Arcane Brilliance: Leveling your Mage, 70-80
Each week, Arcane Brilliance invites Mages everywhere over for brunch. We serve muffins, sweet rolls, croissants, and enough mountain spring water to wash it all down. Then, for dessert, Arcane Brilliance conjures strudel for everyone, because who doesn't like strudel? If you raised your hand, you, sir or madame, are a dirty, dirty liar. Everybody likes strudel.
About a billion years ago, when Warlocks still ruled the world, back in those dark days before Arcane Barrage, spellpower, and elementalist specs--in that bygone era before Death Knights appeared in Azeroth, bringing with them their ridiculous magic resistances and eighty-seven different ways to silence or interrupt--Arcane Brilliance brought you a series of Mage leveling guides. In those days, we didn't have any of this crazy "rock music" you kids listen to now, and when we fought Illidan, we had to chain pot. We walked naked twelve miles to school through nineteen feet of snow while fending off wolves and dinosaurs with our bookbags, and we liked it.
Things are different now. Nowadays, when you hit level 70, your experience bar doesn't vanish, never to return. We have ten new levels and an entire new continent to adventure our way through, new talent points to spend, new gear to pick up, and several fresh and exciting ways to barbecue zombies. It's an exciting time to be a Mage, and Arcane Brilliance is here to open a portal to level 80 for you.
If your Mage is at some other point along the leveling continuum, you can find the previous leveling guides here, here, here, and here. You can find the new one by clicking the words "read more" directly following this period.
Filed under: Mage, Analysis / Opinion, Tips, Quests, Expansions, Features, Leveling, Guides, Classes, (Mage) Arcane Brilliance, Wrath of the Lich King
Death Knight gets Thunderfury
Filed under: Items, News items, Instances, Raiding, Death Knight, Achievements
Around Azeroth: Inner fire
How vain are blood elves? Well, Niohdor of <Kalimdors Legion> on Hydraxis is so vain, he probably thinks this post is about him. Wait ... it is. Okay, he's so vain that he's hired a team of gnome magicians to give him a constant sparkly glow effect, like that vampire is supposed to have in those ridiculous Twilight books. (Before the flames, I'll note that I read them and actually enjoyed the first two before it all turned into terrible fanfiction. How can anyone actually find the whole "I love you! But I must leave in case I hurt you! No, I can't stand to be apart! Damn everyone else, we're meant to be!" thing attractive? Why can't people take their romantic cues from Casablanca instead and realize that there are more important things in the world than being in love?)
So what's really going on here, aside me having some unresolved issues with the portrayal of relationships in modern media? Niohdor writes that the second boss in Heroic Violet Hold died while doing a spellcast, and the casting graphics bugged, remaining stuck. They finished the instance with this shiny purple effect just hanging around in the middle of the floor, and Niohdor decided to take a shot for posterity.
Do you have any unusual World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see it on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as e-mailing aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!
Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word "Azeroth" in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing -- use alt-Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, double-mounts, or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran.
Filed under: Screenshots, Around Azeroth, Galleries
Breakfast Topic: Will work for Blizz
But there again, it is Blizzard, and I'd be lying if I said most people I know wouldn't give their [insert requisite body part] to work there, just to experience the culture and be part of the company that makes some truly awesome games. The sheer coolness of the company and a lot of their outward facing policies seems like being part of that team would more than make up for any abuse you might get as a trade-off. How about you? Would you be willing to step onto the front lines, taking every nasty, mean comment you're dealt with a smile - or carefully constructed snark? Would you be willing to work at Blizzard on the front lines? Or is that a bit too much of a figurative bulls-eye than you'd want painted on yourself?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast topics
The Best of Insider Trader: Our WoW Insider Profession guide round up
Note that any of the leveling guides going over skill 350 were written pre-Wrath. You should stop following the guide at 350 and look for Wrath profession leveling guides at that point. The exception to this is Inscription.
