algalon-the-observer
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Ra-den encounter features a return of limited attempts
The Throne of Thunder has been compared to Ulduar in more ways than one -- the size and scope of the dungeon, the multitude of boss encounters, and even the thematic elements of the dungeon itself. But it looks like there is one more comparison to add to the pile. Ra-den, the bonus boss unlocked only upon defeating Lei-Shen on heroic mode, has a mechanic to limit the number of times he can be engaged in any given week. Those that remember Algalon remember the one hour limit on attempting the boss. One careless pull, one wipe, one disconnect could potentially ruin a guild's chances for downing the boss in a lockout period. But Ra-den isn't limited by a time clock; instead, he's simply limited by the number of attempts a guild can make. Screenshots have shown that number to be 30, however keep in mind that the number of attempts, and even the limited nature of the encounter, can be changed at any time. Patch 5.2 is still on the PTR, after all. Blue poster and Game Designer Watcher had some words of wisdom to share following the unplanned discovery of Ra-den's limited attempts on the PTR.
Know Your Lore, TFH Edition: The dark secrets of the mogu
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 were once rulers of an empire that rivaled the Zandalar in size and scope, but they possessed powers far greater than the trolls could ever dream of. They used their power to shape the grummels and saurok from the lesser races of Pandaria. They enslaved the pandaren race as a whole, using them to build structures and gather supplies all under threat of their iron fists. Their great empires trace back to thousands of years ago, before even the War of the Ancients, and possibly before the rise of the kaldorei race. The mogu are one of the clear villains of this expansion, and our arrival denotes the sudden uprising of this strange, curious, violent race. While the mogu may have been relatively quiet for centuries, they are certainly far from it now. And as we make our way through Pandaria we see more and more evidence that these violent beings are on the move -- something that disturbs the gentle pandaren greatly. The mogu hide secrets, and over the course of raiding, we uncover a few. But their greatest secret may just be something so unfathomable, so bizarre, that it shakes the roots of everything we currently know and believe. 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 why and what is to come as a result. These speculations are merely theories and shouldn't be taken as fact or official lore. Please note: This post contains some content spoilers from Mists of Pandaria.
Know Your Lore: Algalon the Observer
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. I have seen worlds bathed in the Makers' flames. Their denizens fading without so much as a whimper. Entire planetary systems born and razed in the time that it takes your mortal hearts to beat once. The Titans are creatures of myth and mystery to the mortals of Azeroth. While some Azerothians (most notably Brann Bronzebeard) seek to unravel their secrets, most remain blissfully unaware and uncaring of the origins of the world. But the mysteries Brann works so hard to uncover more often than not raise far more questions than they answer, and in some cases, create havoc that could reduce our world to ashes in the blink of an eye. In Ulduar, Brann sought to uncover the further secrets of the origin of the dwarves, something that the Explorer's League has been working on since the early days of WoW and the first player steps into the Titan stronghold of Uldaman. But what Brann uncovered was a massive facility that wasn't just for the storage of information from times long past. The facility of Ulduar and its corrupt Titans weren't anywhere near as much of a threat to the world as what came after Loken's defeat in the Halls of Lightning. For it was the moment of his defeat that the failsafe was tripped and the signal was sent. And it was Loken's death that heralded the arrival of Algalon the Observer and the end of the world.
The Queue: Oh man did someone say talent
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Anne Stickney is in ur base your Queue, killin ur doods answering your questions. Hello again! It's me, here to answer all your direly important burning questions. I have hijacked this column from Adam today, so let's get started, shall we? techvoodooguy asks: Question: What's your favorite talent? You see that video up there? That. Rezai asks: Question: What did Sacco do to Anne; that she no longer comes on the podcast?
The OverAchiever: Do them now!
