Alizabal, the newest raid boss in Baradin Hold has arrived, and Manaview is here to show you how to manage this wicked encounter.  Once locked-away in Kirin Tor’s, Violent Hold, Alizabal was relocated to Baradin Hold in Cataclysm, to better manage the Mistress of Hate.

With the Tol Barad prison losing control of the shivarra, your raid is called in to deal with her. And since the most dangerous of foes are the ones you are less familiar with, Manaview is proud to provide you with a step by step guide to the Alizabal raid encounter. Just remember it is OK to get close,  just don’t stay close for long.

–Spells & Abilities–

Skewer

Alizabal skewers her target, stunning, inflicting 10k physical damage every 2 seconds, and increasing that targets damage taken by 150%.

Blade Dance

An area-of-effect ability that inflicts 12.5k damage every second to any players within 13 yards, and in return deflecting all attacks on herself.

Seething Hate

Alizabal places Seething Hate into a selected raid member. Inflicting the target for a total of 200k in 10-mans, and 600k in 25-mans. The damaging effect is split evenly amongst any players within 6 yards of the inflicted target.

–How to Slay Alizabal?–

Much like the other encounters in Baradin Hold, the Alizabal fight should not be considered trivial. In other words, it is basically a tank and spank. Take Notes!

1. Engage the boss like you would for most boss encounters. Have a hunter misdirect Alizabal onto an AFK player, and laugh! No for real though, have your main tank engage the boss where she stands, turning her away from the raid, and with the off-tank stacked on the main tank. The rest of the raid including them squishy healers, have them stacked on the rear of this shivarra
2. Hold your positions, and when Alizabal is about to cast her Skewer ability, the unaffected tank has to taunt immediately to avoid her from running rabid throughout the raid. Continue to have the tanks taunt off one another whenever she uses Skewer.
3. Now here is why we had everyone stack up. Alizabal will begin to incite a random raid member with Seething Hate inflicting 200k (10m) or 600k (25m). When stacked together,  this damage will be mitigated amongst the raiders that are within 6 yards of the inflicted raid member. Remain stacked and heal through the damage. Meanwhile the tanks continue to taunt off one another threw Skewer.
4. RUN! Once Alizabal begins to cast Blade Dance it is important that everyone, without hesitation run away from her to avoid the area-of -effect damage that comes with the ability. Even the tanks should make a valiant effort to avoid this attack as well. Once Blade Dance has finished the raid must return to its original positions, with the raid stacked on the rear of the boss, and the tanks  turning her away from the other raid members.
5. Rinse and repeat.

–Rewards–

New Season 11 PvP gear, and of course Tier 13 legs and gloves.

You can practice these techniques right now by testing yourself against the Zul’Aman bear run. While this run is fairly trivial for players in Firelands gear, it’s still a challenge for those wearing 359 JP gear or the 353 iLevel for which the dungeon is tuned. But even if you outgear the instance, you can still perfect these strategies.

Communication

Communication is the most important factor in conquering a dungeon quickly. It’s why you rarely see a bear run finished in a PUG unless the players vastly overgear the dungeon. Little to no communication is ever established and if everyone isn’t on the same page, accusations fly and slow the group down even more.

Good communication doesn’t mean you have to have Ventrilo or another voice program, but it certainly helps. It’s much easier to say something quickly than it is to type it. If you’re running dungeons using voice chat, however, you’re probably running them with a guild or friends, and that will also give you an advantage.

Try queueing for ZA using the Random Dungeon Finder. Make sure you check the Dungeon Guide box. Before the doors are even opened, assess your group and sort out which bosses you’re doing first, what you’ll skip, when you’ll use Bloodlust/Heroism, and how quickly the pace can be set. Make sure everyone’s familiar with the instance and is in agreement on whether or not there will be looting or anything else until the end.

You may find your instruction unwelcome in a PUG, but it’s all in how you phrase it. Make sure everyone wants to do a timed run and take it from there, asking if there are any objections or contributions to the plan. Many PUGs suffer from lack of leadership, but you also don’t want to be That Guy who throws his weight around.

