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Know Your Lore: Resurgence of the Infinite Dragonflight
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Long ago, the Titans empowered five dragons with unique abilities and powers, entrusting to them the protection of Azeroth itself. While each had their own specialization with its own odd foibles, none were as strange as the task set to Nozdormu. Aman'Thul, Highfather of the Pantheon, entrusted Nozdormu with the task of watching over time -- to guard the myriad paths of time and keep them pure. A strange task, to be certain, and one with a heck of a lot of power involved. To keep Nozdormu from abusing that power or thinking that he answered to no one, he was given the knowledge of the exact moment of his demise. Yet somewhere in one of those myriad timelines, this apparently wasn't enough. Somewhere, somewhen, Deathwing prevailed and brought about the Hour of Twilight, leaving Nozdormu a haunted, twisted version of his former self -- a version that cared little for the restrictions or rules bestowed by the Titans, and cared much more for preserving his own skin and preventing his own death. The twisted version called himself Murozond, first of the Infinite Dragonflight, intent on bending time and changing events solely for the purpose of evading his inevitable demise. We defeated Murozond in End Time, and prevented the Hour of Twilight from taking place. But have we actually saved Nozdormu? Have we secured time itself?
Know Your Lore, Tinfoil Hat Edition: Twists in time
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Two weeks ago, we looked briefly at the Timewalkers and the strange goings-on on the Timeless Isle. Since then, players that have been dutifully completing Kairoz's weekly quests have reached the end of the mysterious visions Kairoz has been trying to pinpoint -- with some disturbing results and implications. In fact, the whole mad journey has been a steady trickle of unanswered questions and dizzying scenarios that might or might not be true. Or perhaps they're all true, just in different versions of reality. And that's the bronze dragonflight in a nutshell. It's a headache-inducing puzzle of events that might have been, have been, never been, and may have meant to be but hadn't, that can't quite be untangled. Led by Nozdormu, the bronze dragonflight's missive has always been to protect and observe the pathways of time. The Titans gifted Nozdormu with the knowledge of when and how he would die as a warning, a lesson -- that no matter how powerful Nozdormu might think he was, he, just like any mortal, would have to answer to time eventually. This was meant to keep the Timeless One in check, an effective plan. But did it really work? Today's Know Your Lore is a Tinfoil Hat edition, meaning the following is a look into what has gone before with pure speculation on how it happened. These speculations are merely theories and shouldn't be taken as fact or official lore. Please note: This post contains spoilers for events on the Timeless Isle.
Two Bosses Enter: Murozond vs. Mannoroth
Your first finals contender for this season of Two Bosses Enter is here! The Echo of Sylvanas summarily defeated the Echo of Baine, crushing the vote and positioning herself for a huge win at the end of the tournament. People just love them some Sylvanas, don't they? What can I say? And, speaking of Echos, if you don't mind, I will begin at the beginning ... Your second finals contender is about to be crowned. Murozond, twisted and tainted, exists as a separate shadow of his former Aspect, Nozdormu, in every moment. His time has not come -- it came for an eternity before this moment and will come for an eternity after this moment. Mannoroth, destroyer of worlds and the lives existing on each, seeks only destruction of all things standing in the way of total universal domination by the Burning Legion. Two beings built for pure chaos face off this week in the Two Bosses Enter arena! Cast your vote now. Seriously, cast your vote. The buttons call to you, like the sirens to Odysseus, except that you aren't tied to the mast ... and now you've crashed into Fun Island! Just vote. %Poll-74597%
Arcane Brilliance: Gearing your mage up for the Raid Finder in patch 4.3
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week we discuss some ways to make sure your mage's wardrobe is filled with only the prettiest dresses, most mysterious cowls, sparkliest wands, and ... er, staffiest staves. Patch 4.3 has been with us for a good solid month now, and I sincerely hope that by now we've all escorted our mages through a good portion of the new content it offers. As all the best patches do, 4.3 has ushered in a fresh tier of gear and a new progression hierarchy to follow in getting said gear. Best of all, we have a whole new gearing tool to play with in the Raid Finder. If you happen to be one of those mages who looks at his item level and finds it still languishing somewhere below the minimum requirements to join the battle to vanquish Deathwing, I believe a gearing guide is in order. Without further preamble, I present Arcane Brilliance's Handy Guide to Shiny Things, patch 4.3 edition.
