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Blizzard devs have created some nifty new gadgets for those wondering about the changes to the class talent system in World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. See what exactly you’ll be able to do with these doo-hickeys below.

Are you curious about the changes and additions in store for class talents in Wrath of the Lich King? The new interactive talent trees for every class are now live. Please note that all talent information is not yet finalized, and is subject to significant change during the testing process. Talent calculator stats may differ from those seen in the Wrath of the Lich King beta, as they may reflect more current information. If you have any issues with viewing the calculators, which can happen when they are updated, clear your temporary Internet files and reload the page to resolve the issues.

Talents

Talent points are one of the main ways to customize your character in World of Warcraft. They can make your character a specialist in one of their available class roles, change their entire playstyle, and offer countless combinations for you to experiment with. Characters begin gaining talent points at tenth level, with one additional point per level gained thereafter.

Talent points are assigned on your character’s Talent window (accessible by pressing “N” upon reaching level 10). Talents can improve your existing abilities, give you new abilities, create new synergies between abilities, and more. Each class has three unique talent trees, each focusing on a different area. The possible talent points in the three trees are far greater than the maximum number of talent points that you can earn at maximum level. Thus, how you choose to spend your precious talent points is an important decision that should be planned and executed with careful deliberation.

Talent Trees

Every class has three talent trees that are organized by the focus of the talents in that tree. Mages, for instance, rely primarily on their spells, which are broken up into the arcane, frost, and fire schools - which are also the names and focuses of their three talent trees. The talents in a particular tree will tend to improve the abilities associated with that tree - for example, Improved Frostbolt in the Mages’ Frost tree. You can switch between trees by using the tabs at the bottom of the Talents window.

Talent trees are structured in vertical tiers. A minimum number of talent points must be spent in a tree to learn talents below the first (top) tier. Sometimes, specific lower tier talents must be learned as a prerequisite to learning higher-tier ones. A talent that is grayed out cannot presently be learned, either because you have no talent points to spend or because you do not meet the prerequisites to take that talent.

Starting at the “11 point” talent (thusly named because it first becomes available with the minimum 10 points spent in that tree), and every 10 minimum points thereafter invested in that tree, classes can learn a special talent that typically grants an entirely new class ability. Examples of this include Circle of Healing, the Priest’s 41 point Holy talent, Tree of Life, the Druid’s 41 point Restoration talent, and Adrenaline Rush, the Rogue’s 31 point Combat talent. Typically, these abilities must be activated to use, and boost the power of your character.

Learning Talents

To invest points in a talent, simply click on its icon until you wish to stop spending points in that talent. Keep in mind that there is no way to undo your talent choices short of resetting your entire talent build at a trainer. It will cost money to unlearn your talents in an increasing amount until it reaches a high cap.

Be sure to peruse your class’ entire array of talents before choosing them. It helps to have a goal or general theme for your character when purchasing talents, rather than picking them haphazardly. Of course, there is nothing wrong with experimentation, but you may wish to research all your class’ talents before purchasing them. The talent calculators are provided so that you can plan out your points prior to spending them. You can also use the Armory to research popular and effective talent builds.

Check out the class talent calculators HERE

World of Warcraft players are treated to a look at the upcoming achievement system to be implemented with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion due out this fall.

While Wrath of the Lich King will improve many of World of Warcraft’s existing features, it will also introduce plenty of brand-new ones to keep the game fresh and interesting. One of these new features is sure to suit a wide range of play styles: achievements. These self-contained goals will offer new challenges, satisfy goal-oriented players, allow others to see your accomplishments in World of Warcraft — and are just plain fun.

World of Warcraft’s achievements system will launch with more than 500 individual achievements covering every aspect of gameplay, including world exploration, PvE, PvP, professions, and character development; from the purely whimsical to the truly epic, there will be something for everyone. Some achievements come with in-game rewards such as tabards, vanity pets, and titles. All of these rewards are purely cosmetic and just for fun, but you’ll certainly stand out when you proudly display them.

And don’t fret about running out of achievements anytime soon. The list is easily expandable, so you can expect additional achievements with each new World of Warcraft content update.

