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Know Your Lore: Garrosh, Gul'dan, and Warlords of Draenor
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. Who is Garrosh Hellscream? And what, exactly, is his game? In the end, what is Garrosh ultimately looking for ... and what will he sacrifice to get it? It's one of those lingering questions from Mists of Pandaria that remains as of yet unanswered, but we're beginning to see the bits and pieces of the story, and we'll see more as Warlords is released and the new expansion's story unfolds. For now though, that question still plagues players -- what is Garrosh after? Why did he spurn the idea of warlocks in Siege of Orgrimmar, going so far as to have them strung up in the streets, yet embrace the methods of the dark shaman? Garrosh isn't a character that can be easily understood. His motives -- and his morals -- seem to be all over the place, switching from merciful to merciless in an instant. And yet he's not the only piece to this puzzle -- in Warlords of Draenor, Gul'dan is already showing his face as a pretty prominent figure. Obviously Garrosh Hellscream knew of the Legion's evil when he traveled to this alternate Draenor -- he knew of his father's downfall. So why is Gul'dan still alive? Why wouldn't Hellscream, upon traveling to this alternate Draenor so similar to his own, flat out murder Gul'dan on sight and be done with it? Please note: The following Know Your Lore contains several spoilers for Warlords of Draenor.
Random raid factors and the high cost of failure
Klepsakovic over at Troll Racials are Overpowered has a thought-provoking post asking how Blizzard's advancing raid model is affecting players and how they relate to each other. In particular, he zeroes in on a point that I think a lot of players sense but never really articulate: Not every player in a raid is going to be equally stressed by a fight, and when the stressed party or parties is randomly determined, things get ugly fast. Compare this to encounters where the primary difficulty is role-specific or even player-specific. Good DPSers pushed their output to the limit on Patchwerk, healers learned to anticipate damage during Malygos' Vortex while one or two people got good at yanking sparks into the raid, and tanks grew experienced with fast pick-ups on Kael'thas. But the average raid group, even when experienced, probably tripped over and over again on encounters like Teron Gorefiend or Anub'arak. When you can't control who gets targeted by Shadow of Death or Anub'arak's spikes and when the randomness limits the experience that any one player can get ... Well, it's easy to see how certain fights acquire the nightmare moniker.
Know Your Lore: Intermezzo Part Two - The Alliance Strikes Back
Welcome once again my friends to the lore that never ends, we're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside Know Your Lore. Last week, we covered the events after the end of the Second War, when Ner'zhul and Teron Gorefiend led an attack on the Azerothian nations which held artifacts the former elder shaman believed he could use to open new portals on Draenor. These portals would be the salvation of the orcs who were doomed to a slow death as fel corruption slowly consumed the land. In response to the Horde of Draenor's attacks (led by Gorefiend, Kilrogg Deadeye and Kargath Bladefist) and their theft of artifacts like the Book of Medivh and Eye of Dalaran, King Terenas Menethil ordered Turalyon and Khadgar to lead an expedition beyond the Dark Portal itself to determine what the Horde had planned. This week, the Alliance Expedition takes the fight to the Horde, and we once again remind you that if you played through these events in WCII, things may have changed in the lore since. Please bear with us as we reconstruct the events surrounding the Alliance Expedition to Draenor. The Sons of Lothar against the Horde of Draenor.
Breakfast Topic: Terrible things
Back-channel team discussion these past few days has been reminiscing about the Warcraft series' best bits of lore, and eventually discussion turned to the things that we wish Blizzard had revisited or expanded. Zul'jin came up, with people a bit uncomfortable that the great story promised by the Zul'Aman trailer didn't transition to the actual raid very well. "Both Horde and Alliance had perfectly good reasons to raid it," Rossi observed. "Instead, we go there because someone wants to plunder Amani riches." That made us think about all the stuff we do in-game that kind of makes us...well, bad guys, for lack of a better term, and we started wondering -- what's the worst thing that player characters have done (or been asked to do)? Setting Teron Gorefiend loose has to rank pretty high up there. Then there's that torture quest out in Borean Tundra, which squicks people to this day. While we're on the subject of Borean Tundra, nobody particularly liked thinking about a daily quest offered in Coldarra, or the ugly results of Horde questing in Howling Fjord. If you wanted to look at the whole "player evil" thing from a larger perspective, you can even make a case that player-generated PvP is, within the context of WoW's lore, one of the more significant contributions to faction antagonism and war. So what's the worst thing that your character has done -- or, failing that, the thing that you still feel the worst about? I've already got my pick.