Spiritual Guidance: Shadow priesting the End Time heroic
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. On Wednesdays, shadow priesting expert Fox Van Allen comes from out of the shadows to bask in your loving adoration. He is also scientifically proven more beautiful than boomkin blogger Tyler Caraway. Recently, I've found myself playing World of Warcraft more and more. It's all because of my new shadow priest I finished leveling on Horde side. Even more specifically, it's because of the new 5-man heroics in patch 4.3. There's nothing I like more than fresh content. The first of the three new 5-man instances is called End Time. It's got a great concept: You travel forward in time to a post-apocalyptic Dragonblight nightmarescape. In this (soon-to-be) false future, Deathwing was not stopped and the maddened Echos of faction leaders roam a destroyed world. With treasure. As a level 85 shadow priest, it's your duty to travel to End Time, beat up the baddies, steal their loot, and ignore all the terrible time paradoxes your action undoubtably causes. There are five different bosses in End Time. Your party will randomly face two of four different Echoes (Baine, Jaina, Sylvanas, Tyrande). After beating the first two bosses, your party will teleport to the Bronze Dragonshrine to face off against the dragon Murozond in what is arguably the most fun 5-man fight of the entire expansion.
Shifting Perspectives: The best and the worst of patch 4.3
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This Tuesday, we chortle our way through 5-man trash. Oh, patch 4.3. I didn't know what to expect from you after so many bad, ugly, or just plain bizarre PUGs on the public test realm, but you turned out to be pretty cool. I don't have to wear ugly gear anymore, the Dragon Soul raid is live, Vengeance blows up like a grade school volcano science experiment, and Deathwing no longer roasts all my archaeology dig sites with the sadistic glee of an NPC who knows that I will never get the Crawling Claw if I am dead. On the downside, I have to deal with Echo of Tyrande trash ("Hey, where'd the healer go?"), and Thrall still does not seem to have realized that the rest of the world moved on to epic mounts several years ago. You win some, you lose some.
Patch 4.3: End Time, Well of Eternity and Hour of Twilight images
The new patch means new heroics -- and just in case you haven't been wandering around on the 4.3 PTR yourself, we've got a collection of images from all three of the new heroic dungeons. The new heroic dungeons are located in the Caverns of Time as well as the Dragon Soul raid. Two heroics, End Time and Hour of Twilight, are located in a new corridor to the right of the Battle for Mount Hyjal entrance. You'll know you're there when you see all the scenic charred trees and ashes. If you head down the corridor, End Time is the first entrance on your left; if you head to the end of the corridor, you'll see the entrance to the Dragon Soul raid on your left and the entrance to Hour of Twilight on your right. But what about Well of Eternity? Well, that dungeon has its own entrance -- it's on the other side of the caverns, next to the entrance for the Black Morass instance. Of course, if you're queuing via the Dungeon Finder or the new Raid Finder tool, you won't need to travel. But if you want to know what you'll see once you're inside, take a peek at the galleries below for screenshots from each zone and the bosses within. %Gallery-140330% %Gallery-140331% %Gallery-140332% Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
Know Your Lore: The Dragon Soul
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. It was a tiny, small, inconsequential disc. Golden in color, simple in appearance, the talisman was far more dangerous than any could comprehend. Well ... almost anyone. The goblin servants of Neltharion, the Earth-Warder, created the object, and even they weren't truly aware of just how terrible that creation truly was. For the golden disc held not only the power to tear through the Burning Legion; it held the power to control every dragon, every flight in the world -- with the exception of Neltharion, of course. For he would rule them all. The voices told him so and promised him glory above all creatures of the world, mortal or immortal, no matter how insignificant. The Burning Legion was simply an army of pests to be eliminated, as were the kaldorei; the War of the Ancients was a petty squabble marring the glorious moment of his ascension. It was only a matter of time. The Dragon Soul was perhaps the most dangerous creation in existence, and it was held in the claws of a dragon that was most certainly completely insane. Today's Know Your Lore contains some information regarding Thrall, Twilight of the Aspects, the 4.3 5-man dungeons and the Dragon Soul raid. If you're avoiding spoilers, I'd skip this for now.
