The frost resistance gear currently in the beta is still just stamina, although all of the pieces seem to have 2-3 sockets.

I actually prefer the statless (well, except for sta) resistance gear because it usually means you only have to wear 3-4 pieces to cap. If the resistance gear has a bunch of item budget spent on spellpower or AP or whatnot then you're going to have to wear more resistance pieces to get enough resistance. (You'll come out ahead in the end, because it's more efficient to spread the item-budget over more stats, but you'll have to build or gather more gear and it'll take up more bank space.)

There's a Frost Resistance Ring and 3 other craftable resist items.

Chest: 115
Belt: 86
Boots: 86
Ring: 68
Aura: 130

For a level 83 "Boss", you need 5*83=415 Frost Resistance to "cap" out. The total from those 4 pieces and Aura is 485, Putting you 70 over the cap. You can use the Chest/Belt/Boots/Aura to get 417 and be 2 over the cap. No point in worry about "item budget" and stuff, since you get 7 sockets (3 Red, 3 Yellow, 1 Blue) to gem how you want.

[e] Either way, I don't remember anyone saying "AMG SAPH NEEDS FROST RESIST TO BEAT". Especially since it's the first tier of raiding, and it's been cleared quite a few times on beta without it.

I think blizzard's goal with resist gear is to have so much resist values on a couple pieces so you don't have to use a complete set. For example: Titanium Frostguard Ring - Item - World of Warcraft

That's also just an artifact of gear power levels going up x2 every expansion while resistances go up linearly. This is going to be a problem in pvp in future, if it isn't already. Remember shadow resist stacking before you couldn't swap gear in Arena? Now imagine that with 2 pieces giving capped resist. Yeah.

Theres several ways around it. If theres a problem with resist gear (the pieces that have large amounts of resist on a single item), simply make said gear unusable in Arena's. It doesn't fit into the idea of meta-wow, yet I think it'd be a change worth making still. Having food not generate HP in combat now is a precedent indicating they might be prepared to do things like this in future.

Been like this for a long time, before arenas, if you eat in combat you don't gain hps. I think his example would have been better with the drinking ticks being slower in arenas for the first few seconds, meaning they can actually make different rules for either pvp or pve.

I think if we get to that point we'll just end up seeing "resist rating".

That's just a byproduct of how they've coded in the health and mana regeneration from eating and drinking. They just increase the amount of spirit-based regeneration you do passively, while eating/drinking. And since spirit-based hp regen is reduced to zero in combat, the large increase remains zero.

I'm not into arenas or pvp at all, and when I get in combat while soloing I'm obviously going to stop eating. Thus while I play a Troll on basically every character, I'm not sure whether this means that trolls can actually regenerate while eating in combat where other races can't. 10% isn't much, but it's something - especially since the regeneration racial is nearly worthless otherwise (outside of fist-fight duels).

Troll regeneration racial should only affect the innate health regen of your character. Food "regen" is a buff effect. They should be completely separate and different in their mechanics.

Meaning, trolls shouldn't get any effect from food while in combat.

I doubt they'd ever to bother fixing it even if that were to be the case. Getting HP back from regen while in combat obviously requires that you start eating *before* you've been put in combat, so there is not really any way to exploit this on a boss fight. In PvP you're not able to continue eating after being put in combat unless you have a pet out, and if you're in arena it requires you to have a mage on your team. And even after all that, you'll be getting back 1k-odd HP over thirty seconds. Hardly gamebreaking.

The only corner-case I can think of (and something I almost wish I could do on my hunter :P) is for troll hunters to send their pets to grab the next mob at the same time as they sit to eat, while solo'ing. And again, the regen being dropped down to 10% effectively nullifies it.

Delete this post, I've misunderstood something

Looks like the beta is over in 45 min:

Wrath of the Lich King Beta is Over

Unless they mean they will go down at 12:00 AM PST on the 13th, they didn't shut them down yet because I am still able to log on.

Edit- It does now appear the beta realms are permanently offline.

I have noticed on my paladin in PVP situations in battlegrounds that I can, while out of combat, begin cast a heal on a player in combat and click on a drink right as the heal is ending. The heal puts me in combat but I'm able to sit and drink apparently a split second before that registers with my client. I haven't tried this with food but it sounds like you guys are saying I shouldn't see any health regen from the food until I leave combat again.

Question about Collectors edition:

I have 2 accounts, and i reserved to buy 2 copies of the expansion. One a standard for my alt account and the other a Collectors Edition for my primary account.

Unfortunately, the Collectors Edition won't arrive at my door until the monday/tuesday after release. So i'm going to a midnight release to pick up a standard copy for the alt account.

So here's my question, I want to have all the CE goodies on my main account, But i want to use the standard copy on my main account for faster access instead of pissing around on my alt account for 5 days till my CE comes in the mail.

Does anyone who got a Collectors Edition copy of BC remember if the "account extras (pet/etc..)" were keyed to the SN activation or if the added extras were redeemable seperatly?

If it's separate I'm a happy camper. If not it makes me a sad panda.

The extras for a collector's edition are only available to an account upgraded using a collector's edition. (Barring account to account character transfers)

So if you want all the goodies you'll have to wait a few days.

However, at a later date they had added a mechanism for upgrading a "normal TBC" account to a "collector's edition" TBC account. I believe two guildmates of mine did exactly this, but they're not around right now so I can't ferret out the exact details right now. They ended up burning extra copies due to this -- upgrading a single account "used up" a normal edition and a collector's edition of the game. I'm not sure whether it had to, but that's how I remember it working out for my guildies.

But this option was not available "out of the gate" when TBC was released, I do remember that much. It came at a later date.

I purchased a BC collector's edition more than a year after release (found it on a shelf at Staples for $50), called customer service, and they linked it to my account. Essentially all I got by doing that was the minipet. They were very clear on the phone that it would just upgrade my account from a normal BC to a collector's edition, and that the original version that I had already used would not be returned to me. I would imagine you will be able to do the same with LK as long as you call in to customer service, but you'll basically be buying the standard copy in order to be able to play for those few days.

Here's an interesting blue,
Source

For those curious and lazy, >here's< a WoW Head filter setup showing you all of the available epics. Apparently, they are not listed as actually dropping in naxx et al for whatever reason.

I think it's an awesome change and will help out many levels. You can sell them to finance your raids, pass them off to people that are on standby outside the instance, pass them off to alts, etc.

[Namlak's Supernumerary Sticker] is a world drop, I got one on my Rogue from a random mob in Scarlet Onslaught Harbour. I dunno how accurate the rest of that list is either.