Know Your Lore: The Second War
Welcome once again my friends to the lore that never ends, we're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside Know Your Lore. When last we got together over the nonexistent campfire to share stories of Azeroth and Draenor and the peoples of both, our heroes were either fleeing the destruction of Stormwind or destroying Stormwind, depending on who you think of as the heroes. Once again, the 'canonical' nature of these events has shifted somewhat from the time they were first presented to now, so bear with me if you see any inconsistencies as I attempt to work several disparate accounts together. Also, wow, did a lot happen in the Second War, so please forgive anything I miss or merely allude to from the Alliance and Old Horde KYL's. We know that following the loss of Stormwind (and by following I mean that they could probably see the buildings burning as they sailed away) the survivors, led by Anduin Lothar, sailed north for Lordaeron and the court of King Terenas Menethil. It was this journey and Lothar's arrival that led Terenas and Lothar to begin the diplomatic work that created the Alliance of Lordaeron. It's important to keep in mind that, at the time, not many people actually knew much about the orcs aside from the survivors of Stormwind. King Llane Wrynn had an adviser who knew a lot about the orcs but that ultimately ended in Stormwind's destruction as we covered last week. Still, Lothar was the one person both connected enough through his descent from the ancient Arathi bloodline and knowledgeable enough about the enemy to command the military of this new Alliance.
Know Your Lore: The Old Horde
Welcome to Know Your Lore, WoW.com's weekly column about the story behind the game we play. Last week we discussed the formation of the Alliance in response to the Horde invasion of and destruction of the Kingdom of Azeroth via the Black Portal, and the Alliance's eventual triumph over the Horde, expedition to Draenor, and the events of Warcraft III that saw the destruction of Lordaeron and creation of a new order. This week, we talk about the events that caused those events. Yes, this week we're discussing the origins of the Horde, that organization that began as the manipulated, deceived and then ultimately demonic blood addicted orcs of Draenor. It's not a simple tale: we've already told parts if it before when we discussed Gul'dan, Ner'zhul, Teron Gorefiend, Grom Hellscream and many others. It all really began untold thousands of years ago on the planet Argus, home world of the Eredar and their Draenei, or exiled, cousins. Thus, ironically, while the existence of the Horde caused the creation of the Alliance, it was an Alliance race that helped start the events that led to the creation of the Horde. Symmetry in origin.
Know Your Lore: The Alliance
Welcome back to Know Your Lore, WoW.com's column about the story behind the game we all play. This week on KYL, we move away from the Fall of the Lich King (although in the months to come expect more Icecrown related KYL's) and out to the larger world and the major factions that contend across it. I thought we'd start with the Alliance this week for a number of reasons, the first and most important among them being that the Alliance would not exist without the Horde, while the Horde's existence owes itself to forces transcending the Alliance. Because of this, doing the Alliance first will leave open questions that the Horde section next week will help answer. The Alliance as it stands at this moment in time is a far different entity than the one originally known as the Alliance of Lordaeron. That Alliance was one of seven human nations (Azeroth, Lordaeron, Stromgarde, Kul Tiras, Alterac, Dalaran and Gilneas) with the Dwarves of Ironforge, Gnomes of Gnomeregan and High Elves of Quel'Thalas. This Alliance was born directly out of the statecraft of King Terenas Menethil of Lordaeron and the military leadership of Anduin Lothar, the Lion of Azeroth and last living member of the original Arathi bloodline. Each member of this alliance had various reasons for being in it and varying degrees of loyalty to it (the High Elves, for example, were only in the Alliance because as the last Arathi, Lothar could compel their loyalty due to ancient pacts and abandoned it as soon as it was possible for them to fulfill said pacts, while Gilneas retreated behind the Greymane Wall not long after the end of the Second War over differences of opinion with Lordaeron) and it certainly lacked in coherence compared to the Horde it was opposed to.
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Death Knight
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the eighteenth in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class well, without embarrassing yourself. Originally I had planned to write about death knights only after I had written about all the other classes, as a way of wrapping up and rounding out this whole series of articles about the lore behind the playable races and classes of World of Warcraft. But then ZuWho posted a comment on my last article specifically requesting me for my thoughts on death knights -- and even used the word "pleeeaase!" So of course I'm always a sucker for such polite requests, especially comments like this with really insightful questions. Today we'll look specifically at these questions and see what possible answers come to mind.To a certain extent, we already covered a number of possibilities for death knight characters about 6 months ago. However, while most of those possibilities are still valid, there was so much we didn't know about the player-character death knight lore at that time, and there are definitely some points that need updating.