Lichborne: Death knight tips for End Time
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. In patch 4.3, the very first new dungeon you'll set foot in is End Time. Despite being set in the future, it's the first dungeon the storyline takes you to, and even the Dungeon Finder won't let you go to the other two dungeons until you have the achievement for clearing out End Time. The loot you'll grab from here will be ilevel 378, which means it'll be mostly sidegrades for those who have been keeping up on their valor points and/or raiding Firelands. It's still a great chance to fill out your off-sets or gear up a newer or more casual death knight, for sure. With that in mind, today we're taking a quick look at the fights and loot of the End Time dungeon. This guide will focus primarily on the role of the DPS or tank death knight in the dungeon. Keep a lookout for a more complete guide for all roles, classes, and fights coming to the site soon.
Shifting Perspectives: Druid tanking and healing in End Time
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This Tuesday, we reach End Time. Every so often as a tank or healer, you get the uncontrollable urge to scream various profanities at your group and ragequit in the middle of a pull just to show the bastards who's boss. Unfortunately, there's not much content that's really forgiving to this approach, and it's kind of a jerk thing to do on its own. Most of the time, you either have to suffer in silence as the group blames you for everything that has ever gone wrong with their lives, or else drop group and eat the Dungeon Finder cooldown. But that is no longer true. In patch 4.3, Blizzard has bestowed upon our little world a heroic boss known as Murozond, who upends the traditional responsibility to our groups and encourages us to care about nobody but ourselves. The developers have given us the greatest gift that any tank or healer can get: Revenge.
The Queue: Late '90s nostalgia trip
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Your regularly scheduled Mike Sacco has been postponed due to rain. Enjoy whatever this is instead. Fantastik asked: So what is the WoWInsider crew's best guess as to when they think 4.3 is coming out?
The Lawbringer: Glider's story ends
Pop law abounds in The Lawbringer, your weekly dose of WoW, the law, video games and the MMO genre. Mathew McCurley takes you through the world running parallel to the games we love and enjoy, full of rules, regulations, pitfalls and traps. How about you hang out with us as we discuss some of the more esoteric aspects of the games we love to play? Deathwing isn't the only great beast to be impaled to death in an End Time this year, it seems. The tale of Glider, one of the biggest and most famous automation bot software packages for World of Warcraft, is effectively over. Based on reading various blog links (sent by a reader, thank you much) and a hefty amount of Internet Wayback Machine research, it appears that the lawsuit was settled and Glider is no more. What were the terms of the settlement, and why did Glider settle after the news back in 2010? When I last updated you all about the Glider case back in December 2010, the courts reversed much of the decision in regards to the EULA copyright infringement claims but not with respect to violations of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, as Glider circumvented the Warden software to essentially hack Blizzard's software. MDY Glider was not victorious per se, but it was definitely in a better position than it would have been had the copyright infringement stuff stood.
