emalon
Latest
Earth, Wind & Fire video by Mediocrity
The guild Mediocrity from Blackrock (US) is the second guild in the world to complete the Earth, Wind & Fire achievement. While Vanquish was the first guild to accomplish this special kind of kill, Mediocrity gives us all the gift of a video so that we can share in their achievement.You can see how the team split up the tanking duties, keeping one group on Emalon while the other was stacked up on Archavon and Koralon. This is no small feat, and a clear success of coordination and skill. Congratulations![Via MMO-Champion]
Ready Check: Koralon the Flame Watcher
Ready Check is a column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Vault of Archavon or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. If you remember, back when Emalon the Storm Watcher hit the ground, our own Zach Yonzon warned you that Emalon was no loot pinata. While Archavon required only a bare minimum of basic skills, and was really just a DPS race even when he first came out, Emalon to this day requires your group to vaguely pay attention and kill the big, growing add first. With the beginning of the new Arena season, Koralon the FIre Watcher has taken up residence with Emalon and Archavon. He lives to the left of the hall, opposite to where Emalon hangs out. In terms of skill, he's only slightly more difficult than Archavon. In fact, I'd say he's probably easier, if your group's gear can support your ability to kill him. Check out the strategy behind the cut.
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..."
Patch 3.2 PTR: Koralon the Flame Watcher impressions
The Public Test Realm for Patch 3.2 is in full swing, and even though the Argent Coliseum isn't available for testing just yet, there's a brand-new wing in Wintergrasp's Vault of Archavon housing a brand-new giant to beat up. Enter Koralon, the Flame Watcher. He's a stout fellow, and you probably recognize his model, which he shares with Volkhan from Halls of Lightning and Ignis from Ulduar, replete with crotch-pot. And as you may have also guessed, he uses fire spells and abilities. He doesn't currently drop loot on the PTR, though I assume the distribution will be much the same as it is with Emalon -- two or so pieces of Tier 9 gear along with a lion's share of PVP items. Impressions and strategy after the jump.
Wintergrasp bug plaguing servers after 3.1.2
We're getting tons of reports in of Wintergrasp behaving a bit oddly today, and I can confirm them to be true on my home server of Cenarion Circle. Wintergrasp battles are lasting, at most, 5-10 minutes with no more than 10 minutes between battles. Good for farming Marks of Honor, not so good for trying to kill Archavon and/or Emalon.If this is how you try to lower the lag Wintergrasp causes on servers, I think the quote "ur doin it wrong" applies. In all seriousness, I'm kidding about that and this is obviously not working as intended. Considering the Mark and Honor gains people are getting from this, I wouldn't be surprised if we see some emergency maintenance and rollbacks soon. I wouldn't get too attached to your gains this afternoon.
Officers' Quarters: Disposable raiders
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.PUG players seem to be everywhere these days. For guilds that can't field a full 25, PUGs are running Naxxramas and Obsidian Sanctum and even the Eye of Eternity alongside you. They're practically half the raid in your Vault of Archavon runs. They help your 10-player raid take out Heroic Flame Leviathan for some quick, juicy iLevel 226 loot. If Blizzard keeps nerfing Ulduar, pretty soon they'll be looting Keepers' chests, too. Last week's e-mail was practically a blog unto itself, so this week I thought I'd pick a short one. One reader asks what we owe these PUG players. Can we just boot them as soon as some of our own guild members log on? Hi Scott I have a question about what is considered fair to pugs in a raid. I don't do pug raids myself so I am out of touch with what the etiquette is.We had needed to pug for a raid and were just about to start, when a couple of guildies logged on. They wanted us to kick some pugs so they could join the raid. The issue isn't that they logged on after raid start, but purely about whether it is considered fair to kick a pug out in favour of a guild member.
The best of WoW Insider: April 14-21, 2009
Patch 3.1 has been out for a week now in the World of Warcraft (in fact, patch 3.1.1 is coming out today), and players have tons to do -- we're all raiding Ulduar, playing around with dual specs, and leveling up through the Argent Tournament to become Champions of our own factions. In fact, there's a lot of new stuff in World of Warcraft, so if it ever gets overwhelming, worry not -- Joystiq's WoW Insider has you covered. Here's our most popular posts in the past week. News WoW Insider's Guide to the Argent TournamentIt's joustin' time in the World of Warcraft. Here's what you need to know. WoW Insider's Patch 3.1 FAQFrequently asked questions about last week's patch, answered just for you. Ghostcrawler on the mechanics behind Armor PenetrationOne of the game's devs talks about one of the tougher damage dealing mechanics to figure out. First day for Champions on the Argent TournamentThe very first class of Champions arises. Curse, WoW Interface band together to block WoWMatrixA small shakeup in the addon world leaves a few players hanging right around patch day. Features Wrath 101: Emalon the Storm WatcherThere's a new boss in the Wintergrasp Vault, and here's a quick guide to taking him down. The Queue: Service with a smileYou ask, we answer. That's how it works. How to get the Turtle MountWant to get your hands on the brand new aquatic mount? Here's a few tips. How to activate Ulduar's hard modesSure, anybody can raid Ulduar. But can you do it on hard mode? Lichborne: Top Death Knight DPS builds and patch 3.1With dual specs out, everybody wants to know which builds are best. Our Death Knight column breaks down which talent points to look for in patch 3.1.
The Art of War(craft): Wintergrasp in Patch 3.1 and beyond
I love Wintergrasp. Five months into Wrath and I think it's still one of the most fun things to do in the game. Lag issues aside, I think the zone has been a great success if only by judging through the number of people on my realm who participate in every battle. The general impression that I get from forums, blogs, comments on this site, as well as fellow players is that Blizzard did a good job with Wintergrasp. It's fun, fast, and extremely rewarding -- Honor gain during one game is insane and the items you can purchase with the Wintergrasp Marks of Honor are pretty good (we'll get to that in a moment). Patch 3.1 is going to bring some improvements to the gameplay, as well, so let's take a look at those things first.All players who attack a siege vehicle should now get credit if it is destroyed.Previously this worked similar to tapping a mob, where the player or raid that first tapped the siege vehicle would get credit. This made it harder for multiple raids or ungrouped players to complete Stop the Siege!. This change should solve that problem neatly.Daily quests Slay Them All! (Horde) and No Mercy for the Merciless (Alliance) have had their PvP kill requirements reduced to 10 from 20. NPCs defending the fortress and south towers now count toward these dailies as well.Enemy players have the same tapping mechanic as mobs, so even though a player can get Honor from a tapped enemy, they wouldn't count towards completion of the aforementioned quests. Similar to the vehicle problem, ungrouped players or those in smaller raids would often come up short of the requisite 20 kills during one battle. Obviously, changing the tapping mechanics for players isn't the solution, so Blizzard made the kill requirement lower and included NPCs as valid targets. The latter change is probably aimed at lower population servers or realms where Wintergrasp participation isn't too high, as well as realms where there's a distinct faction imbalance. The number of NPCs defending fortress has been increased.Again, this should make it easier for players to complete the daily quests as well as move up in Rank. The NPC guards don't hit hard and have very low hit points, so they're really just cannon fodder for quest and rank requirements. I'm not a big fan of too many NPCs in a PvP zone, but this change seems to have been necessary. Players on defense often hole up in the fortress, slowing down offense's rank gain. Having more NPCs lowers the effectivity of that delaying tactic.
