legendary-weapon
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The Queue: What a wonderful kind of day
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. I dare you to find a better theme song than the one used in the Arthur cartoon. I hereby outlaw the Wishbone theme as a rebuttal, because it would be the correct one. arkainjel001 asked: Do you think there is any chance of implementing a level scaling system for legendary items, similar to heirlooms? I'm not talking about them being best in slot forever, just a decent weapon to use until it can be replaced at max level. Using this expansion as an example, Sulfuras could be used until level 90, where it would have stats similar to a 463 weapon, and then upgraded to better weapons from there. I just don't like the idea of a "legendary" weapon being completely obsolete and collecting dust in the bank.
Flameseeker Chronicles: The quest for Guild Wars 2's legendary The Flameseeker Prophecies
It's been quite the red-letter week in Guild Wars 2 for yours truly. My little guild piled up enough influence to unlock and build guild bounties, some of my best buddies bought me my first Commandership (which we promptly put to use in PvE shenanigans), and I completed my legendary shield, The Flameseeker Prophecies. Quite some time ago, we went through the piece-by-piece requirements for crafting your legendary weapon. The experience of making it is actually less daunting than the crazy list of materials makes it sound, but I'm probably only saying that because it's finished now, and I don't have to work up the mental energy to think about making another one for quite some time. Let's take a look at things, shall we?
Flameseeker Chronicles: Hopes for the new year in Guild Wars 2
It's the dawn of a brave new year. Guild Wars 2 is still in its infancy, really -- ArenaNet's work in this year will do a lot to shape the future and lasting impact of the game. With apparently an expansion's worth of content coming out in January and February, this certainly promises to be an exciting year. I don't know whether the following things are predictions or hopes, but they can't be all that much more inaccurate than fondling sheep guts.
Guild Wars 2 video and dev blog explain legendary weapons
Want to get your hands on a legendary weapon in Guild Wars 2? Although the recipe itself is going to stay a mystery, a recent dev blog by ArenaNet lead designer Isaiah Cartwright goes through some of the steps in the process to give players an idea of what's involved. Hopeful wielders will need to obtain a rare exotic base weapon as well as scour the countryside and complete dungeons to get the materials needed to forge their weapons. Players also need to find gifts to present to the powerful djinn, Zommoros. Once created, players will have an impressive new weapon that blends art and effects to make a unique style. Check out some of the weapons and their effects in the video after the cut.
The Road to Mordor: My love-hate relationship with Legendary Items
Second to perhaps radiance, Legendary Items have become one of the most controversial, most debated, and most divisive game features in Lord of the Rings Online since their implementation in Mines of Moria. Since their inclusion, players have discussed -- loudly -- how the system could be fixed and improved, and Turbine's made a couple of attempts at refining the feature into something we can all enjoy. And yet Legendary Items remain in that category that I like to call "love-hate," where there's almost as much to love about them as there is to loathe. I've waited a long time to write this article because the timing never felt right; either I was too new to the system to speak with any authority on it or changes were "right around the corner" or I was lazy. Take your pick. Perhaps talking about this today is beating somewhat of a dead horse in the LotRO community, but I wanted to get my thoughts out why LIs haven't quite gotten to where they need to, how they've failed, where they've succeeded, and why I pray every evening for cosmetic weapons so I can get rid of that ugly glow effect.
Arcane Brilliance: How to be legendary
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. The title of this week's column is a bit misleading. As we all know, mages are, by virtue of their magehood, already legendary. I probably should have called it "How to be more legendary," or "How to be legendarier." Too late now, it's already been typed. Last week, as I neared completion of Arcane Brilliance's mage guide to patch 4.2, I touched upon one of the more exciting aspects of our impending foray into the Firelands: Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest. Dragonwrath will be the new legendary staff available to casters in this patch. It will be difficult, but not by any means impossible, for a good guild to obtain. It will require a long term commitment to the new Firelands raid content. Most guilds will only obtain the staff once, and even the really high-speed guilds will only be able to pick up this staff for a select few of their caster members. It's an incredible piece of statistical candy. Dragonwrath will be the best-in-slot weapon for every variety of DPS caster the moment it becomes available, by a very large margin, and it will likely remain that way for the rest of this expansion and into a good portion of the next one. If you are able to get your hands on it, you won't be letting go of it any time soon. Absolutely every caster class/spec will want it, including hybrids and classes that use spirit. Take a look at your guild. How many level 85 DPS casters do you raid with? Now look at yourself. How many of you are there? No, your mirror images don't count. Those are your odds. So how do you lower those odds? How do you stack the deck a bit in your favor. My mission this week, ladies and gentlemen, is to help you be the chosen one in your guild who gets to wield this spectacular weapon. No, not you, warlock. My mission, this week as every week, is to see you die in a fire.