Know Your Lore: Dalaran
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! Dalaran has been one of the most prominent nations in the Eastern Kingdoms since its founding, though it's actually quite small. A nation only thousands strong at its height has perhaps held more sway over world leaders in its time than any other nation, and has attracted the ire of some of the most powerful entities Azeroth has ever seen.Dalaran, located in the heart of former Lordaeron territory, has been the center of Arcane knowledge since its creation, and could be considered the Humans' answer to Quel'Thalas, though the nation accepts Elves (and many others) in its ranks as well. Magic is Dalaran's lifeblood, and is even ruled through the strength and wisdom of its magi. Dalaran is a magocracy, a government ruled by a council of mages known as the Kirin Tor, elected by citizens of the nation. Their icon is the Violet Eye, with Violet being the motif used for the nation itself, and the color purple representing the Arcane as a whole in Warcraft (Arcane Missiles, Netherstorm).
Tank Talk: The irresistible fight
Tank Talk is WoW Insider's raid-tanking column, promising you an exciting and educational look at the world of getting the stuffing thrashed out of you in a 10- or 25-man raid. The column will be rotated amongst Matthew Rossi (Warrior/Paladin), Adam Holisky (Warrior), Michael Gray (Paladin), and Allison Robert (Druid). Our aim is to use this column to debate and discuss class differences, raid-tanking strategies, tips, tricks, and news concerning all things meatshieldish. Since Tank Talk began, we've gotten a few questions from people about raid fights that require tanks to use resist gear. With all of Burning Crusade's raid attunements now removed, and with lots of guilds testing the waters in Tier 5 and Tier 6 before Wrath hits, I figure now's as good a time as any to discuss what resist sets you're going to want if your guild is intent on progression. The resist gear issue is nowhere near as dire as it was in vanilla WoW (Molten Core, anyone?) and in general the raid as a whole rarely needs to worry.Tanks are special. But you knew that already, didn't you?This guide covers all of the existing 10-man and 25-man content in the game outside of Sunwell Plateau:
Tank Talk: Do you feel lucky, punk?
Tank Talk is WoW Insider's new raid-tanking column, promising you an exciting and educational look at the world of getting the stuffing thrashed out of you in a 10- or 25-man raid. The column will be rotated amongst Matthew Rossi (Warrior/Paladin), Adam Holisky (Warrior), Michael Gray (Paladin), and myself (Druid). Our aim is to use this column to debate and discuss class differences, raid-tanking strategies, tips, tricks, and news concerning all things meatshieldish. At least, that's what the others said they were doing. I intend to use it mostly as a soapbox to complain. Absolute power tends to......something something.Welcome to Tank Talk. I am your bear Druid hostess for this week, with a topic that occurred to me while reading a recent article here on the site. Eliah Hecht wrote that his guild is facing a not-uncommon tank shortage and that he has considered the possibility of leveling a tanking class to 70 before Wrath, or tanking on a Death Knight afterwards. A number of people on my server and in my guild have talked about doing the same thing, or switching mains once Wrath hits. With so many people playing Death Knights, I think it's very possible that more people will discover they enjoy -- or at least, don't mind -- tanking, and may seek to do so in a raid environment without necessarily knowing what they've really signed up for. From those of us who have tanked raid content in vanilla WoW or BC, here are the 10 questions you'll want to ask yourself if you're considering the possibility of tanking serious raid content:
Answers from a Lore Nerd part 1
Yesterday I posted Ask a Lore Nerd, in which I asked you, the readers, to ask me any lore questions you'd like. Your questions came, and I'm doing my best to answer! There were quite a lot of questions, many of them multi-part questions, so I haven't been able to get at all of your questions today. I picked ten comments, answered their questions, and I'll get to the rest of them as soon as possible! Don't be afraid to ask further questions. Keep them coming!Milkingit asks: Where do murlocs come from?Answer: We don't know for sure, but there are many theories. Their appearance on land is supposedly a rather recent event, but it's likely that murlocs have been living on the ocean floor for many thousands of years, walking Azeroth even longer than Trolls. The Trolls have been believed to be the oldest sentient race on Azeroth, so if the murlocs came first, they're a very old race and we may never know their exact origin.There are also a few theories on what has inspired murlocs to move inland. The naga taking over the ocean depths may have driven the murlocs inland. The murlocs may be in cahoots with the naga, and the infestation of the mainlands is a tactical move. The murlocs may also be being controlled by Neptulon or some other force, and are doing his/their bidding. We may learn more in Wrath of the Lich King, as the murlocs make a comeback there.
