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The Blue Child returns to Azeroth
Players who were around during classic may remember that Azeroth once had two moons: The large, white moon was called the White Lady, and the smaller, blue moon was called the Blue Child. Lorewise, the White Lady was what the night elves called Elune and the tauren Mu'sha. The Blue Child doesn't seem to have figured quite as prominently in the lore, so I guess it was an auxiliary back-up moon for when Azeroth experienced sudden spikes in moon-related demand. The Blue Child disappeared during patch 1.10.0 before the Burning Crusade. Anne's theory is that, since this coincides with Blizzard's addition of weather effects to the world, it was probably removed due to graphical errors. Whatever the reason, since then there have been only occasional references to its existence within the game: You could see it around the three-dimensional map of Azeroth in Halls of Lightning, and it was briefly visible during the Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest quest line. However, players were delighted to discover that it made a reappearance on the Mists of Pandaria beta, and it looks like patch 5.0.4 has finally restored the Blue Child to the world. Thanks to Jeff Hoskins for the tip and Dawn Moore for the picture!
Know Your Lore: The Eternals part three -- the Titans
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. The Eternals of Azeroth are by and large fairly well known by the mortal races -- the Ancients of the night elves were a strong presence in the War of the Ancients, and the trolls worked intimately with their Loa gods. But there are still Eternals out there that are by and large unknown quantities in the universe -- vague historical records have been made, but the mortal races are mostly in the dark as to who these Eternals really are, and what their purpose is in the world. Of all of the Eternals, the ones that remain the biggest mystery are the Titans, specifically the Pantheon of titans that were responsible for Azeroth's creation as we know it today. While the dwarves have uncovered a lot of information recently, there are still large chunks of time seemingly out of order or unaccounted for. There are a few different timelines, and varying opinions on what exactly occurred in each timeline -- so writing about the Titans and the creation of the world is an exercise in careful speculation. Today we'll be looking at the Pantheon -- the titan high council -- who they were, what roles they played in Azeroth, and where they are today, as well as taking a look at the creation of Azeroth.
Two Bosses Enter: Ionar vs. Xevozz
Two Bosses Enter ... but only One Boss Leaves, in WoW.com's series of fantasy death matches. Welcome to Round Two of the five-man Wrath of the Lich King season. Grab a seat, and let's get ready to rumble! Energy sweeps the Thunderdome this week as Ionar of the Halls of Lightning confronts Xevozz from the Violet Hold. Mage-Lord Urom gave Xevozz a bit of a struggle in Xevozz's first-bracket match, while Ionar easily overcame Ichoron in his own shot at a berth in this round. Which boss will zap the other's strength this week?Time for a quick review of the standard Two Bosses Thunderdome ground rules: Assume that the opponents along with their minions share similar levels, health pools and comparative overall damage output. This deathmatch takes place on neutral territory, which shall in no way hinder either combatant from using his or her usual battle abilities. All the usual minions will be available to each boss. Don't get caught up in gameplay mechanics and what actual players might do in each encounter. Don't neglect style, story and scale. And now, the weekly Thunderdome call-out: Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls ... Dyin' time's here.
The Queue: Cosmetics
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Nearly 9,000 people voted that anchovies were gross in the last edition of The Queue. I wholeheartedly disagree! However, I know when I'm beat, so consider today's picture an apology. If you think this picture is gross and don't have some sort of allergy that has caused you to form that opinion, well... I can't help you anymore. You are broken. May whatever deity (or non-deity) you believe in have mercy on your soul (or whatever your belief system keeps inside of your squishy bits).Zayd asked..."How long before Blizz let you change your characters race? If we can soon change faction then this seems the next logical step, it's just a cosmetic change when you get down to it..."
The OverAchiever: Attack of the Glory of the Hero
Mr. Daniels: This is punishment, gentlemen, not party time.Logan: Well, that would explain the absence of balloon animals. -- Veronica Mars, "The Girl Next Door." Heresy! A Veronica Mars quote rather than Firefly. Eh, who cares, it's a holiday weekend, so we're wild and crazy. We're continuing our march through Glory of the Hero, and today we're going to tackle the first of Wrath's "halls," the Halls of Lightning. Before we do, here's a round-up of what we've done previously in the OverAchiever: GotH series: Part I: Ahn'kahet Part II: Azjol-Nerub and Culling of Stratholme Part III: Drak'Tharon Keep Part IV: Gun'drak HALLS OF LIGHTNINGLightning StruckAs long as your tank and healer aren't in greens, this isn't an overly difficult achievement. Bjarngrim and his adds path around a series of 3 platforms and will pause at each, gaining a Temporary Electrical Charge that increases their damage. You simply need to pull Bjarngrim while he still has this buff. During the fight you can force him to lose it by killing his adds, and if you're still gearing up, that's a more reasonable option than trying to survive the damage. The abilities of note here are Mortal Strike, which is a fairly nasty hit in the range of 15-16K, and Whirlwind, which can two-shot melee DPS.