The Achievements Window

Upon starting your journey in Wrath of the Lich King, you’ll see a new button on your main action bar. Click that button to bring up the achievements window.

The top of the window displays the total number of points you’ve received for completing achievements. Below, each achievement appears with its name, description, point value, the completion date, and a progress bar (if applicable). Some achievements expand to display a list of individual components, highlighted to show which parts you’ve finished. You can also designate which achievements to track as you play, similar to the existing quest tracker. An important design goal is to provide players with everything they need to know to unlock an achievement.

It’s great to be able to see your own achievements — but it’s even better to let the world know what you’ve accomplished. By right-clicking other players and selecting the appropriate option, you can compare your achievements to theirs. Every time you earn a new achievement, your accomplishment is announced to your guild and everyone in your immediate vicinity — and the custom achievement animation and sound effect are unmistakable. Also, your achievements will be viewable on the Armory, allowing you to track and show off your accomplishments via the web.

Types and Categories of Achievements

World of Warcraft’s achievements come in several varieties. Some simply require specific actions to unlock, such as getting a haircut or defeating a member of each race in your opposing faction in PvP. Others involve a progress bar and require you to do something several times — such as give out 10 hugs. Some achievements are progressive; for example, once you complete an achievement to collect 10 vanity pets, you might next be asked to collect 25. Finally, meta achievements unlock when you complete other achievements — unlocking all World Exploration achievements (see below) unlocks a World Explorer meta achievement. Some achievements, including those that involve quests, honorable kills, items currently in your possession, skills (including professions), exploration, and reputations, will be applied to your character retroactively.

To help keep track of all the different achievements you can unlock, you’ll find the following categories in the achievements window:

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• Player-vs.-Player: This includes arena, battlegrounds, and world player-vs.-player objectives. A few examples:
  • Hot Streak: Win 10 ranked arena matches in a row.
  • Alterac Valley All-Star: Capture graveyards, towers, and kill the enemy leader all in one game.
  • City Defender: Kill 50 enemy players in your faction’s capital cities.
• Dungeons and Raids: Every end boss of every raid and dungeon in the game grants its own achievement. Future achievements in this category may include ones for completing a run without any player deaths, with fewer than the maximum number of players, or within a certain time limit.
• Professions: Advancing to each tier of mastery in a profession earns you an achievement, and there are specific achievements for secondary skills (with major professions to follow).
• Quests: Quest-based achievements include completing a certain number of quests and completing specific quest lines. This category contains zone-specific subcategories.
• Events: Seasonal events such as the Midsummer Festival, the Lunar Festival, and Hallows’ End have specific achievements of their own.
• World Exploration: You’ll earn achievements by exploring each zone in the game — and get meta-achievements when you fully explore a continent.
• Reputations: This set of achievements includes attaining exalted reputation with each faction in the game.
• General: These achievements tend toward the whimsical, including getting a shave and haircut (a new feature of Wrath of the Lich King), obtaining a certain number of tabards and vanity pets, falling from a great height, and more.

While Wrath of the Lich King will improve many of World of Warcraft’s existing features, it will also introduce plenty of brand-new ones to keep the game fresh and interesting. One of these new features is sure to suit a wide range of play styles: achievements. These self-contained goals will offer new challenges, satisfy goal-oriented players, and allow others to see your accomplishments in World of Warcraft. Take a moment to read our page about this cool new feature!

While Wrath of the Lich King will improve many of World of Warcraft’s existing features, it will also introduce plenty of brand-new ones to keep the game fresh and interesting. One of these new features is sure to suit a wide range of play styles: achievements. These self-contained goals will offer new challenges, satisfy goal-oriented players, allow others to see your accomplishments in World of Warcraft — and are just plain fun.

World of Warcraft’s achievements system will launch with more than 500 individual achievements covering every aspect of gameplay, including world exploration, PvE, PvP, professions, and character development; from the purely whimsical to the truly epic, there will be something for everyone. Some achievements come with in-game rewards such as tabards, vanity pets, and titles. All of these rewards are purely cosmetic and just for fun, but you’ll certainly stand out when you proudly display them.

