frozen-halls
Latest
The ups and downs of the Battered Hilt
Yesterday, Bornakk said clearly that the Battered Hilt drop that starts the Quel'delar questline was dropping at the right rate, which is much less than when the patch first hit. And then of course, in last night's fixes, they went ahead and increased the drop rate anyway. He also claimed there were no plans to make it BoP, but who knows what'll happen in the future? For now, however, you can still buy and sell the quest item for quite a bit of gold. We'll have to see where the price eventually ends up -- on the staff here, we've seen anything from 8,000g to over 23,000g, and Twitter tells us that people are paying an average of around 12k or so, going up to as high as 30k (or even shady real money offers in online classified ads). Our own Matt Low has actually seen the drop three different times, and lost every roll. It drops off of any of the mobs in the Heroic versions of the Frozen Halls 5-mans, and as Bornakk says, any class can use it to come up with a pretty solid weapon, so the competition will probably keep the price high, depending on where the drop rate ends up. The silver lining, if you really want one, have terrible luck, and don't ever expect to have all that money, is that the price will probably go down eventually. Bornakk says that as people move up into Icecrown and start picking up weapons that are even better than the sister blade, demand is likely to drop off a bit. But he also says that Blizzard does want this to be a special and relatively rare item, so you'll still have to probably either be lucky or ready to grind it out. Good luck -- I'm out there searching for one with you.
Phat Loot Phriday: Unspeakable Secret
Mindor asked us to please do a caster staff this week, so here's one you can go find in the new Frozen Halls instances this weekend. Name: Unspeakable Secret (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory) Type: Epic Staff Damage/Speed: 281-519 / 2.80 (143.1 DPS) Attributes: +81 Stamina, +81 Intellect. %Gallery-33600%
Patch 3.3: How to find the Frozen Halls
The information in the video above might seem terribly obvious to you. How hard could it be to find the new 5-man instances? There's banners all over the place, and it's lit up like a landing strip! It must be easy to find! Yeah, you would think that, but our experience on the PTR disagrees. For every one person that can find the instances, there are thirty who can't. This video here? Consider it a gift to you that actually know how to get there. Instead of needing to explain it to every single guild member of yours begging for directions, just point them toward this video. You'll mock me now, but you'll thank me later. Trust me. You will. 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.
The Frozen Halls trailer from vodka
Looking for something to tide you over until the servers turn on with patch 3.3 active? How about a tour through the frigid domain of the Lich King? The sights and sounds of Icecrown Citadel's three-winged five-man dungeon, the Frozen Halls, come to life in Kinaesthesia's fantastic trailer. Kinaesthesia is a member of <vodka>, the well-known high-end raiding guild, and their videos are known for their professional quality. This one is no exception. In fact, In lieu of an official trailer for Patch 3.3, this is probably the best way to get yourself psyched for tomorrow's patch. The video contains numerous spoilers and should, like any other spoiler-filled material, be avoided if you want your experience to be pure as driven Icecrown snow. But if you want a great-looking and exhaustive trailer? This just might be for you. The full trailer after the break.
Patch 3.3: The heart and souls of Icecrown Citadel
Continuing Blizzard's slow PR trickle of Patch 3.3 news, they just released an interview with Lead World Designer Cory Stockton and Lead Systems Designer Greg Street, a.k.a. Ghostcrawler, about the philosophy behind the design of the Icecrown Citadel raid dungeon. There's a lot of great information in there. Where itemization is concerned, they explain that the multitude of bosses in the instance (especially compared to the ghost town that was Crusader's Coliseum) affords the developers the opportunity to really serve players with specific specs and make sure that each boss has a loot table with an item of interest for every raider in attendance. They also talk at length about some popular concepts they've brought back for the sake of keeping things fun and interesting -- like the return of weapon procs, something we've rarely seen since the vanilla endgame. Ghostcrawler says that the main theme of Icecrown's gear is "Epic. Cool things. Proc'y stuff." Sounds good to me. They also talk about cohesion between the dungeon's art and the gear that drops in it. The compelling look of the instance made it easy to create eye-catching gear to match it, and that's apparently not always easy. The Frozen Halls, the set of three five-man dungeons also releasing with 3.3, will also have gear that shares the same artistic "kit" as the raid, like they wish they had done with Ulduar and its sister five-man dungeons. Other topics touched on include discussion of non-boss items available -- trash epics, for example, or the Ashen Verdict rep gear that'll be available -- and why Crusader's Coliseum was so, what's the word ... boring. In short, blame Icecrown. Personally, I'm willing to make the sacrifice of one fairly uninspired patch period if it means that the end of the entire WarCraft III arc wraps up in a big, glorious, icy fireworks display. So to speak. Check out the full interview for yourself here, along with some new screenshots. 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.
Blizzard releases details on Icecrown Citadel
Looks like patch 3.3 might be closer than we thought. Over on the European site, we have a massive info dump about Icecrown Citadel's Frozen Halls, a new instance with normal and heroic versions offering iLevel 219 (on Normal) and 232 (on Heroic) gear. It sounds like the new 5 man we were told was coming. (Edited to add: the North American site has caught up to our European brethren.)It seems that Horde and Alliance each get their own juicy lore goodness in addition to loots, as players will be able to accompany Sylvanas Windrunner or Jaina Proudmoore as they seek a path into the heart of Icecrown Citadel for their individual reasons. (It's safe to say Sylvanas is probably looking to shoot Arthas a lot.) Once inside the Frozen Halls, players must confront the bosses of the Forge of Souls and the Pit of Saron before finally confronting Arthas himself. Sounds pretty bloody epic to me. The text indicates that each section will have its own unique means of challenging the players before confronting the bosses. With names like Bronjahm the Godfather of Souls (is that a James Brown reference) and Scourgelord Tyrannus, I think it's safe to assume we're not going to be offered tea and crumpets, unless of course they're evil tea and necromantic crumpets.So there you have it. Go forth and feast your eyes on screenshots of this 'massive, sprawling 5 player dungeon' if I may paraphrase.Since we know many of you can't access WoW's official website at work, the complete details from Blizzard are reproduced after the break.%Gallery-74362%