Ask a Lore Nerd: Speculative speculation
Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, where each week blogger and columnist Alex Ziebart answers your questions about the lore and history of the World of Warcraft. Ask your questions in the comments section below, and we'll try to answer it in a future edition.Today's edition of Ask a Lore Nerd is a bit heavy on the speculation side, so be warned before you start reading. We've had a lot of questions recently that we don't yet have answers to, but are asked frequently enough that I suppose I should see what I can say!vyx asked..."Okay, so speaking of life and death, this has bugged me for a while -- how do we explain the fact that some characters (Horde and Alliance legends for example) have died, but yet every Priest, Pally, Shammy and Druid can rez people anytime they want?I realize it's a game and it wouldn't be so much fun if you died and then had to reroll a level 1, but there needs to be some type of lore explanation as to why people can be rezzed, but also can 'really die.' Are we supposed to just not worry about this or is there an explanation?"
Raid Rx: 5 Heroics to help toughen your healers
Raid Rx has returned from retirement! Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of PlusHeal, a new healing community for all restorative classes. This week we look at which heroic encounters will help strengthen your new healers and why! A question I get asked from healers is how can I prepare myself for raiding? On the other side of the spectrum, guild leaders ask me how can they judge or measure a healer in other areas other than healing output. Let's knock out two birds with one well timed stone.
Blizzard polls for the toughest Heroic instance
Blizzard has posted a poll on the forums asking what players think is the toughest Heroic dungeon in the game. Unfortunately, they don't say much else besides that, so guessing the reason why will be up to us and our commenters. They want to make sure Ulduar is tougher than Heroics? They want to look for particularly tough mechanics for future instances? They just enjoy seeing players have a tough time of it? Your guess is as good as ours.Loken is notorious as a tough boss in Heroic mode, but his Halls of Lightning only makes second place, right above Ahn'kahet and its tough fights of Jedoga Shadowseeker and the insanity-inducing Herald Volaj. And it's worth noting that as of this writing, Drak'theron, The Nexus, Utgarde Keep and Violet Hold have a total of zero votes among them -- apparently everyone agrees they're easy as-is. But right there on top sits everyone's least favorite drake-riding instance -- The Oculus, with all of its drakey goodness.Unfortunately, this may not help Blizzard -- I doubt many players would be really excited if they re-used the "drakes" mechanic in a lot of future dungeons, as the difficulty there lies in playing a completely different game rather than using the abilities of your character that you're used to. But It's an interesting poll anyway. What instance are you finding the toughest in Heroic mode?
Know Your Lore: The Sons of Hodir
Welcome to Know Your Lore, where each week Alex Ziebart brings you a tasty little morsel of lore to wrap your mind around. Sweet, sweet lore. Mmmm. Have suggestions for future KYL topics? Leave a comment below! This week, the role of Alex Ziebart will be played by Matthew Rossi.Hi. You may remember me from not finishing the KYL on Thrall. Well, since this week our Alex Ziebart has to take a small breather, I'm filling in for him as part of our "Hey, I finished that post you didn't so you owe me, and also the pictures are back from the developer and I'd hate to have to post them to the website" arrangement. Alex informed me as he handed over the package in that park, just before my trained snipers totally failed me, that this week would be discussing the Sons of Hodir from a lore perspective. Since until such time as Agent Deathwolf tracks him down and retrieves the microfilm I have no choice, that will be the topic of today's post.Since I happen to be exalted twice with these guys, it seems a fair enough question to ask who they are and where they come from. So far, we have fragments of the story, but not the whole picture as yet. If it even needs to be said at this late point, I will be dropping spoilers for Storm Peaks quests like they were remarkably heavy antiques that you asked me to help you move into your new apartment on the 17th floor and I wanted to make sure you never asked again.
Totem Talk: Halls of Stone and Lightning, CoT Stratholme
Gear! Let us continue our discussion of gear in five man instances, for we are shamans, and we have more interesting things to talk about. Like love. Or DPS. I like talking about DPS more than love, to be honest, I'm not specced for love with anyone but my wife. (She's a very specific boss in this regard.) Healing's good too, we could also talk about that. I found myself healing a Halls of Stone/Lightning run (is anyone else noticing that they end up running more instances back to back in Wrath?) in enhancement spec (resto gear) the other day, and I freely admit I wished I was resto several times on that run. Well, we made it through, anyway. But a HoT would have been very nice on Ionar. Can I just say now how very much I hate Ionar? A lot. Healing that fight without Riptide is pretty agonizing, especially when you don't have Nature's Swiftness or Earth Shield as well. The tank had to heal himself a couple of times. Lesson learned: it's just more fun to heal as resto. Oh, please let dual specs come soon, Santa.As I'm inching up the levels on the shammy and considering if I want to raid on him (I've been considering raiding as resto or enhance, haven't decided yet) I'm looking to the Storm Peaks instances as a source for upgrades. What can we find there? I've also begun making forays to the Culling of Stratholme in prep for when I start running it over and over again on heroic for the fist weapon. I mean, for no reason at all! There's no fist weapon here! Don't even run the instance! (Whew, I think they bought it.)