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, it's time to get a move on. We've had some recent news concerning achievements in categories we've already covered, and my original intent this week was to play catch-up with that in addition to finishing off the new reputation, world event, and feat of strength achievements in Cataclysm. However, given equally recent news concerning achievements that are set to become feats (and may do so as early as patch 4.0.1), I thought it would be more sensible to cover the stuff that you'd want to do as soon as possible before it disappears. I've cross-checked the list of known Cataclysm feats of strength against the feats already present in game, and as far as I know, this should be a comprehensive set of current Wrath of the Lich King achievements that will become inaccessible as of patch 4.0.1, patch 4.0.3, or Cataclysm's release (or at least, a comprehensive list as of the current beta and PTR builds). I've written this list assuming the following: Although it hasn't been officially confirmed that all of these will disappear in patch 4.0.1 or 4.0.3 rather than the expansion itself, for the time being, I'm guessing it's one of the two patches you need to worry about. With the recent announcement of arena Season 8 ending on Oct. 12, 4.0.1 may hit in less than two weeks. Zarhym's post just made it clear that the season could end as early as the 12th, not that it definitely would, and there's still a lot of stuff to fix on the PTR and beta -- but every Tuesday from hereon is a potential patch day. Accepting Oct. 5 or 12 as possible patch dates, I've included an opinion on the feasibility of getting the following achievements done as quickly as possible.
The OverAchiever: The 25 most entertaining achievements #5-3
Every so often, I get tired of the self-seriousness that infests some of (OK, most of) the other work I do here and get the urge to write something purely for fun. After our series on evil achievements and the relentless misery of School of Hard Knocks, I'd like to spend some time on achievements that are nothing but an absolute joy from beginning to end. Today we're going to get close to finishing our series on World of Warcraft's 25 most entertaining achievements. This was originally supposed to be #5 through #1, but ... well, I think the last five achievements are all complete knockouts, so I devoted a bit more time to each. This is the full series, if you're catching up: OverAchiever: Pure Win The 25 most entertaining achievements, #25-21 The 25 most entertaining achievements, #20-16 The 25 most entertaining achievements, #15-11 The 25 most entertaining achievements, #10-6 and today's post, the 25 most entertaining achievements finale, #5-3
The OverAchiever: Dungeon and raid titles, Part 2
After taking a two-week detour into guides covering the Love Is In the Air and Lunar Festival holidays, we're going to return to the list of titles available from dungeon and raid achievements. You can find part one here, covering everything from Argent Defender to Grand Crusader. This week, we'll pick up where we left off. Herald of the Titans (requires an Algalon-10 kill under special circumstances) or Starcaller (requires Observed -- 10 player) Herald of the Titans, much like its ToGC-10 counterpart Argent Defender, requires you to kill Algalon in Ulduar-10 without padding the difficulty with gear from higher-level raids. The result is arguably the coolest Algalon-related title apart from Celestial Defender, but it won't come without a ton of planning and a lot of skill. Starcaller is the same deal, minus the gear requirement.
Spiritual Guidance: Disciplined raid healing
Every Sunday Spiritual Guidance offers Holy and Discipline priests advice on how to wield the holy light and groove to the disco night. Your hostess Dawn Moore will provide the music. I decided to take a break from gems this week to discuss a style of priest healing that is becoming popular among raiders: discipline raid healing. Though the concepts behind it are extremely simple to understand and execute, this style of play seems to have slipped under the radar of many players despite its amazing potential. Tag along with me after the jump and I'll fill you in on the basics and benefits of disc raid healing. Holy priests, I'm talking to you, too.