And don’t fret about running out of achievements anytime soon. The list is easily expandable, so you can expect additional achievements with each new World of Warcraft content update.

We are delighted to be able to present the Russian World of Warcraft site. Our newest language site for World of Warcraft contains information about the game localized for our Russian speaking players, and will be kept up to date with news and Community information. At this time the website is a work of art in progress, but new content will be added regularly so be sure to check there often for new information. You can check out the Russian World of Warcraft site here.

from World of Warcraft Europe

Repost from WoW forums;
http://www.war-tools.com/t55828.html

Important New Changes!
*Seals are now procced by BOTH melee attacks and beneficial spells (cleanse, Holy Light, etc).
-Seal of Wisdom, Seal of Light, Seal of Vengeance and Seal of Justice all have a 100% proc rate.
-Seal of Wisdom regenerates 1% of max mana, judge: 0.5%.
-Seal of Light heals 2% of max hp, judge: 1%
-Seal of the Crusader now increases Melee and Spell haste by 20% and no longer reduces the damage done. Judgement now affects all spell damage instead of just Holy damage.
-Seal of Command removed.
-Seal of Blood replaced with Seal of Vengeance.
SEAL EFFECTS WHEN USED IN CONJUNCTION WITH A BENEFICIAL SPELL:
-Wisdom: Caster regenerates 1% max mana.
-Light: Heals caster for 2% max hp.
-Righteousness: Heals the target for X, where X = double the current dmg done.
-Vengeance: Places a HoT on the target, healing for X, where X = double the current dmg done.

*All Seals are now considered Physical effects, thus cannot be dispelled and can be casted while silenced.
*Avenging Wrath and Blessing of Protection can no longer be dispelled.
*Avenging Wrath also increases all healing done by 30%.
*Repentance is baseline with a 30 second cooldown.
*Paladins are now playable.

>>NEW ABILITIES!<<
*Evil Within: The target is considered Evil (demon) for 20 seconds. Instant cast & 2 min cooldown.
*Divine Strike: Strike the target for 50% weapon damage as Holy damage (43% coeff), reducing their melee, casting and movement speed by 25% for 15 seconds. 8 sec cooldown.
*Hand of Purity: Heal the target for X the next time it is damaged. 5 Stacks. 30 second cooldown.

Retribution Itemisation no longer has intellect = Warrior gear
Protection Itemisation no longer has intellect or spell damage = War/DK gear
Holy Itemisation stays the same.

Blizzard Quote(Source)

There’s currently a lack of new things for top end guilds to do until Lich King comes out, what are Blizzard going to do about it?

Guilds go through this during holidays, summer, etc. I understand the frustration that goes with wanting your guild to be more active right along side of you, but it always gets better as we get back into the end of summer.

Release WoTLK already!

We’re just not ready yet and we’re not going to release it until it’s ready. It would be just as detrimental to your guild for them to come back in force for an expansion that wasn’t ready for them.

Tell us when is Lich King coming out.

We can’t do this either. All I can say is that we are making very good progress and are getting there, but we’re not there just yet.

Release the new Talents

There is a lot of information that has come out of the Worldwide Invitational and can be found on various fansites . I’m sure there might be a few things there that you might find interesting. In the meantime, more information will be coming, again, once we’re ready to give it. We much prefer to avoid theorycrafting that isn’t based on real gameplay when we can. We would rather work on giving players the opportunity to play the game and experience the new content and then share feedback than before. It just gives us better feedback to work with and gives players a better understanding of new features etc.

Release new content before Lich King comes out to give us something new to do

We do not have any new content planned prior to Wrath of the Lich King. Our efforts are focused on creating new content as a part of the expansion and to change our focus to add content prior to it’s release wouldn’t be productive. I’m sorry, but I can’t give you an ETA on the release and it’s your choice if you wish to cancel to do something else. We’ll still be here and Northrend is fast becoming reality. If you choose to come back to experience it, we’d love to see you again.

Do something original.

Hopefully you enjoyed the Fire Festival recently. We try to do “something original” every chance we get provided it works within the scope and focus of the game. Again, our focus is on Wrath of the Lich King (though we still are doing some bug fixes etc as evidenced in the next patch) and changing course to give people something different from what is available to do now, would only infringe on the work we’re doing fo rthe expansion.