Dungeon Awareness

To pull off a successful timed run, everyone in your group needs to know the instance. It’s not just the tank’s responsibility, because DPS will need to know what to avoid and what to focus, and healers need to know when they can drink and when they have to conserve mana and press on.

In ZA, knowing the instance well is a huge part of getting it done in time. You have to know there are whole packs you can skip, and even more with the use of creative abilities like Water Walking or Mind Soothe. Your tank needs to have marks hotkeyed and know which mobs need to be CC’d and which need to be focused. Your CCers need to know which mark to CC and need to be on the ball as soon as the mark goes out. Now that CC doesn’t draw aggro there’s no excuse for taking more than a few seconds to get it done. It may not be needed for your group, but it’s less mana your healer has to use and less chance they have to drink.

Dungeon awareness can be difficult to practice in a PUG. First you should check to make sure everyone has completed the dungeon before, then lay out a clear plan. Very few people will speak up and you can’t assume everyone knows shortcuts or proper targets. If someone makes a mistake, don’t lay into them. It wastes time and it will help nothing. Try to salvage the situation and recover as you can, pushing forward all the while.

Group Composition

When you outgear an instance, most any group composition will do. But you won’t have that luxury for Dungeon Challenge Modes and you’ll need to get used to stacking the deck. Players can overcome class problems with skill, but sometimes it’s something you can’t avoid, like the lack of CC for warriors and DKs.

How much you stack the deck depends on the dungeon and what you need, but it’s always good to have at least one melee and one ranged, at least two consistent forms of CC, someone providing Replenishment, someone providing Bloodlust/Heroism, and someone who can battle rez.

When planning your ideal group, consider the dungeon. What types of mobs are in it? Where’s most of the damage going to come from? Is there a lot of room to move around? If I decided to stack a group for ZA, assuming all players had equal skill, I might choose an enh shaman, sv hunter, and shadowpriest for DPS, then a druid healer and a warrior tank. ZA requires moving swiftly through things, and the warrior and druid have great mobility; the druid can also brez. The shadowpriest gives passive healing and can Mind Soothe one of the bear packs. They can also DoT up while moving. The enh shaman provides a lot of buffs including Bloodlust/Heroism and can easily CC and purge. The hunter offers great CC and other utility and can give extra buffs to the group with their pet. They can also feign and Mass Res the group as needed.

That’s just one example, and certainly not what everyone would choose as an ideal group, but it is balanced enough to provide a lot of  tools and account for different situations. If it comes down to it, though, the player with more skill will always be the better choice, and when Dungeon Challenge Modes become active with normalized gear, skill will trump almost everything else when deciding how to build your group.

Now we want to give 10 lucky fans a Winged Guardian Cub of their own!

Announcing Manaview’s first ever giveaway event, a 3-day contest running from Wednesday, November 2nd through Friday, November 4th.

There are two ways to enter:

1. Like us on Facebook *

OR

2. Post on our wall answering this question: How has Manaview helped improve your WoW experience?

On Saturday, November 5th we will choose 10 winners total: 5 winners will be randomly drawn out of the new Likes on our page, and 5 will be given to the best answers posted on our wall.

Winners will be notified before November 7th and will be sent a code to redeem their Winged Guardian Cub. From there it’s yours to do with as you wish! Give it to a friend, sell it on the AH, or keep it for your collection.

How To Enter

Prizes

Ten (10) winners will be chosen to win a Winged Guardian Cub pet.

Five (5) of those winners will be randomly selected from Likes on the Manaview Gaming page.

Five (5) of those winners will be chosen from the best responses to the prompt question.

Winners will be sent a code to redeem their Winged Guardian Cub pet. All winners must have a valid email address and a valid Battle.net account to redeem their prize.

In the event that winners cannot be reached, runners up will be chosen to receive the prize.

Official Rules

Next in our series, the Warrior:

This guide is only intended to provide a general overview of the potential Warrior Leveling Specs as of Patch 4.2. For a more comprehensive guide including options for all styles of play, the best glyph choices, and rotation help, check out Edge: The first ever talent, glyph, and rotation adviser.

