219 – The Instance: The Savage Lava Dong

Big News of the Week
4.1 PTR patch notes hit. The world takes pause! Were you just sitting around waiting to find out what the near future held for you in World of Warcraft? Has RIFT distracted your gase just long enough to make you worry about the future of azeroth? Already world firsted everything and need something new to chew on? Wait no longer…the PTR has you back.

The Big Stuff
“All non-damaging interrupts off the global cooldown will now always hit the target. This includes Pummel, Shield Bash, Kick, Mind Freeze, Rebuke, Skull Bash, Counterspell, Wind Shear, Solar Beam, Silencing Shot, and related player pet abilities.”

Work has begun on a new Looking for Guild system. Further details will be provided when we are ready for feedback.

Spells bound to a key now start to be cast when the button is pressed down by default, instead of waiting for the key to go up. This is an option that can be turned off in the Interface menu under Combat. Mouse clicking has not changed and operates on mouse click up.

The new Rag. Legs?
We talk a bunch about whether or not we like the new look.

The Gurubashi Tribe Persists
Originally a 20-player dungeon released in patch 1.7, Zul’Gurub will once again open its gates, featuring updated lore, all-new encounters, achievements, and improved loot! Zul’Gurub is now a level-85 five-player Heroic difficulty dungeon. To provide a new tier above the current Cataclysm dungeons, players can expect to find epic-quality item level 353 loot. The minimum average item level to enter this Heroic dungeon is 346.

The Return of Zul’Aman
“Ever a player favorite, the level-70 ten-player dungeon of Zul’Aman is being reintroduced as a level-85 Heroic five-player dungeon. Zul’Aman will join Zul’Gurub in a new Dungeon Finder tier of Heroic dungeons, providing epic-quality item level 353 loot. The minimum average item level to enter this Heroic dungeon is also 346. While Zul’Aman will be more of a throwback to the original dungeon featuring many of the same encounters, players can expect to find some updated gameplay mechanics, as well as new environment textures and lighting.

You may be wondering about the unique mounts that were once contained therein. We’re pleased to announce that new versions of the rare raptor, tiger, and bear mounts will be available, while the old versions of these mounts will remain unique to those who already have them. We’ll reveal more about how these updated mounts can be obtained in the future.”

The patch is bring some additional achievements! “Along with a host of new pets and mounts, in patch 4.1, two new pet collecting achievements will be coming: Petting Zoo, for collecting 100 pets, and Menagerie, for collecting 125 pets. No new pets announced but that always comes.

Achievement for learning the Vial of the Sands mount, a new achievement called Cataclysmically Delicious for dining on 100 different kinds of food, and a new drinking achievement called Drown Your Sorrows for drinking 50 different types of beverages. A new achievement called Thirty Tabards, which you complete upon equipping 30 unique tabards. Other various achievements tied to the new dungeon redos, etc.”

New pets and mounts a comin!
“Landro’s Lichling (most likely from the TCG) Nightsaber Cub Wintersaber Cub Panther Cub

New mounts include the following:
Armored Razzashi Raptor Beryl Fire Hawk Crimson Fire Hawk Flameward Hippogryph Savage Raptor Swift Zulian Panther.”

Rumors & Scuttlebut
Hunters can now tame a Hydra! Maybe. At least we have a hint that there is one coming, according to WoWinsider. Account-wide achievements not quite ready for primetime: As blizzard Blue, Wryxian tells it, Blizzard is not quite ready to pull the lever on this much requested next step in WoW achievments. He says as much in his latest blue post on the official forums:

“We do like the idea of account-wide achievements and it is something we have liked for a while. However we don’t currently have the tech to be able to implement them as we’d like to, and probably won’t have that for quite some time.

Account-wide professions or reputations are not something that is currently on our to-do list. If we were to think about that kind of thing, we’d have to carefully consider such a change as it has potential to heavily favour those of us who enjoy playing multiple alts. People who prefer just playing one character might not really see that as fair.” Plus your live calls, and twitter responses to what the hardest thing in the game is right now.

Drop of the Week
MMO Champion has the skinny on Battlegrounds, and who wins! Wether you swing allliance or horde, you might be interested in seeing how the battle ground stats play out of the past year or so. You may or may not be surprised to see that the wind blows in the hordes favor…by a lot.

People often wonder what the Horde/Alliance win ratio in battlegrounds are, Blizzard never gave away those % but the question can be answered by scanning a lot of characters on the Armory and compiling their battlegrounds wins statistics.