Breakfast Topic: How phasing could be used in-game
Phasing seems to be Blizzard's new favorite toy. It's being used be more and more as we progress through Wrath. From the Wrathgate to those annoying out of body/spirit quests in Zul'Drak, phasing is changing how we see Azeroth itself. But it strikes me there's once area where phasing should sometimes be used and isn't: bosses. Specifically I mean the big guys ... Kil'Jaeden, Illidan, Loken, Yoggy, Algalon and, of course, Arthas himself. The logic here is simple, these are bosses key to game lore and killing them not only takes an enormous amount of effort (or in the case of Kil'Jaeden, banishing him back to where ever he came from) but it also has an effect on the world itself. Think of the impacts the events of the Sunwell had - phasing was never implemented there, and definitely should have been once Wrath was released.Now I know you will be thinking: "Why should we only kill a boss once?" I'm not suggesting that once you kill the Lich King, for example, you are locked out of killing him again. Rather that his death triggers a change in Azeroth - which is where the phasing comes in. Icecrown Citadel could collapse or be recycled by other NPCs, such as the Ebon Blade. Once this happens, you could then walk in, click on an NPC and 'relive' the fight in the form of a new raid. The same thing could be done with the Sunwell, for example, and it could open up a new quest chain and further the game's lore in new and fantastic ways.We've already seen how phasing can change Northrend, just look at how it's used post-Wrathgate. How do you think it could be used (particularly considering that the new expansion is called Cataclysm) to change how we play, the bosses we kill, and how we raid?
The Queue: All your fault
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.You know, I was getting bored of that whole musical intro thing, but having it around certainly made these preambles easier to write. What do you write here every day about a daily Q&A column? Guess what, guys! We're A'ing more Qs! Shock! Awe!So you've broken me. Congratulations. I am now a hollow husk of a man that can do nothing but uphold the status quo. I hope you're proud of yourselves. Here it goes again. WootZoot asked... "Any word on if Blizzard is working on a new novel or RPG book?"
More Algalon firsts from around the world
The last couple of days have seen a few more 'firsts' around the world for Algalon, the supposed Destroyer of Raids. Premonition of the Sen'jin server scored the US first, roughly a week after Ensidia's world first. Their kill revealed two brand new drops from the boss, both of which you can see in the little gallery just below. Good work, guys.In another part of the world, the infamous Chinese guild Stars (the one that moved to Taiwan servers to play Wrath of the Lich King) has downed Algalon as well. This is extremely impressive. Why? Well, Taiwan got their hands on patch 3.1 a full week after North American and European realms did. That means Stars killed Algalon in the same amount of time it took Ensidia to do it. If both regions received the patch on the same day, the two kills would have happened at very nearly the same time.Congratulations to both guilds, and we look forward to watching the next raiding race when patch 3.2 rolls around![via MMO-Champion]%Gallery-65692%
Algalon kill video from the Underground Kosmonavts
As you might have heard previously, the Underground Kosmonavts of EU-Ravencrest scored the World 2nd kill on the 10-man version of Algalon. Shortly after their kill they released a video of it, which has burning across the net. Algalon has been incredibly hyped, so it doesn't surprise me!Now, I haven't done this fight, I won't pretend I have, and all that I've seen is this video, so take this as, essentially, me talking out of my rear end: This fight looks really easy compared to what I've seen of Ulduar so far. Quite honestly, it looks like a tank and spank compared to something like Mimiron. Not to mention his hard mode, which you need to do to get to Algalon in the first place. Maybe Algalon is Ulduar's Brutallus? Hopefully there are elements to the fight that don't show up on video very well (from the point of view of a Hunter especially), and what we're seeing isn't a good indicator of the whole encounter.Of course, I really don't mean to trivialize the accomplishment here. These guys were the second guild in the world to down him, and I imagine that if it were as easy as the video makes it look, a lot more guilds would have done it by now. Great job, Kosmonavts.