Arms

Leveling Type: Questing

Heirlooms: Bloodied Arcanite Reaper, Swift Hand of Justice x2, Polished Valor Plate set

Build: 33/8/0 http://www.wowhead.com/talent#LGrccRMRurkcbzZ0b:McmaRccz0

Arms is an ideal solo questing spec because it is hardy due to self-healing, but can still put out a lot of damage. Your strategy involves taking on several mobs (at least 3) at once. With a Bloodied Arcanite Reaper, your Mortal Strike will completely destroy mobs until level 40 or so, and it still takes a big chunk out even after that. This build takes advantage of AE and a couple AE glyphs, so make use of it and pull big! Try to quest in clustered areas.

Ideally what you can do is mount up, run into all the mobs you want, Shout for rage, Rend, Thunderclap to spread it, and then start working your actual Arms rotation. Cleave whenever it’s up. Sweeping Strikes. Then you can work down mobs with Mortal Strike, Colossus Smash, Slam, and Overpower. Keep Rend up by hitting Thunderclap when it’s about to drop off, and always make use of your Victory Rush procs. In an Arms spec you should stay at full health through most of the fight.

Protection

Leveling Type: Dungeons

Heirlooms: Bloodsoaked Skullforge Reaver, Swift Hand of Justice x2, Burnished Might Plate set

Build: 4/0/37 http://www.wowhead.com/talent#LMbZZIfGdRRRbRu:o0Vcaso0c

Protection Warriors can be one of the most fun classes to play, though they do have a lot of abilities to use. It’s best to learn them as you go, and tanking low-level dungeons to level is a great way to do this. You’ll want to use the new tanking heirlooms they’ve added, including the 1H sword, and then pick up the best shield you can get through quests or the AH. Consider doing a little PVP at level 60 for the shield, as it will last you until level 80 and it looks great.

The single biggest problem you’ll face as a Warrior tank is rage starvation. Fortunately you have many tools for this. You’ll want to spec into Warbringer as soon as possible so you can charge in Defensive Stance, but even before that you can use a quick Battle Shout to generate enough rage to start. Charge once you can, Rend then Thunderclap to spread it. If you’re tanking a boss, always use Heroic Strike. But if you’re tanking multiples (most cases) use a glyphed Cleave to hit 3 targets. You can glyph Devastate to make it a Cleave as well which can help with threat. Always use Revenge when it’s up as it causes massive threat, and tab target Shield Slam to build threat quickly, especially with mobs about to peel.

It’s true that your biggest problem will be keeping threat, but most Warriors can keep everything on them with Rend+TClap and Cleave. Take the breathing room you’ve got to learn to use all of your tools. Interrupt spells with Pummel. Silence with Heroic Throw. Stun a mob that’s peeling off you with Concussive Blow. Use your glyphed Intimidating Shout to buy some time for your healers. Learn the fun of Spell Reflect. And of course, utilize your standard tanking cooldowns.

Fury

Leveling Type: Battlegrounds

Heirlooms: Reforged Truesilver Champion x2, Swift Hand of Justice x1, Inherited Insignia of the Horde/Alliance x1, Stockade Pauldrons, Burnished Might Plate set OR Polished Valor Plate set

Build: 4/34/3 http://www.wowhead.com/talent#LMbZIrRssdkofdZM:zcmmwomcz

Fury Warriors are a great choice for PVP. They have a high damage output including high burst, yet their survivability and utility is also quite respectable. At lower levels a Fury Warrior with a Reforged Truesilver Champion can dominate battlegrounds. It’s a grade blade with STR, STA, and a ton of resilience for the level. And later on once you get Titan’s Grip you can wield two of them!

Your basic skills are pretty simple. Raging Blow is a priority move and everything should be built around it. Don’t neglect Bloodthirst because glyphed and talented it provides quite a bit of healing and damage that is far from negligible. Slam and Heroic Strike will always be high-damage moves, but HS should only be used if you’ve got rage to spare and nothing else to spend it on.

