Feathermoon, this player achieved what most thought impossible (while still maintaining one’s sanity): grinding through 85 grueling levels via gathering Professions alone. Think it’s all a hoax? The proof is in the profile pudding—Everbloom’s character profile plainly shows that he/she/it has reached the level cap without killing a single enemy. But what’s this? One completed quest?! Not exactly—this was an unfortunate misstep, where a quest was completed simply by opening a letter from an NPC (which Blizzard couldn’t redact). Nonetheless, this is an imposing achievement, especially considering that the character was created around last November.
For the players who think they’ve seen and done it all in Azeroth, this seems like the ultimate challenge and test of will, akin to old Diablo II challenges of pacifist Hell completions. Everbloom highly recommends the experience, saying:
“Being on the ground and sneaking around mining and herbing and eventually archaeology, going everywhere to get every single point of discovery xp that you can, really gives you a chance to see an amazing world up close and personal. I spent hours swimming around reefs and flying to the farthest reaches of the maps… I have been playing since day 1 on other characters and I even have an original Loremaster (you know, back when it was hard) and I saw so MANY new things with Everbloom that it really made it worthwhile for me to continue on with this character, and each level was a major achievement!”
The folks over at MMO Champion uncovered something interesting: BatTroll! You’ll likely see him swinging from spires in Ogrimmar fighting crime by the light of the moon, striking fear into the hearts of any Alliance who would dare attempt to sneak through the gates and lurk about the city at night.
Seriously, the video above is of the epic flight form that Troll Druids can expect to earn for themselves when they level to the point where they can get it – since currently the only Druids in the game have unique flight forms for their races, you can expect to see more epic flight forms come down the pike before Cataclysm is released next month – now less than a month away!
Still, you have to admit – those guys look ugly as sin, don’t they? Although I admit, seeing them swooping down on me from the skies in PVP would be pretty terrifying.
So it might still be a little early to ask the question we always ask after every major content patch or series of changes, but we’re going to ask it anyway: How’s that patch 4.0.1 working out for you?
See that image up there? If you haven’t been paying attention, Druids lost the ability to permemently stay in the Tree of Life form, and to boot, they lost the familiar old stubble-legged tree that we’ve come to know and love. Now, when they turn into a tree, they become the model you see above (with different colors to match their character appearance) and can only stay in the form for 30 seconds. Makes staying in tree form during boss fights pretty difficult, don’t you think?
In 4.0.1 we essentially all got a brand new game. Add-ons are still largely broken for a large part, the UI and graphics have been updated remarkably, Archeology has been added to the game, and all in all the groundwork has been laid for Cataclysm to be released.
In the interim though, what do you think? How have your characters been adjusting to the changes? Any highs or lows to report? Are all of your add-ons still busted or did you make it through the changes unscathed? Sound off in the comments!
Warning: This is likely to be a bit long-winded. For that, I apologize.
First I have to state my unbelieveable hatred with cows. I don’t hate cows the animal, I hate the race Tauren. I don’t hate them in the way most people hate Blood Elves, but I hate their size. I hate their mounts. And I hate how much screen real estate they possess. That being said, the majority of my toons are Horde. I made myself a druid cow, and truly had no idea what I was doing. At level 18, I hated it. I shelved the toon in favor of leveling something else (see: Bubble Pally). The boyfriend and I are on a very Horde heavy server. Any time the balance between Horde and Alliance is tipped that far, it means that since the majority if the population is on one side, it also means the majority of the, uh, “not nice” (see: douchebag) players are also on that faction. The boyfriend and I rolled Alliance toons. I can’t speak for him, but I gladly went Alliance because I was so tired of the douche-baggery prevalent on Horde side.
On Alliance, since the boyfriend made a warrior I decided to try my hand at healing… as a druid. I hit 80 recently, and have been slowly working at obtaining gear. I have to say, I love it. I love playing a druid! LOVE!
Blizzard unveiled some previews of what the Cataclysm talent trees will look like based on some of the changes they’re making in the alpha test, and WoW.com has the scoop, including a wealth of analysis on the tree previews that have been released.
So far, Rogues have had their trees previewed, along with druids, shamans, and priests. Now Wow.com has had their columnists dissecting some of the specific trees and specs to reflect on what the trees may mean, so click through as the new columns are added. It’s pretty big news, and it’s a little unlike Blizzard to let news this major out unless we’re closer to a Cataclysm beta than we may have originally thought. Here’s hoping!
If you look at the patch 3.3.3 notes, you’ll see that feral druids will get a boost to their Mangle damage if they choose to glyph for it. Well, there’s a slight bug on the PTR, where the Glyph of Mangle actually increases Mangle damage by 6000%, instead of what it’s supposed to be – a much smaller number.
The result? The video above, which shows some pretty insane crits by a feral druid lurking about Orgrimmar having a great time. We’re talking SIX. DIGIT. CRITS. Click play, bump up the video quality, and have a blast. There’s absolutely no way this is getting to the live realms, but it’s fun to watch!