MMO Champion reveals shiny Algalon dagger
"Oh my god, it's full of stars!"No, it's not 2001: A Space Odyssey (one of the best books and movies of, like, all time), it was our very own Elizabeth Harper when she saw this shiny new dagger, revealed thanks to MMO Champion. Now Algalon still hasn't been defeated, but doesn't this awesome, star-filled blade make you want to pwn his arse? Go on, admit it, even if it's purely on an RP-level. Personally, as a boomer, I use staves exclusively but I want this weapon so badly. It has to be one of the nicest looking drops I've seen in a while - and the stats aren't too bad either. It manages to encapsulate everything about the Algalon encounter and the shiny graphics in one neat package. In my experience, most loot has an awesome name or looks snazzy, but seldom lives up to its reputation. However, given the nice load of gear which has been tumbling out of Ulduar's 10 and 25 man encounters, it's nice to see some pieces which aren't just nice on a purely shiny level. These are drops like Voldrethar, Dark Blade of Oblivion, Wisdom's Hold, Shoulderpads of Dormant Energies and the Dark Edge of Depravity. Check out more info at MMO Champion and try not to drool.
What happens if Algalon isn't defeated?
This week information about the final boss of Ulduar has slowly been revealed, thanks to the guild Wraith on EU-Ysondre. We never got to meet Algalon the Observer on the PTRs so this encounter is one of the most mysterious, both in terms of tactics and of lore. From what I've seen it's also one of the most gorgeous, but then again, I like stars and floating planets. Algalon himself is an entity composed of stars, a spectral being who is not uncompassionate to the heroes who have come to kill him. He just has a job to do. A job which could see our world being put in serious - even cataclysmic jepoardy.Needless to say, from here on in, there be SPOILERS about the actual boss fight so read on at your own peril!
Loot, rationality, and the Sunwell effect
Here at WoW Insider we don't always agree with each other. Whether it's debating the merits of various tanks on different encounters, the damage difference between pure and hybrid DPS classes, the ideal function of a particular healing class in raids, or the superiority of cake over pie, our back-channel discussion tends to be pretty interesting.Eliah Hecht's article "25-man gear should not be better than 10-man gear" sparked a lot of great discussion with our readers and, I think, some illuminating poll results as well. The majority of responders believed that giving 10-man and 25-man raids the same loot table would result in a significant drop in popularity for 25-man raiding. Overall, I tend to agree with this, but I also think that Eliah touched on something that speaks to Blizzard's evolving sense of game design, much of which is evident in the transition between late Burning Crusade and Wrath. I would like to call this the Sunwell effect, or "ingame rationality." To wit: don't incentivize players to behave in a manner contrary to your actual design interests. I believe this played a huge role in the differences between BC and Wrath raiding, and that it underlies why the 25-man loot table has to remain superior to its 10-man counterpart.
Spoilers: Further Algalon the Observer details
Again, this post contains spoilers for the raid dungeon Ulduar. If you don't want to be spoiled, do not read further or watch the attached video. You have been warned.Yesterday we posted up a preview of the first glimpse of Algalon the Observer courtesy of Wraith on EU-Ysondre. Now we come with video (which you can see under the cut below or by clicking the picture above) from EU-Ravencrest's Underground Kosmonavts. It's brief and you don't get to see much, but it still shows Algalon in motion. His intro takes up a majority of the video, and I expect that intro will be a point of frustration for guilds trying to learn him. Have 10 minutes left to kill him for the week, and he takes 1-2 minutes to jabber on about reorigination? Yeah, that'll drive ya nuts.MMO-Champion also has a list of Algalon's abilities, though we don't have much context in which to put them yet. The only context I need, though? They look really, really painful.
Spoilers: Preview of Algalon the Observer
Please note that this post contains spoilers for the raid dungeon Ulduar. If you don't want to be spoiled, please stop reading. The above image has been blurred for your safety. You have been warned.Wraith of EU-Ysondre has been hard at work toppling the hard modes required to access Algalon the Observer, the true final boss of Ulduar. They've yet to defeat Agalon, but they're one of the first guilds in the world to even see this boss in person.MMO-Champion has a whole load of pictures from their raid, and I have to say... they're pretty trippy. It makes the psychedelic blues of the Malygos encounter look tame in comparison. The encounter also has an added hook to it: Upon reaching his chamber, you're given 60 minutes to fight him. After those 60 minutes, he despawns for the day week and you're out of luck.