GENERAL PROFESSION GUIDES
PRIMARY PROFESSIONS
Alchemy
Blacksmithing
- Darkmoon Faire recipes for young Blacksmiths
- Outland faction Blacksmithing recipes
- Overview of Blacksmithing in Northrend
Filed under: Herbalism, Fishing, Mining, Skinning, Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Cooking, Engineering, Leatherworking, Tailoring, Enchanting, First Aid, How-tos, Jewelcrafting, (Professions) Insider Trader, Inscription, Achievements
WRUP: Home from the holidays edition
Adam Holisky: Finding some time to actually play the game. During that precious time I'll be leveling up my dual boxed recruit-a-friend Hunter and Paladin. Level 20 in 5 hours! Woo!
Alex Ziebart: Staying true to my resolution from yesterday's Breakfast Topic and working on PvP. I'm Shadow in raids, and switch back to Disc right after to dig into Wintergrasp and the BGs. I uh, don't have an arena team yet, which makes that 'don't suck at arenas' part hard to accomplish, but I'm getting there! I actually remembered that I have to switch glyphs around when I respec today. Glyph of Shadow doesn't do a lot for me when I'm Discipline, does it? Glyph of Power Word: Shield and Glyph of Dispel Magic on the other hand...
And the rest of the team? Keep reading!
Filed under: Odds and ends
Phat Loot Phriday: Forgotten Shadow Hood
Name: Forgotten Shadow Hood (Wowhead, Thottbot, Wowdigger)
Type: Rare Cloth Head
Armor: 236
Abilities:
- +54 Stamina, +44 Intellect, +66 Spirit, which makes it excellent for Warlocks or healers.
Filed under: Items, Virtual selves, Instances, Phat Loot Phriday, Lore, NPCs, Wrath of the Lich King
January's Brew of the Month: Wild Winter Pilsner
This month's Brew of the Month is actually pretty cool, which is a nice change from the slight disappointments of the last couple of months. Sure, last month's brew had a great griefability factor, but getting Ice Blocked is pretty boring!Move over, BigRedKitty. For January, BigRedPriestess is the new hotness with Wild Winter Pilsner. When you take a swig of the brew, you will sometimes get a buff: The Beast Within. It doesn't have the crazy powerful effect of the actual Hunter ability, but it does turn you big and red, and the buff lasts 5 minutes. When the buff wears off (or you click it off yourself), you'll Unleash the Beast. You roar, and give everyone's screen a little shake. Yes, everyone nearby, not just your screen.
Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Events
Snowshaman!
And hey, if you happen to get a nice bit of snowfall this month and feel like you can make a better one, feel free. We'd love to see it.
Filed under: Shaman, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Humor, Fan art
[1.Local]: Readers gone Blind
Reader comments – ahh, yes, the juicy goodness following a meaty post. [1.Local] ducks past the swinging doors to see what readers have been chatting about in the back room over the past week.You'd have to be "Blind" not to have seen the machinima everyone's been talking about this week. We posted about it not once, not twice but three times – and we're still receiving chastising notes to get busy and run it. (Come on, folks, read the blog!)
So what's all the fuss about? This machinima has garnered rave reviews (and even offers to have "man2man babies") from virtually everyone corner – although some viewers aren't fans of the music selection. "I disagree with many of the others about the music choice," observed Fawkes, who took up a midstream position between hotly contested views. "While these weren't my favorite genres to listen to, I must say I found the 'Hide and Seek' song a playful match with the action scenes. My advice to Percula would be to take their complaints into consideration, but still take this your own way."
But we didn't hear only from WI readers. Machinima rock star Baron Soosdon and "Blind" creator Percula himself weighed in.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Features, Interviews, [1.Local]
Teen arrested for making suicide threat to a GM
15 day credit given to players affected by character transfer issues
Blizzard employee offering a lifetime pass to raise money for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society
Merry Christmas from WoW Insider!
World of Warcraft hits 11.5 million subscribers
Arcane Brilliance: Leveling your Mage, 70-80![[1.Local]: Readers gone Blind](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090103204846im_/http://www.blogcdn.com/www.wowinsider.com/media/2009/01/blindlsp_thumbnail.jpg)
[1.Local]: Readers gone Blind
The Queue: Pandamonium
Scattered Shots: New Year's Resolutions for Hunters and for Blizzard