Please take these questions seriously.

I’ve answered what I could for you, and yes, I took your post seriously, but you also need to understand that we are progressing and have definite plans on how to best progress. We’re not ready just yet to let you in on it all at this time, but the wait shouldn’t be too bad.

Thanks in advanced Blizzard and thank you for years of fine gaming experiences.

You’re welcome and we’re hoping you’re going to find what we’ve been working on to also add to your gaming enjoyment as well.

Any chance we could see a decrease in the experience required to level from 60-70? Even if it were just for the few months before WOTLK, this would probably encourage people to level more alts.

there is a chance, but I’m not aware of any particular plans for this at this point in time. Much like we changed leveling from 20-60, it’s possible we could look at other things we can do to ease leveling in other spots where we think it needs it.

do you have any info that you can share about Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor areas that are receiving upgrades in WotLK?

As a part of Wrath of the Lich King? Hrm… I can’t say of anything in particular in the old world that is getting upgrades as a part of the expansion. Although, some players have noticed a bit of construction that is happening in Stormwind (as evidenced in the PTR.)

Much like what we did with Dustwallow Marsh, any updates would be done when we felt we could get in the time and make it worthwhile for the players. That said, it doesn’t preclude this from happening at some point in time. We’d like to improve some of the old world areas where we can, but we don’t have specific plans at this time.

Upper Deck Entertainment Europe Darkmoon Faire series of World of Warcraft TCG events will be making a stop in Antwerp, Belgium on the 19th July 2008.

Antwerp will host a sealed pack tournament featuring the latest year of World of Warcraft TCG releases. In addition to the main tournament, players have the opportunity to play in side tournaments with prizes including Nintendo Wiis, iPods and more. The tournament venue will also offer an on-site store stocked with World of Warcraft TCG products, as well as a bank of computers to log into the online game. Check out the Darkmoon Faire website for full details

We’re excited to announce that our planned team-up with Activision, first made public back in December 2007, is now a reality. All regulatory and shareholder approvals have been granted, meaning Blizzard Entertainment — along with the other companies that made up Vivendi Games — is now part of a new organization called Activision Blizzard. While this transition doesn’t impact our games, websites, personnel, day-to-day operations, or development philosophies, the combined resources of Activision Blizzard will make it easier than ever for us to deliver the best games possible to our players around the world.

Over a thousand years ago the powerful Gurubashi Empire was torn apart by a massive civil war. An influential group of troll priests, known as the Atal’ai, called forth the avatar of an ancient and terrible blood god named Hakkar the Soulflayer. Though the priests were defeated and ultimately exiled, the great troll empire collapsed upon itself. The exiled priests fled far to the north, into the Swamp of Sorrows, where they erected a great temple to Hakkar in order to prepare for his arrival into the physical world.

In time, the Atal’ai priests discovered that Hakkar’s physical form could only be summoned within the ancient capital of the Gurubashi Empire, Zul’Gurub. Unfortunately, the priests have met with recent success in their quest to call forth Hakkar’reports confirm the presence of the dreaded Soulflayer in the heart of the Gurubashi ruins.

In order to quell the blood god, the trolls of the land banded together and sent a contingent of High Priests into the ancient city. Each priest was a powerful champion of the Primal Gods’Bat, Panther, Tiger, Spider, and Snake–but despite their best efforts, they fell under the sway of Hakkar. Now the champions and their Primal God aspects feed the awesome power of the Soulflayer. Any adventurers brave enough to venture into the foreboding ruins must overcome the High Priests if they are to have any hope of confronting the mighty blood god.

Zul’ Gurub is a 20-man raid instance located in the northeastern portion of Stranglethorn Vale.

Over 120 new Epic and Superior items, including a new five piece set for each class!
Players can build up their reputation with the new Zandalar Tribe faction in order to gain a variety of rewards!
Tons of Zul’ Gurub quests available at the new base in Yojamba Isle!
Highly scripted boss encounters unlike any you’ve experienced before!