Lichborne: Preliminary patch 4.3 impressions for death knights
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. With the patch 4.3 PTR up for a week now, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about its effect on death knights. It helps that I have been playing a decent amount of PTR over the last week, so I have a lot to talk about. Of course, the first thing we'll want to take about is the centerpiece of the patch, the ultimate and greatest feature of WoW to date, transmogrification. After much trial, error, and agonizing, I've come to conclusion that Acherus Knight's Gear, the original green starting stuff we get upon creation, is truly the best look. For my personal set, I swapped in my Greaves of the Slaughter just because I didn't like the barefoot look, but other than that, it's pretty amazing. If you didn't save your own set, you may be out of luck, but I am hearing rumors that Darkmoon Faire could give us a chance to get the set again. Unfortunately, the Faire's not up for testing yet, so I can't confirm that at the moment. Of course, you can only play pretty dress-up for so long before you need to go back to slaying monsters (and I say this as someone who absolutely adores playing pretty dress-up on my WoW characters), so moving on, we'll take a look at the rest of this thing.
The OverAchiever: Examining patch 4.3's new achievements
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, all hell breaks loose. Hey folks. The Littlest Pet Shop option was the most popular choice in last week's The OverAchiever: Wrapping up Mountain O' Mounts, but that was before all manner of patch 4.3 goodness was datamined on Tuesday night. I spent the subsequent 24 hours in a caffeine-fueled haze running three characters around the PTR investigating the new achievements for you. I bring tidings of great, albeit currently bugged, joy to you all.
WoW Insider Live Stream: End Time
In the interests of providing you with the most up-to-date information, we are presenting you, the readers, with a live stream of one of the new dungeons to hit the PTR, End Time. Join Matthew Rossi, Mat McCurley, Alex Ziebart and Anne Stickney as they slog through the perils of what the future of Warcraft has to offer, with full commentary. Check out the live stream above, or take a look at the streaming page for a look at the new dungeon and some transmogrified gear while we're at it! Update: The stream is now over. Thanks for tuning in! Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
Patch 4.3 PTR Video: Full run of 5-man dungeon End Time
Earlier this morning, I popped on to the PTR to test out patch 4.3 and jump into the new 5-man dungeons coming with the new patch. The first dungeon in the three-part series is End Time, where the players are escorted into the future by Nozdormu to do battle with echoes of the past and to confront Murozond, the leader of the Infinite Dragonflight. This was my first run-through of the dungeon, and you can watch me as I learn the new fights and explore the new instance. It's a fun learning experience full of mistakes, Dungeon Journal reading, and unmitigated excitement. Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
Patch 4.3 PTR: New loading screens and zone maps
You can't hit a new dungeon without knowing where you're going these days, can you? MMO-Champion has datamined the new loading screens for all three new dungeons, the new Darkmoon Faire, and the Dragon Soul raid, and Wowhead News snapped up maps for all the new instances, as well as some old. The zone maps include not only the new instances and raid dungeons, but a new map for the Vault of Archavon, the Forge of Souls, and Baradin Hold. Baradin Hold seems to indicate we'll be seeing a third boss with this patch. I wonder what will happen to the wandering eyes of Occu'thar? Check out the gallery for a look at all loading screens and maps for patch 4.3. %Gallery-135016% Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Look at what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
Patch 4.3: Blizzard's official preview of the End Time heroic dungeon
After the round of interviews about Patch 4.3 last night, Blizzard has released a preview of the first in the upcoming linked, thematic Caverns of Time dungeons that we'll be exploring in our efforts to defeat Deathwing once and for all: End Time. It's a doozy. Unlike previous CoT instances, this one sends the players into the future after Deathwing wins, to help Nozdormu find the reason he's blocked from accessing the past -- specifically, to the time before the Demon Soul was hidden by Malfurion. Along the way, you're forced to battle various former Horde and Alliance leaders, now reduced to echoes of their former sanity, and then the mysterious, malefic maestro of madness Murozond, an anomaly in the timestream not even Nozdormu can unravel. Check out all the screenshots and get a preview of the experience at the official site, already. Not even a Volkswagen Beetle van full of heavily armed people could stop me now. Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Look at what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