Ghostcrawler's tips on Loken
We've known that heroic Loken is currently the hardest mob in the game for a bit now. Alex broke the story a couple weeks ago, and Loken is currently killing approximately 1.8 times as many players as the next hardest boss, Sapphiron. That statistic is skewed a bit too, considering Sapphiron is a 10/25 man fight, and Loken is only a 5 man. One of the chief complaints about Holy Paladins has been their relative lack of AoE heals. This becomes particularly evident when a Paladin attempts to heal Loken in the Halls of Lightning. It should be noted however, as Ghostcrawler does and I can attest to, it can be done with a Paladin healing. It's on this note that Ghostcrawler has provided some tips on the strategy used to defeat heroic Loken. And while these appeared in discussion about Holy Paladins, they apply to any class equally well.
Breakfast Topic: Five-man thoughts
We talked about this quickly during yesterday's podcast, but I think most of us have seen most of the instances in Wrath at this point, so we'll ask it here: what do you think of the 5-mans so far?Actually, I should say that I can't quite pass judgment yet -- I haven't visited the Halls of Stone or Lightning yet, and I haven't yet seen The Oculus, which is the instance I was most excited about at launch. But so far, I have to say that Azjol-Nerub is a standout -- not only does it look great, but the fact that it's pretty much all bosses and no trash is a real plus. And having a well-known lore figure to fight at the end doesn't hurt, either.And of course I remain a fan of Utgarde Keep, though I think it'll eventually be like Hellfire Ramparts, in that I'll just have done it so much eventually that it'll lose any charm I have now. What are your first impressions on playing through all the five mans so far?
Scattered Shots: Normal dungeon gear for Hunters in Wrath of the Lich King
Welcome to Scattered Shots, the weekly Hunter column where we could really use a plane to head back to Shattrath and pick up more ammo since we haven't bummed a teleport to Dalaran yet. So. You've breezed past the early 70s. You've checked out the reputation gear for Hunters, and now you're ready to grind. So you've picked up your tabard, and you realize that you still have a question left to answer: Which dungeon should I run? What dungeon has the gear I need to get suited up and ready to run Heroics? Scattered Shots is here to help. We're going to look at some of the best pre-Heroic drops for Hunters in Wrath, and hopefully give you some idea of what way to go when you look for your next dungeon, or at least what drops to cross your fingers for. This guide will focus mostly on normal dungeon drops, although where a quest reward, reputation reward, or relatively easy to craft crafted item is a good option for the slot, we'll highlight it as well. By the end of this guide, the Hunter that didn't quite finish their Karazhan runs during Burning Crusade should hopefully have an idea of where to get a good outlay of gear to prepare them for heroics, and eventually for Naxxramas itself.Good luck on the drops, and good luck winning the rolls over those enhancement shamans!
The Queue: Death Knight jamboree
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Yesterday the topic of profession daily quests came up, and there was a little confusion around it. The way the question was phrased combined with how my response was phrased made it sound like most professions have daily quests in Wrath of the Lich King with a couple of exceptions. That is, unfortunately, not true. Of the primary professions, I believe only Jewelcrafting has daily quests. Of the secondary professions, only Cooking has daily quests. Skinners can sometimes skin an Arctic Fur off of beasties in Northrend, and those are used as tokens to purchase recipes. Enchanters do something similar with Dream Shards. They have no normal daily quests, though.Now with that cleared up, the Q&A! We'll start with Stormscape's question...Does Crusader Aura or On A Pale Horse affect vehicle speed?