The best Fury warriors, however, know exactly where they belong in Battelgrounds and why they belong there. Your ideal spot is protecting a healer. It may not be as flashy as camping midfield and getting all the cheap HKs, but you’ll win games by keeping a healer alive while they keep you alive. In fact this spec is designed around that, sacrificing some self-preservation glyphs/talents so you can help someone else. Use Intercept frequently to soak up damage directed at your healer. Use talented Charge to stun 3 targets. Piercing Howl to give the healer some time to get away from melee. Pummel as often as you can, then take advantage of the damage boost and pop (glyphed) Death Wish to burn down an opponent.

Continued in our leveling series, the Shaman:

This guide is only intended to provide a general overview of the potential Shaman Leveling Specs as of Patch 4.2. For a more comprehensive guide including options for all styles of play, the best glyph choices, and rotation help, check out Edge: The first ever talent, glyph, and rotation adviser.

Enhancement

Leveling Type: Questing

Heirlooms: Venerable Mass of McGowan x2, Swift Hand of Justice x2, Champion Deathdealer’s Mail set

Build: 3/36/2 http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hhZfIGMsMhRGo0b:ka0aorz0m

Enhancement is one of the best solo leveling specs simply because it is nearly impossible to die as an Enhancement Shaman unless you pull way too many mobs or do not react quickly enough. Maelstrom procs afford you instant heals, instant Ghost Wolf lets you get away fast, Spirit Wolves provide passive healing, and Shamanistic Rage is a great damage reducer on a short cooldown.

When leveling on your own, your biggest decision will be how to use your Maelstrom procs. If you are hovering at or below 50% HP, use it on a Greater Healing Wave. All other times use it on Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning depending on how many mobs you have. Drop Strength of Earth, Healing Stream, Windfury, and Searing Totems under normal circumstances. Use Stoneclaw for the absorb (glyphed) if you’re fighting something tough. Enchant mainhand Windfury Weapon, offhand Flametongue Weapon. Keep Lightning Shield (glyphed!) up. Unleash Elements and Stormstrike on cooldown, Lava Lash once Searing Flames reaches 5, Flame Shock, Lightning Bolt with Maelstrom x5, and Earth Shock if Flame Shock is already up. Always take advantage of Wind Shear and interrupt casts, especially heals.

Elemental

Leveling Type: Dungeon

Heirlooms: Dignified Headmaster’s Charge OR Devout Aurastone Hammer, Discerning Eye of the Beast x2, Mystical Chain set OR Tattered Dreadmist Cloth set

Build: 37/2/2 http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hGGGGRfkzGobZb:0roasczVM

Enhancement does great damage in dungeons, but it also has the problem of causing a lot of threat with very little to compensate unless you use the Stonebiter Weapon enchant. Elemental is a more paced playstyle, and you can support your group with ease while putting out great damage. Elemental also has the edge over AE damage, which is the biggest part of dungeon-clearing while leveling, since most tanks will pull large groups, and pull them quickly.

Stoneskin or Strength of Earth depending on group, Flametongue, Wrath of Air, and Mana Stream if you have no mana regen buff, otherwise Healing Stream (glyphed) for resists. Flametongue Weapon is your only real choice as DPS. Lightning Shield always unless for some reason you’re starved for mana. Keep Flame Shock up at all times. When it’s up on 3 targets you can start using Fire Nova for AE. Lava Burst on cooldown, Earth Shock when you have 9 charges of Lightning Shield, and Lightning Bolt all other times. With the glyph you can now Lightning Bolt on the move, so take advantage of that!

Elemental has another advantage in that, if played smartly, you can queue as an effective healer up until about 60 or so. You’ll need to gear differently (try to find some spirit) and use Water Shield and Earthliving, but you can heal well enough to keep groups alive until Outlands.

Restoration

Leveling Type: Battlegrounds

Heirlooms: Grand Staff of Jordan OR Blessed Hammer of Grace, Discerning Eye of the Beast x1, Inherited Insignia of the Horde/Alliance x1, Aged Pauldrons of the Five Thunders, Mystic Chain set

Build: 3/7/31 http://www.wowhead.com/talent#hhZbhMZfGbMsdbosd:dbMarkM0m

You may have noticed a trend here: All of the classes that have healing specs are being suggested in that spec for BGs. This isn’t a fluke by any means. DPS are a dime a dozen in battlegrounds. Healers turn the tide of battle like no other role, and learning to heal effectively in a battleground really hones your awareness and skill.