Ready Check: Teron Gorefiend
Teron Gorefiend is usually the fourth boss players face in Black Temple and is really the first one to prove difficult in any way. While guilds new to the attunement-free Black Temple might have breezed their way through High Warlord Naj'entus, Supremus and the Shade of Akama, we're seeing many run into a standstill when they face Teron. Even those clearing Black Temple for the first time last year had some difficulty on the fight, so this Ready Check aims to look more closely at the fight and help out raiders who might be stuck on it even today.You first encounter Teron Gorefiend in Shadowmoon Valley, during the popular 'Spectrecles' questline. We won't spoil the quests for those who might not have done them, but suffice it to say Teron is now un-alive and well in Black Temple. To get to him from the Shade of Akama, wait for the Ashtongue mobs to turn neutral ('Hail Akama!' yells ring out), return to the courtyard where you fought trash prior to Akama and go right. A repair, reagent and rep vendor is unlocked at the back of the courtyard, if you detour, otherwise continue through to a flight of stairs and some Shadowmoon Champions plus friends.Gorefiend's trash isn't too tricky and can be done with two tanks and CC, although be careful of patrols and adds. When you're done with these mobs you'll find yourselves standing in a room with Teron alone on a platform at the other end. Ready for some fun? Let's take a look at what he does.
Hybrid Theory: Performance Assessment
Last week we discussed the fact that raw DPS is not a good indicator of the strength of a hybrid. The quality of a hybrid, or a person that plays a hybrid, will not easily be seen by looking at traditional damage and/or healing meters the same way you would for 'pure' classes.Before I go on, I'd like to reiterate my disclaimer on this topic: Just because your class or spec is not expected to top damage meters, that does not mean you should become complacent about your DPS or Healing effectivenessity(use it, love it) in a raid. You should always strive to be a better player and find ways to improve yourself. If you think you've hit the ceiling of what you can accomplish, work harder to break through it.
Raid boss simulator for Teron Gorefiend
The European Horde guild "Ferox" has designed a flash-based simulator to help assist with the Teron Gorefiend raid boss fight in the Black Temple. I've never been to the Black Temple myself, but according to Bosskillers, Mr. Gorefiend will debuff a random player every 30 seconds with "Shadow of Death," which basically gives you a 55-second countdown till you die. But your death isn't the end of the battle for you yet, in fact it's just beginning: four "Shadowy Constructs" will spawn around you, and as a ghost you will get special abilities only you can use on these constructs -- other raiders will be helpless against them.The flash game based on this fight does a great job at letting you practice the strategies to success, and it even makes for an interesting puzzle for people who like to figure out how to do things on their own. For those of us who are never likely to actually get to go to the Black Temple, simulations like this help convey a taste of what it's like to be there for real, too, so I hope more and more players develop these sorts of simulations in the future. If you want to figure out the simulator from scratch, go ahead and check it out; otherwise I'll explain the basic tools, and then after the jump I'll explain how to win.The constructs will spawn from the point where you die as the Shadow of Death countdown finishes. From there, they will make their way to the rest of your raid. To win, you have to kill them before they get there. Some of the basic controls are explained in the game itself, but the 5 spells you can cast as a ghost are not clear at first. The first and last abilities, "Spirit Strike" and "Spirit Shield" are useless in the flash simulator, so you can ignore them here. The important abilities you'll be using are the three in the middle, "Spirit Lance," "Spirit Chains," and "Spirit Volley" (which you can use by clicking, or pressing 3, 4, or 5, respectively). Spirit Lance will damage a construct within a certain range and also slow it down, Spirit Chains will freeze nearby constructs in place, and Spirit Volley will do AoE damage to all the constructs around you. Continue reading for the secret cheat codes to give you super-extra-strength and +1000 damage!
One Boss Leaves: Gorefiend vs. Gruul wrap-up
It's that time of the week again! Time to see who won and who lost in the last round of our weekly fantasy deathmatch, Two Bosses Enter. Last week we put Teron Gorefiend up against Gruul the Dragonkiller -- and if the above image is any indication, I think Gruul came out ahead. In fact, 57% of our respondents thought Gruul would win this round, with 41% rooting for Gorefiend. (For the full chart, check after the jump.) And before you fault my math, 1% thought the fight would result in a draw and the other 1% was eaten up by rounding. As some commenters have noted, the "draw" option is kind of silly, and will be removed for the next fight -- coming up late this evening!
