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Bosses in 5 seconds: Siege of Orgrimmar wing three
Wing three is upon us! It opened today on US servers, and will hit Europe tomorrow like a runaway dinosaur fixating on the Siberian tundra. We've already got the first wing done in our inimitable five second style, and the second one's up for your reading delectation as well. Now, though, it's starting to get serious with wing three. Actually, to be honest, this is a pretty easy wing. Wing four's going to be the clincher. As always, remember, these aren't in-depth guides for your heroic raid. They're arming you with just enough knowledge to get your group through the LFR version of the fight, mostly intact. Malkorok Healers, in phase 1, your heals won't heal. Instead there will be colored blobs on the raid frames. Keep them green. They're absorb shields, that you're building by healing. He'll do cone-shaped smashes that affect segments of the room. Don't stand in them. Also, after every three smashes, he'll re-explode the three areas he smashed. Don't stand in that. Soak purple swirls When he goes into Blood Rage, stack up. Run out with the debuff if your healers are struggling. Everything hurts more as the fight progresses.
Lichborne: The Underhold raid loot 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. The Underhold is the third section of the Siege of Orgrimmar, and will be opening up for Flex raiders this week. With that in mind, today we'll look at the loot that drops for the 3 bosses contained within. As before, the same disclaimers from the last two weeks apply. While "Best in Slot" is all well and good, "Best in Slot" also assumes you are playing at the top of your game, using very specific rotations, talents, and glyphs, and using cooldowns at the proper times, and that the gear you're picking up is mostly heroic or heroic warforged gear. Also, upgrades are upgrades, so if you're wielding Raid Finder gear from Throne of Thunder, even non-optimal flex gear from Siege of Orgrimmar is probably going to be an upgrade. Keep that in mind when grabbing gear as well.
Patch 5.4 PTR: Siege of Orgrimmar raid testing Tuesday and Wednesday
There's more raid testing on the PTR for the Siege of Orgrimmar as the release date for patch 5.4 creeps steadily closer. Coming up this week is Heroic, 25-man testing for Galakras, Malkorok, Paragons of the Klaxxi, Sha of Pride, Spoils of Pandaria, and Thok the Bloodthirsty. So if checking out new raid encounters is your idea of good fun, there's plenty coming up in the next couple of days. Here's the current schedule: Tuesday Galakras: 10:30 PDT (13:30 EDT, 19:30 CEST) Malkorok: 13:30 PDT (16:30 EDT, 22:30 CEST) Paragons of the Klaxxi: 16:00 PDT (19:00 EDT, 01:00 CEST) Wednesday Sha of Pride: 10:30 PDT (13:30 EDT, 19:30 CEST) Spoils of Pandaria: 13:30 PDT (16:30 EDT, 22:30 CEST) Thok the Bloodthirsty: 16:00 PDT (19:00 EDT, 01:00 CEST) But the schedule is subject to change. According to Watcher: Watcher As always, this testing schedule is very fluid and subject to the realities of a beta environment. We might have to change the time of a testing session, change the boss being tested, or cancel a test entirely, due to bugs, server hardware issues, etc. source For more details, head to the PTR forums. Happy testing!
Patch 5.4 PTR: Raid testing for Wednesday, August 28
Heroic 25-man raid testing continues tomorrow on the patch 5.4 PTR servers. For players interested in testing heroic Siege of Orgrimmar content, both the Sha of Pride and Malkorok encounters will be available over the course of tomorrow for the purposes of testing. As with all PTR raid encounters, players should leave feedback on the encounters in the appropriate threads on the official PTR forums. If you have yet to explore the patch 5.4 PTR, you can copy a character by logging into your Battle.net account on the official website, or you can simply create a pre-made level 90 character if that sounds like a better option to you. Gear will be scaled to match the difficulty of the encounters, so don't worry about being under-geared for the content, either. Read on for more details, including the full schedule of times for individual raid bosses.
Patch 5.4 PTR: Raid testing for Friday, August 16
Patch 5.4 may be up on the background downloader, but that doesn't mean there isn't more raid testing to do! Testing for the Siege of Orgrimmar bosses Sha of Pride, Kor'kron Dark Shaman, General Nazgrim and Malkorok takes place tomorrow throughout the day, this time on 25-man Normal difficulty. Not in a 25-man raid guild? Not a problem -- just log onto the PTR at the appropriate times, hang out in the Vale and you're likely to see plenty of people looking for folks to test the raid content. Keep in mind that these are PTR bosses open for testing purposes, and leave your feedback for these encounters in the appropriate threads on the official PTR forums. Gear, as always, will be scaled inside the raid for the purposes of testing content. If you'd like to participate, you can copy one of your existing characters to the PTR via your Battle.net account, or simply create a level 90 premade character to test with. Read on for more details, including the full schedule of times for individual raid bosses.
Siege of Orgrimmar Preview: Malkorok
In Wrath of the Lich King, we rescued Valithria Dreamwalker. In Cataclysm, we had to contend with Chimaeron. Healers, if you were looking for a signature encounter for Mists of Pandaria, look no further than Malkorok. He's a former member of the Blackrock orcs who swore allegiance to Garrosh and now acts as bodyguard, chief advisor, and leader of the Kor'kron. In fact, Malkorok is so loyal that he volunteered to be infused with the power of Y'Shaarj. Read on to find out more about taking down this horde champion!