WRUP: The sound of crickets chirping
Every week, just at the start of the weekend, we catch up with the WoW Insider staff and ask them, "What are you playing this week?" -- otherwise known as: WRUP. Join us to see what we're up to in and out of game, and catch us in the comments to let us know what you're playing, too! Here at WoW Insider, weekends are a rather quiet time. We operate on a skeleton crew. Tumbleweeds blow through. Crickets chirp. Why? Because we all have lives, damnit. We all celebrate our days off in different ways, of course. Mike Sacco spends it washing and combing his hair (and writing The Queue). Mat McCurley spends it playing with cats and eating big gay ice cream. Tyler Caraway? Reading the Garfield books he bought off the Scholastic Book Club 16 years ago. Alone. (Totally true. I would not lie to you about that.) The one thing that all your WoW Insider writers do get done on the weekend? Why, answering the ever recurring WRUP question, of course! This week, as usual, we asked our writers and editors a bonus question: Blizzard suggested that there will be a new legendary in patch 4.3 with "limited appeal." What do you think it'll be?
Patch 4.2: Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest proc potentially uncovered
Dragonwrath, the upcoming legendary staff, had its stats revealed recently -- but it was missing its proc, which is arguably the most interesting part of legendary weapons. What is Thunderfury without its lightning? What is Val'anyr without its bubbles? Wowhead believes it has found Dragonwrath's proc while mining away at the data in today's patch 4.2 PTR build. They discovered the spell Wrath of Tarecgosa (applied to the caster by a passive aura), which provides a chance to duplicate the damage caused by an offensive damaging spell. The effect of this damage would also be called Wrath of Tarecgosa, and the damage would be dealt as arcane damage. Double Pyroblasts, anyone? It should be noted that this information is on the PTR and is in no way final. This could be just one effect Blizzard is experimenting with, or it may ultimately be used for something completely different. It is, however, the best lead we've seen so far. The news is already rolling out for the upcoming WoW Patch 4.2! Preview the new Firelands raid, marvel at the new legendary staff, and get the inside scoop on new quest hubs -- plus new Tier 12 armor!
New quests on the PTR point to legendary weapon's origin
More news, in the form of a few quests datamined from the PTR, has cropped up about the legendary staff that will be available this expansion. While we've talked about the possible links between the staff and the upcoming War of the Ancients raid, nothing had been confirmed. However, the quests seem to be pointing to something a little different. In the quest A Legendary Engagement, players are sent to the Caverns of Time to speak to Anachronos. Anachronos is the acting "leader" of the Bronze Dragonflight in Nozdormu's absence; we first encountered him way back during the quest line to open the gates to Ahn'Qiraj. Oddly enough, it seems as though Anachronos requires your presence immediately -- something that's more than a little strange for a reclusive bronze dragon.
Datamining Cataclysm's legendary staff
The stalwart dataminers over on the MMO-Champion forums have uncovered a great number of textures, icons, and models, all potentially leading up to Cataclysm's first legendary -- a staff. We have already known that the first legendary of the expansion would be a staff, as told to us by Blizzard at BlizzCon this past year, but we had no other information or pictures. Above is a picture of what the staff will probably look like. Check out the MMO-Champion thread here. The forum users working on this have really done a spectacular job figuring out this puzzle. Big grats to them! So, what do we do once we get something as awesome as this? Speculation! Many of the staff icons and files were named "Firelands," so it is safe to assume that most of the epic staff is put together in Ragnaros' domain. However, there's also a Timeless Eye item mentioned, and the staff's body is made from wood. Wooden weapons don't seem to be Ragnaros' deal. The Timeless Eye definitely points towards Caverns of Time something or other, and with the body of the staff being wooden and definitely not of the Firelands, we're looking at night elven stuff going on. We'll find out, sooner or later. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.
Breakfast Topic: Are legendaries good for the game?
Sunsmoon on WoW_ladies makes an uncomfortably accurate observation concerning legendaries -- people tend to get a little nuts around them. Anyone doing Tier 6 back in the day doubtless remembers the fistfights over who was going to get a Warglaive, WoW players worldwide were in shock at a rogue getting Thor'idal over two hunters, and the annals of classic WoW are rife with nightmare stories of /gquits over Bindings of the Windseeker and arguments over Sulfuras going to a druid. Nowadays (as someone on my realm remarked in a moment's pique), of the six Val'anyrs that have been assembled on our server, only one remains in its original guild. A reasonable person might be forgiven for thinking that the little orange text accompanying what's usually a decent weapon with a great proc is a lot more trouble than it's worth. A good point is brought up by Amiyuy in the thread -- the process of creating a legendary, or having to keep farming for an extremely uncommon drop, tends to wear people out. A healer on track to build a Val'anyr can't reasonably expect to take any time off for fear of missing one of the inconsistent shards, and my guildmates and I continued to farm Black Temple well past the point that anyone was getting even offspec gear upgrades because we just couldn't get a main-hand Glaive. With another legendary coming out in Icecrown Citadel, guild leaders are facing the headache of figuring out who'll get it, and we've already fielded questions on our tip line on which class gets the most from Shadowmourne and whether Blizzard could have nixed the stamina on it to discourage death knight tanks from picking it up (!). So readers, I ask you -- are legendaries good for the game? If your guild was on a position to get one, did they ultimately help or hurt you more? And is the painful process of getting a Legendary the real source of the trouble, and not the item itself?