Shaman have a number of tools at their disposal that can be devastating to opponents. In addition to your heals, you’ve got totems with different effects, Purge, Wind Shear, Hex, and Ghost Wolf to escape quickly. This build includes Ancestral Swiftness so that you can do that just a bit quicker. Strategy wise, you want to stay at a node or follow a flag carrier. Keep Earth Shield on yourself if you’re being focused, otherwise Mana Shield. Use Stoneskin or Stoneclaw, Healing Stream, Flametongue, and Wrath of Air as basic totems. Keep action bar buttons for the following and use them situationally: Tremor, Grounding, Earthbind, Earth Elemental, and Fire Elemental. Glyphed, your Grounding reflects spells so save it for mages readying their Pyroblasts and have a chuckle.

Keep Riptide up at all times. Healing Surge is a good quick heal, but Healing Wave is a staple. You can also glyph this to heal yourself. Use GHW with Nature’s Swiftness. Healing Rain for AE. Chain Heal for clumped groups. Always Cleanse, as it also heals. Hex when you’re getting beat on. Try to keep enemy healers on focus and interrupt heals with Wind Shear, and hotkey Purge – it’s underused but very, very powerful.

The plan is to give players a new talent every 15 levels. This talent will be a choice out of three talents that have the same sort of utility. For example, most classes will have a talent that helps their mobility at level 15, either providing a speed boost or offering some other means of transportation.

At this point, some talents have been repurposed. Everything else is being removed completely or rolled into the base class itself. All talents that are currently mandatory are just being combined with normal skills, like instant cast Ghost Wolf for shaman.

Wowhead currently has a talent calculator based off of the Blizzcon slides. To explain the new talent tiers I’m going to use the druid calculator. Almost every class has a similar structure, so you should be able to apply this information to whatever class you choose.

Level 15 – Movement

Level 15 is all about increasing movement speed in some way. This is obviously a way to help players level faster until they can get their mount at 20, but it has longterm use in raiding and PVP. For druids, all of these movement boosts apply to cat form which you get at level 8.

Level 30 – Healing

For most classes, level 30 brings some sort of survival talent. Druids choose one of three healing cooldowns. While these are most beneficial to resto druids, even ferals can benefit from cooldowns like Renewal that restores 30% of maximum health in any shapeshift form.

Level 45 – Crowd Control

This is where you might start needing crowd control if you’re out questing in a populated area, but for the most part these talents are structured to provide benefit at endgame. For druids, two of these are castable in all forms, so ferals finally have a chance to provide something without popping out.

Level 60 – Cooldowns

It gets muddled between classes at this talent level, but most classes will have the choice of a 1-2 minute cooldown or a 15-30s activated buff. For druids this is a chance for any spec to have treants as a cooldown if they wish, though bears will have to sacrifice the current talented ability to charge.

Level 75 – Utility

It’s hard to name this one universally, as there are many differences among the classes, but for the most part this bracket is about using an ability that causes something aside from DPS to happen. Many druids are disgruntled that for them, this is mostly a bear tier.  Only one ability – a force pull of mobs toward the caster – can be used in any form.

Level 90 – Class Definers

Level 90 is the cap in MoP, so all of these talents are focused on defining what the developers think the class should be. All level 90 druid talents involve the shapeshifting mechanic and quickly shifting from one form to another, allowing them to fill another role in a pinch.

It’s not likely that they will bring this to the Dragon Soul raid until the end of its life cycle. While some players feel this is Blizzard going back on their original reasoning for having just one raid lockout between 10 and 25, it’s more likely that they are trying to put in some way for players to see content and gear up before the next patch.

I personally find this change to be a good one. Anything that gives players more options is an improvement in my book. Because I’m in a guild that has only been able to do 10 man content since this change, I can see where this might be able to rejuvenate raiding interest for the guilds that have lost it.

So what could it mean for your guild?

This change does benefit casual raiders the most, but it doesn’t take the choice away from progression raids, either. All in all I think it’s positive, and I hope they put it on all realms soon.