Patch 5.4 PTR: Flexible Mode testing open this weekend
If you've been wanting to test Flexible Mode raiding on the patch 5.4 PTR servers, now's your chance. The Underhold wing of the Siege of Orgrimmar raid will be open all weekend, continuing into Monday on the PTR servers. Players testing the content may queue with anywhere between 10-25 players by using the same interface for finding groups for dungeons, scenarios, or LFR difficulty raids. Unlike LFR, Flexible mode raids have all the same mechanics as Normal mode bosses. However, the difficulty of the encounters have been tuned to adjust in health and damage depending on how many players are participating in the raid. The Underhold contains Malkorok, Spoils of Pandaria, and Thok the Bloodthirsty, giving players plenty of opportunity to test the challenges of Flexible raiding. If you're interested in testing the content, you can either copy an existing character to the PTR via your Battle.net account, or create a level 90 premade. If you're planning on testing the content, don't forget to leave feedback in the official thread on the PTR forums!
Patch 5.4 Siege of Orgrimmar: July 1st testing schedule
Ready for more raid tests? Blizzard has announced that three additional bosses will be available for testing on Monday, July 1. These bosses will be in the new Siege of Ogrimmar raid instance slated for release with patch 5.4. If you haven't already, don't forget to get your characters copied over or create a new level 90 premade if you want to check this stuff out! Once you're transferred over, head to Niu-Zao temple and look for the giant Flaskataur NPC who will have tier 16 gear available for purchase. You c an find the Siege of Orgrimmar right below the foundations of Mogu'shan Palace. Monday July 1 Malkorok - 10 Player Normal 10:30 PDT (13:30 EDT, 19:30 CEST) Siegecrafter Blackfuse - 10 Player Normal 14:00 PDT (17:00 EDT, 23:00 CEST) Paragons of the Klaxxi - 10 Player Normal 16:00 PDT (19:00 EDT, 01:00 CEST) WoW Insider's Siege of Orgrimmar boss impressions Kor'kron Dark Shaman General Nazgrim Catch the blue post after the jump!
Know Your Lore: The rise of the Dark Shaman
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. We had warning that this was coming. When Ragefire Chasm was given an overhaul in Mists of Pandaria, the changes didn't escape the notice of players -- but nobody really knew the extent of what was going on. Remnants of the Twilight Cult from Cataclysm could be found in the depths of Ragefire, carrying insignias that noted they were part of a new order -- not Twilight Cult, but something quite possibly far darker, called the Dark Shaman. These shaman were highlighted briefly in the novel Tides of War, as part of Garrosh's assault forces on Northwatch Hold. While the question of how they came to be seems to be fairly self-explanatory, there's a little more to the story than previously thought. It stretches all the way back to the days of Wrath of the Lich King, and the discovery of a different, new, hardy race of warriors and shaman that were far more used to doing what was necessary to survive, than what may or may not have been right.
The Queue: Man of Steel tonight and I'm freaking out
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Matthew Rossi will be your host today. Yesterday was the huge Patch 5.4 infodump. Today, I'm going to see Man of Steel. So I'm all sorts of freaking out right now. Let's talk about WoW before I spin out of control and just start talking about Kryptonian Thought Beasts and the Jeweled Mountains of Krypton and Kandor and oh my Rao tonight is Man of Steel I am freaking out here. And yes, a Thought-Beast was a big dinosaur looking monster with a screen on its forehead that showed you what it was thinking. In this case, it was thinking I want to eat that guy.. I don't know what possible evolutionary benefit that is, but there you go. Since a lot of these questions are about patch 5.4, expect many spoilers. Thieren asks: Any info on the Stromgarde Keep scenario that people are now talking about? Please say it's true! Anne covered the little we know about the Scenario in this post yesterday. All we know is that it exists, basically. Is it going to be the Alliance reclaiming it, the Horde taking it over, something else? We have no idea yet.
Know Your Lore: The Blackrock Legacy
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. They claimed to be the true Horde. They may yet prove it. The Blackrock orcs seem, on the surface, to be a relic of a bygone age. A tribe of orcs holding on to a past swept aside by Turalyon's hand clutching Lothar's broken sword, a defeated remnant of Gul'dan's legacy. Once led by Blackhand the Destroyer, the Blackrock clan rose to prominence when Blackhand became Gul'dan's proxy as Warchief of the newborn Horde. And it remained central when Orgrim Doomhammer, Blackhand's second in command, slew Blackhand and seized power, for Doomhammer too was a member of the Blackrock clan. After the final defeat of the Horde atop Blackrock Spire, it seemed certain that the Blackrocks would trouble Azeroth no more. Yet Blackhand's sons Rend and Maim, who had served Doomhammer even after he killed their father as leaders of the splinter clan the Black Tooth Grin, led the Blackrocks into the mountain that bore the same name and set about rebuilding them. When Teron Gorefiend came to Blackrock Spire, the brothers Blackhand refused his call to join Ner'zhul's Horde, seeing themselves as the true inheritors of Blackhand's legacy. In time, the Black Dragonflight came to the mountain, attracted by the reds still held in bondage there, and Nefarian brought the Blackrocks into his service. Maim Blackhand died in the war with the Dark Iron Dwarves to determine which force would rule the mountain, while Rend died when Thrall sent members of the Horde to kill him for his claim to the title of Warchief that Doomhammer had bestowed upon the shaman. And yet, the Blackrocks were not done. Ironically, it may have been one of Thrall's most loyal supporters who brought one of Garrosh Hellscream's most dangerous enforcers into the fold.