WoW Insider's guide to the dungeons of Wrath
Still leveling? Looking to do some dungeon runs? Want to know where to go, or where to find your quests? ...No? Oh. Well, okay. You can leave, then. Wait, I think I heard someone say yes! In that case, you might be interested in WoW Insider's guide to the dungeons of Wrath.In the gallery below you'll find a quick guide to all of the 5-man instances of Wrath of the Lich King, in order of the level of the instance. It contains brief descriptions of each dungeon, their level range, and just where to find all of the quests for each of them. I hope it proves useful, and if not, at least some of the pictures are pretty!%Gallery-37974%
Breakfast Topic: The new 5-mans
5-mans are still my favorite part of the game. Guild runs, PuG-runs, something in between...doesn't matter. And I've had a fabulous time in Northrend 5-mans so far. Yes, Herald Volazj is pretty much the clear winner of the early 5-man bosses (gotta love that Insanity debuff), but Azjol Nerub's been very popular, and the questline leading to the cutscene at the end of Drak'tharon Keep is getting a lot of good press. Not enough people are in the late '70's or at 80 to have had a good crack at Halls of Stone, Halls of Lightning, Utgarde Pinnacle, or Culling of Stratholme, so I'm not sure how those are going to go over, but I think players in general have really enjoyed the new dungeons.That there's markedly less emphasis on soul-crushing trash (I'm looking at you, Shattered Halls) and more emphasis on cool boss mechanics and gorgeous scenery is also pretty awesome. And then there's that giant drop in Azjol Nerub taking you past several levels of the ancient city that never fails to kill someone. I shouldn't find it funny, but I do, even when it's me.How far along are you on the new Northrend 5-mans? Have you picked a favorite yet? And how many people have you seen die on the Azjol Nerub drop?
Wrath 101: Factions and reputation
Reputation in Wrath of the Lich King works a lot like it did in The Burning Crusade, except refined. Most of your reputation will come from dungeon runs and questing, and not grinding mobs off in some random corner of the world. At the same time, they've thrown in some 'extra' hooks to some of the reputations that make it pretty different from what it used to be, for better or for worse. That's what we'll be digging into here.FactionsThe Horde and the Alliance each get a set of factions: The Horde Expedition and the Alliance Vanguard. These are a bit unusual, because those two primary factions have four other secondary factions. For the most part, those secondary factions don't have any rewards of their own. As you gain reputation with the sub-factions, your overall Horde Expedition or Alliance Vanguard reputation goes up, and that determines your rewards. Why did they do it that way? I don't know, but they did!
Ahn'kahet's Herald Volazj: Quite possibly the coolest boss ever
Wrath of the Lich King has a lot of new dungeons, and hopefully you've been running them all as you level. Personally, I find them all pretty awesome, but Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom is the first one that completely blew me away. Overall, I'd say it's not as good as Halls of Stone or Halls of Lightning, but Ahn'kahet has certain elements that make it one of my favorites.Not only is Ahn'kahet visually stunning, but it gives you a glimpse into the story of Yogg-Saron and his relation to the Scourge and other forces. It's a little repetitive in some places (the first boss is a bit boring), but it also houses some of the best 5-man bosses we've seen yet. The final boss, Herald Volazj, is the embodiment of the technical advances Blizzard has made with the gameplay in Wrath of the Lich King. I almost feel bad mentioning him at all, because I've been running Ahn'kahet repeatedly with people who have never done it before. Seeing them wig out the first time they do the boss is awesome.
WoW Moviewatch: Muffins WotLK Exploration Part 77-80
(Viewers be warned that this video contains spoilers for the Wrath of the Lich King beta.)At the beginning of last month, I featured a video that explored levels 70-77 of the Wrath of the Lich King beta. It was apparently so popular that Muffins was contacted by a studio for a possible job! Since then, she realized that machinima was something that she wanted to do with her life. Nothing makes me happier than when someone says that, so congratulations, Muffins!Muffins obviously only covered a portion of the levels last time, so she's back with an exploration video for the 77-80 crowd. In it, she checks out Storm Peaks, Halls of Lightning (Instance), The Oculus (Instance), Utgarde Pinnacle (Instance), The Culling of Stratholme (Instance), and Icecrown. She noted that The Violet Eye in Dalaran seemed like a less interesting version of Black Morass, and that Naxxramas was pretty much the same as the old one except for the trash.[Via Warcraftmovies.com]If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.Previously on Moviewatch ...
Level 80 and other major new highlights from the Beta [Updated]
Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan posted several new changes that are appearing in the Wrath of the Lich King Beta tonight. The highlights include: Level cap raised to 80. Less XP required for 70 to 80* Storm Peaks zone available, Icecrown unavailable. Follow dungeons available: Halls of Lightning Halls of Stone Caverns of Time: Stratholme The Occulus Utgarde Pinnacle Heroic Nexus Tigole also notes that premade characters will be made available at a later date on a different server. It looks like they'll actually be doing this now. More changes and analysis of the latest Beta patch to come throughout the evening. Stay tuned.*We did some rough calculations. Daniel's Hunter was approximately 50% of the way through level 70. His hunter is now 60% of the way through level 70. Thus, the XP required to level was reduced by approximately 20%. These are just rough estimates, and no official word on the percentage has came out yet.Update 11:49 p.m. EDT: Zarhym has said that patch notes are still being compiled. We'll have them up as soon as Blizzard releases them.