Personally I think this is more a convenience change than anything else. Because Southshore is no longer under Alliance control, it makes sense to have the Alliance hub closer to the Undercity, allowing both sides to complete their respective faction quests.

I admit I’m not big on in-game holidays. I will likely do the trick or treating portion on some alts for the XP, but my main interest in this holiday lies in doing the Headless Horseman holiday boss. Last year saw players able to queue via the Dungeon Finder, receiving a bag of goodies once per day. This year the boss portion of the event appears relatively unchanged, except for an upgraded loot table with iLevel 365 rings, a weapon, and a plate helm.

iLevel 365 Loot Dropped By The Headless Horseman

Let’s talk about what you’re likely to see the most: Loot dropped by the boss himself. In case you’re not familiar with this new style of holiday bosses, you can queue using the Dungeon Finder and kill the boss with 4 other people. The boss will drop one item that can be rolled on and is subject to Need Before Greed rules.

In the case of the Headless Horseman, you’ll see four different types of rings: One for agility, one for strength, one for pure int, and one for int and spirit. These rings are on par with items you can get from Firelands dailies, and they make good fill-ins if you haven’t acquired a better ring from Valor Points or raiding just yet.

The Horseman will always drop a ring and you will always have the chance to roll on it unless you already have it in your inventory, meaning you can continue to run the Hallow’s End boss until you’ve got the ring you need.

Special Loot From The Loot-Filled Pumpkin

Once per day you are eligible to receive the Loot-Filled Pumpkin for killing the Headless Horseman. As long as you have space, it will automatically appear in your inventory. In it you will find Justice Points (though not a lot, if Brewfest is any indication…), likely some of the holiday’s currency, and commonly a Hallow’s End mask.

Two items you need for the meta achievement can drop from the pumpkins: The Sinister Squashling pet and the Hallowed Helm. The chance of getting these is pretty decent, but if for some reason you don’t find them you will likely be able to purchase them from a holiday vendor.

Rarely you can find two 365-updated epics: The Horseman’s Sinister Saber and the Horseman’s Horrific Helm, an agility sword and plate helm respectively. According to the PTR, both are somewhat poorly itemized but they’re not bad items if you don’t have anything from this tier of content. Most people collect them for the on use effects, anyway: The sword summons pumpkin warriors and the helm lets out the Horseman’s cackle.

How Rare Are The Horseman’s Reins?

The Horseman’s mount is one of the most coveted rare mounts still available to players. For a long time it was one of the only mounts that could be used on the ground and in the air. It’s a great model, too, looking almost like the warlock’s fiery steed, and similar only to Attumen’s mount from Karazhan.

But last year we saw something very strange: The Horseman’s Reins wasn’t all that rare of a drop. I ended up getting 3 on different characters last year (of course not on the one that collects mounts!) and I know several people who had similar luck. While this could be a strange coincidence, I think the droprate was increased. Whether that was a glitch in the Loot-Filled Pumpkin remains to be seen.

If you want to get your hands on this mount, your best possible chance is to have multiple 85s and queue on each of them once a day. Even as a DPS you can typically get into a holiday boss in 10 minutes or less, with about 5 minutes spent on the kill itself. If you’re a tank or healer, the whole process can take less than 10 minutes total; sometimes even less than 5.

The Reins are BoP so whoever you loot them on is who they’ll stay on – this also means you’ll end up having to destroy them if you already have the mount – but at least with several 85s you have a very good shot of getting the mount on one of your characters. With 14 chances per character, the odds are in your favor.

This pet can be traded in game, right down to listing it on the Auction House.

It’s sparked quite a massive debate with players landing in extremes on one side or the other. Some believe Blizzard is legally selling gold with this tactic while others have no problem with the cub being tradable but wish there was a Bind on Account version like all the other pet store pets.

Today I wanted to do something a little different from my normal posts. I want to turn the spotlight on the WoW blogging community and highlight a few opposing viewpoints on the Winged Guardian Cub, gold selling, and Blizzard’s ethical decisions.

