“Echoes of Doom” comes to World of Warcraft

A couple of weeks ago, Blizzard unleashed “Echoes of Doom,” its last major content patch for World of Warcraft before the Wrath of the Lich King expansion releases on November 13th. The emphasis here is on “major.” There’s a lot of new stuff in “Echoes” and it’s taken about two weeks to sort through it all, particularly with the unbearable lag that almost always accompanies a new update. I am here, however, to hit some of the high points of the new content for you non-WoWers, you once-WoWers, and maybe some of you soon-to-be WoWers. (Disclaimer: While it’d be great, albeit sad, if I had an uber-70 of every class, this will have to be written from my experience, which is predominantly of the mage and warrior varieties.)

Unfortunately, I’m forced to start with the following: no, you can’t make a Death Knight yet. And no, you can’t get to Northrend yet. Read your patch notes people! Sheesh.

The most notable new addition for the gameplay itself is new talents and abilities geared towards players ultimately achieving level 80. Instead of each talent tree peaking at a level 50 talent, they now peak at a level 60 talent. There are a lot of fun new toys to be had with these new trees, my personal favorite being my Arms warrior’s Bladestorm (pictured), an ability that lets you spin around like mad and smash your weapon into any baddies nearby. While new abilities are great, keep in mind that these are intended to ultimately be balanced at level 80, so there might be some issues for the next few weeks or so while we’re stuck at 70.

Another major new feature is the Inscription profession, available to level up to 375. Inscription allows players to create class-specific Glyphs, which augment a specific ability in some way. Each class will eventually have 6 glyph spots, 3 “major” glyphs and 3 “minor” glyphs (the last major glyph isn’t unlocked until 80, so we’re stuck with 5 for now). Glyphs change abilities in a variety of ways such as increased damage or range, or even some more off-the-wall changes, like the Glyph of Blurred Speed, which allows Rogues to run on water. My mage is enjoying his Glyph of the Penguin, which lets me turn enemies into a penguin instead of a sheep. Jealous?

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