Two Bosses Enter: Teron Gorefiend vs. Gruul the Dragonkiller
Two bosses will enter... but only one will get to leave! Every week at WoW Insider, we pit two of the most interesting bosses in the World of Warcraft against one another in a fantasy deathmatch -- in the end to emerge with a single boss of bosses, victorious above all others. And the best part? You get to tell us who walks away the winner and who doesn't get to leave our arena at all. Today we're considering a fight between the Black Temple's Teron Gorefiend and Gruul the Dragonkiller. Curious as to what might happen if these two met up? Keep reading and we'll discuss what each of these bosses can do and what might happen if they met up.
Phat Loot Phriday: Helmets of Second Sight
Today's Phat Loot isn't just one helmet-- it's actually your choice of six available from a neat questline in Outlands. So stick with me here. Things may get a little complicated.Name: (Overlord's, Shamanistic, Druidic, Stealther's, Evoker's, Stalker's) Helmet of Second SightType: Rare (Cloth, Leather, Mail, Plate) HeadArmor: VariesAbilities: They all have different abilities, of course, according to their title. You can see a list of all the available helmets here (the Scintillating Headdress is not one of the quest rewards, actually). Altogether, if you run this quest, you'll get a pretty nice pre-Epic helmet out of it. Also: All the helmets "allow the bearer to see into the ghost world while in Shadowmoon Valley." It's a lore thing, stick with me. And if you haven't noticed yet, all the helmets are reskins of the Tier 2 helmets (and in some cases, Tier 1-- see Warrior Helm above) that originally dropped from Onyxia and Molten Core. So if you never got to get your Dragonstalker's Helm or your Helmet of Ten Storms, here's your chance to get a lookalike. With better stats, if you ask me. How to Get It: You've got to do the Teron Gorefiend quest chain in Shadowmoon Valley. It's quite fun, will net you a lot of XP (if you're not 70 yet), a little bit of gold, and your choice of these helmets.For Alliance, it starts with a quest called "Ghost in the Machine" from Zoram the Judicator (geez, what did his mom have against him?) at Wildhammer Stronghold. Horde go to Chief Apothecary Hildagard in Shadowmoon Village for a quest called "A Haunted History." That chain will take you through about seven quests, most of which are soloable (one of them asks for two players, and one of them requires a full 5man group to do). At the end of the quest chain, you'll meet up with the man himself (and make a "mistake" that really wasn't your problem in the first place.As for Gorefiend himself, I don't want to spoil anything, but you'll meet up with him later in the Black Temple (I'm not sure if you actually need the helmet to face him, as the questgiver hints, but you might want to keep it anyway). Meanwhile, you'll get a spiffy helmet that will get you ready to start up the level 70 instances at endgame. Grats!Getting Rid of It: They all sell for different values, from about 2g for the cloth helmet, up to 4g for the plate version. Disenchanting any of them will hook you up with a Large Prismatic Shard.
WoW Moviewatch: Nihilum Vs. Teron Gorefiend
Releasing the third video in their 3-part series, Nihilum has posted their live-realm kill of Teron Gorefiend - another boss of the Black Temple. This is certainly quite a feat for Nihilum to have succeeded in so many encounters in such a short time. They also have rumored that they are "making progress on a certain encounter, but are not ready to show a corpse shot yet." Stay tuned for more progress in post-2.1 content!
Nihilum - Taking down even more bosses
There are a couple of hazards of being a blogger on this side of the pond. The first being that, when you consider one of the largest raiding guilds currently tearing through raid content is in the EU, there's quite a bit of time lag between when they take bosses down and when I sit down to run news postings. The second thing is that in the case of a guild like Nihilum, they've trained on the PTRs for quite some time and are thereby completely ready to tear through these fights and rack up the official Live Server World First kills in nothing flat. This said, as if to answer my progression post yesterday, Nihilum returned to Black Temple on the heels of their last string of accomplishments and took down three more bosses. First they turned their collective might toward Teron Gorefiend who dropped some quite tasty goodies. From there, they chewed up Gurtogg Bloodboil and spit him out. (again, not without snagging some sweet loot first!) From there, Nihilum headed for (and successfully tore down) the Shade of Akama for lots more nifty purple goodness, and another live server World First. While they did not finish the Essence of Souls event (pictured) they are hoping to return and knock that out in short order.Now some of the reactions I got in mail the last time I posted a progression post for Nihilum raised an interesting question to me. If a guild goes on the PTR and learns the strategies there does that somehow lessen their world first accomplishment on live servers? It seemed like several people felt that the accomplishments were diminished due to having been done prior on the PTRs. Personally, I've got mad respect for those who blaze the trails -- whether on the PTRs or on Live servers, although I am nostalgic for when it was a bit more of a surprise as to who would do so. (One of the few downsides of the job, I suppose. heh)[via Nihilum]