Blizzard Is Moving Toward Real Money Transactions

Power World: Gold takes a pretty realistic stance on this subject. The author is neither for or against the implications, but points out the true purpose of this Winged Guardian Cub:

I certainly agree with this. In the past you would pay $10 for a pet store pet and have a BoA version you could use on any character and any server. It’s essentially like buying a piece of software you can install on any computer. But this Cub is BoE, meaning you only get one. And yet you’re paying the same amount.

Ever since the announcement of a real money marketplace in Diablo 3, players have wondered about Blizzard’s motives in all of this. It’s clear that if this cub does well, they will continue to release more BoE items, allowing and encouraging buying and selling their own virtual goods with real cash.

But Are These Real Money Transactions A Problem?

I don’t think they are.

And it seems the blogosphere more or less agrees. Blizzard has stated they will never sell an advantage for real money, and a vanity pet certainly doesn’t count as an in-game advantage. Apple Cider Mage writes:

The problem with buying BoE weapons and armor, for example, is that they will very quickly become useless. Unless you make them scalable like the heirloom weapons, they lose their advantage swiftly. It’s the same thing that happens each new raiding tier. BoE epics come onto the AH and the players that can afford them get a small advantage. Soon, the AH is flooded and most people have progressed beyond the need for those items, so the advantage no longer exists.

So What’s The Real Problem With The Winged Guardian Cub?

In some ways, it has nothing to do with gold. Because of the popularity of this item, we will likely see a large number on the Auction House in the beginning, and the price will drive down. While some people are expecting this cub to translate to 10,000g, I think that’s a bit unrealistic, especially longterm.

The issue is that this pet is BoE instead of BoA. As Marks 365 explains:

It’s certainly possible that Blizzard could make all future pet store pets and mounts BoE only. While I don’t think this is a huge problem with the pets, I don’t believe the mounts should ever be BoE. It’s nice to automatically have a mount in your mailbox when you ding 20; especially a mount you don’t have to upgrade at 40, 60, and 70.

I suppose it won’t be the end of the world if these change to BoE instead of BoA, but I think a lot of people will be less willing to part with their money. It’s sure to be much less of an impulse buy.

Replica Items Available On Darkmoon Faire Vendors

Blizzard hinted at this feature in their first preview and further confirmed it in a series of blue posts. Players will be able to purchase armor – presumably with Darkmoon Faire tickets – that is specifically made for Transmogrification.

Datamining has shown the Tier 0 and Tier 0.5 armors available via the Darkmoon Faire. These are the original level 60 dungeon sets and their upgraded, epic counterparts. Unfortunately Blizzard removed the dungeon sets some time ago because they were poorly itemized and – in many cases – not in line with the new level range for several instances.

Availability Of Rare Sets Still Undetermined

One of the biggest debates right now is the absence of the Tier 3 Naxxramas armor and similarly the old Zul’Gurub and Zul’Aman armor. Because these instances were redesigned, players have no way to obtain these unique models. Naturally players that completed those armor sets feel they should have exclusive rights to it, while others want a chance to wear any armor set in the game.

Personally, I think there has to be a compromise, and I think it’s likely one will happen. After all, the Zul’Aman bear was returned to players, just in a different skin. Anyone really wanting to nitpick can tell the difference between the bears, and I suspect the same will be true of this replica armor.

In fact, there’s no confirmation that the replica level 60 dungeon set armor doesn’t look slightly different from the original.

Are Replica Sets Offering Stat Bonuses?

The curious thing when looking at the Wowhead list of replica items is that some include an Equip bonus. Blizzard has already stated  that stats and other bonuses won’t apply on transmogrified gear, but why create replica items with stat bonuses at all?

This does provide an interesting gear alternative for players turning off their XP gain at level 60 and deciding to raid or PVP in classic gear. While not the exact same as the old dungeon sets, there are some pretty decent bonuses like a flat 10% increase to hunter pet armor.

It’s an interesting consideration, but so far we don’t know how much effort these sets will take to obtain. Right now we don’t even know if they’re purchased with tickets, tokens, or through reputation and gold. We do know that this is just the tip of the iceberg, however, and Blizzard is likely to make another page on their community site once the full loot list is announced.