Patch 3.3 PTR: Shadowmourne revealed
The latest build on the PTR has uncovered the stats of the World of Warcraft's newest legendary weapon, the two-handed axe Shadowmourne. Apparently bandied around by random GMs on the PTR, players were able to see the highly impressive stats of this weapon, which requires an epic quest to complete. MMO-Champion also has it in its database, the entry of which can be viewed here. Notable among its features, aside from the ridiculous +223 Strength and 344.1 DPS, are three red sockets and an interesting proc. The sockets can combine for a total of 68 Strength when socketed with Bold Cardinal Rubies and obtaining the +8 Strength bonus. If we understand it correctly, the proc also stacks Strength for a total of 360 before firing off a damaging effect, presumably resetting the Strength bonus to 0. Needless to say, even without the proc, this Item Level 284 weapon is the best two-handed melee weapon in the game and should serve players well into the next expansion. Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
How to decide who's getting Val'anyr
With Ulduar due to hit in the near future, Tales of a Priest addressed a pretty timely subject for 25-man raiders yesterday with a blog post on Val'anyr and how you're going to assign it. As it's a constructed Legendary like Atiesh rather than being a dropped item like the Warglaives and Thori'dal (sudden thought: why do the caster Legendaries have to be assembled, whereas the melee/ranged Legendaries just drop?), you're going to have to put some time and thought into which one of your healers is going to get this baby first. It's not exactly the world's most comfortable question for a guild leader, but I like how Derevka lays the issue out so matter-of-factly, and then goes on to address an interesting point concerning Val'anyr's proc. Your ideal candidate is a good healer with great attendance who plans on hanging around for a while, but then there's the question -- which class gets the most use out of the proc?
EDITED: Warlock makes Thunderfury
Reader Angie sent us a curious Armory profile of a Warlock who was able to obtain the classic legendary one-handed weapon Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker. Although no raiding guild in their right minds would've allowed such a travesty to happen no matter how much DKP the Warlock had back in the day, now in a time where Onyxia is visited every few days for some easy Gold, anything goes.This news comes on the heels of what is reputedly a world first Death Knight obtaining the legendary sword. Here's the kicker, though... the left and right Bindings of the Windseeker have class restrictions (revised to include Death Knights)... and Warlocks aren't among those eligible to start the quest chain. Mages and Warlocks are both casters who can equip swords, but this doesn't explain how the Warlock obtained the item. [EDIT: Whoops. Looks like I dropped the ball on this one. Daniel already wrote that even though the Bindings have class restrictions on the tooltip, they're actually usable by any class according to Blizzard.]The Warlock's guild seems to be a rather accomplished one (the 'lock has The Immortal title), so there's a good chance that getting the weapon was a guild effort. It's quite possible that the Dormant Wind Kissed Blade that drops off Thunderaan was assigned by Master Looter to the Warlock, who then started the quest.
Forum post of the day: Vicarious' legend
That was odd. I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of hunters suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened. -Matticus var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Worst_Guild_Leader_ever_in_the_history_of_World_of_Warcraft'; It was inevitable, it had to happen. Someday, the legendary bow, Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury would be handed over to a Rogue. It so happens this fantastic weapon dropped to the Vicarious guild of Area 52. Analogkid was awarded the bow in the company of two Hunters. Needless to say the Hunters are upset, and the post brought about an outcry from many posters along with a considerable amount of drama. Many believe that this bow belongs in the hands of Hunters, regardless of the situation.
Legendary Weapons: Drops vs. questing
A Discussion of the newly dropped Thori'dal bought up a lively discussion on Legendary weapons in my guild chat the other day, which has in turn set my own mental wheels turning. Looking at the difference between the pre-Burning Crusade Legendaries and the Burning Crusade Legendaries, there's one big difference that stands out (beyond the level difference): The pre-BC Legendaries were quested, while the BC Legendaries have been drops. The clear-cut off seems to suggest that at some point, Blizzard decided that creating long, involved quests in order to obtain Legendary weapons just wasn't the way to go, and they'd rather let the RNG take care of distributing Legendaries. But the question is, did they make the right choice? There's good arguments for both sides.
Legendary bow Thori'dal, the Star's Fury "nerfed" on live servers
World of Raids has discovered something that might give Hunters a momentary attack of Angina: Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury has been found in the current game files, and while it still looks pretty tasty, it's also look weaker than the last known stats from the Pre-PTR leak. Namely, it's lost about 10 base DPS, having dropped from 148.7 DPS to 138.8 DPS. Now, it's hard to call this a "nerf," perse, since the bow hasn't actually appeared on any live or test server yet as an actual item. It's possible that the pre-PTR leak was a hoax (not likely though, since it got the other stats spot on), or that Blizzard's internal testing made them think they needed to tone back the damage a bit. It's a bit of a blow to think what might have been with the old damage anyway, of course. That said, Kil'jaedan isn't even killable yet on live realms, so the stats could change again before it drops. Even if they don't, it's still an awesome bow that will make the Black Bow of the Betrayer look like a peashooter for damage, and comes with the added bonus of a free bag slot, so I'm sure there will be plenty of Hunters aiming for it, and good luck to them. My Hunter is still going to be holding out for a Legendary Gun out of Thor Modan.
