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Shifting Perspectives: Revenge of the Karapalooza
Every week, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week, we invade the menagerie, shut down the demon factory, defang the beaten dog, carefully avoid Netherspite, play some chess, and face not only Malchezaar but the legions he commands. Greetings, druids. This week we'll finish our look at stomping Kara from Curator through Prince. If you're looking for our first installment (covering Attumen through Nightbane), you'll find that here. Curator For most people, the Curator was the source of the first tier piece they ever got in Burning Crusade as he drops the tier 4 glove token. Note that the Defender tokens in tier 4 and 5 went to warriors, druids, and priests, which forced BC's more popular tanking and healing classes (in addition to the new legion of shadow priests that every raid wanted) to gear at each others' expense. It wasn't until tier 6 that Blizzard went for more sensible class combinations, splitting most tanking/healing classes to different tokens.
15 Minutes of Fame: 10-boxing Karazhan, Part 1
15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about.This week's 15 Minutes of Fame is about a multiboxing team – but it's not that team that just ganked you in your last Battleground. Absolute Power-H of Archimonde and its team leader/main tank, Nixi, have made their mark not in Battlegrounds but in Karazhan.Ever curious about a unique perspective of the World of Warcraft, we visited with Nixi & Co. to find out what it's like to "solo" Karazhan. This week in Part 1 of our interview, we go straight for the throat with Nixi's Kara strats. Next week, Part 2 of 15 Minutes of Fame: 10-boxing Karazhan brings you a look at Nixi's hardware setup and his top five tips for new multiboxers.
Ask a Lore Nerd: Your curiosity will be the death of you
Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, where each week Alex Ziebart answers your quests about the lore in the World of Warcraft. If you have any questions, no matter how big or small they might be, ask them in the comments section below and we'll try to answer it in a future edition.This edition of Ask a Lore Nerd is very heavy on the Scourge and various other Wrath-related questions. Love it or hate it, that's what we've got this week. I tried to dance around spoilers where possible this week, but starting next week the spoilers are gonna come rollin' in. There will be warnings, of course, but they'll be there. Just sayin'. Meethan asked...What are Liches raised from? When encountered, Liches have sorceror and somewhat necromatic powers. Can they be raised from anyone or must it be a mage? Would you consider Kel'thuzad to be "Lord of the Lich"?As far as Kel'thuzad goes, I believe the title that was given to him is "Archlich." Almost all liches were raised from necromancers, warlocks and mages, though the Lich King pretty much does whatever the hell he wants and can raise other people as a lich if he really wants to do that. That's probably rare, because turning someone that isn't skilled at spellcasting into a being that is built for spellcasting would just be silly. The Burning Legion used to employ a lot of liches as well, but they lost most of them when the Scourge betrayed them.
WWI '08 Panel: Warlock
Warlocks got a few mentions at this morning's WWI class panel, not only with confirmation of some previously mentioned spells in the form of Demon Form and the Demonic Circle, but in relation to the Mage, confirming the eternal struggle that seems to go on between the two classes. Still, what these mentioned changes do for the class, I believe, is mostly unclear. Demon Form and Damage Demon Form, otherwise known as Illidan form to the dev team, is something that a lot of Warlocks having been asking for for quite some time. Admittedly, it's pretty cool. Being able to morph into a Demon and gaining temporary access to a whole new skill set to devastate the enemy with? Yeah, I can't see that not being fun. But the question remains: How will it perform?%Gallery-26320%
Ask a Lore Nerd: Nagapalooza
Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, WoW Insider's newest weekly feature column. Have a question about the story and lore of the Warcraft universe? Click the Comments link below, ask your question, and blogger/columnist Alex Ziebart will answer you in a future installment!Thanks to the overwhelming popularity of Ask a Lore Nerd's first installment, we are now a weekly feature! I hope you enjoy it, because it's here to stay. This week we're fielding a large number of questions from a few contributors. A number of you have taken full advantage of this opportunity and posted an avalanche of questions. Good! That's what I like to see! Let's jump right into it, shall we?Matt said: Not a lore question, but lore speculation. Blizzard hinted at a major event would cause the uneasy-peace of Horde and Alliance become not on uneasy. What could cause tensions to rise? Also in the real world alliances crumble, and are reformed. What races of the Horde and Alliance do you see possibly switching sides?Answer: From what I understand, Garrosh Hellscream will be following in his father's footsteps and the good ol' Orcish bloodlust will color his actions in Northrend. Additionally, I'd be willing to bet the Alliance is mighty nervous about the Forsaken's new plagues, considering they had been thoroughly tested on Alliance citizens in the past. The Lich King may also play a substantial role in the rising tensions, playing the two factions off of one another. As far as switching sides, I don't see it happening. If anything, factions would splinter further but not switch sides. The Forsaken and Blood Elves might go off on their own. The Night Elves might go off on their own. Pretty unlikely in both cases.
Need a cure for the Karazhan blues? Try 10 Paladins
Don't get me wrong here, Karazhan's generally a pretty fun dungeon, aside from the odd incredibly annoying trash mob, but when you've run it time and time again, it's always nice to find a twist or a new way of doing stuff to spice things up again. The Senatus Redux guild of the Kul Tiras EU run have done just that, clearing most of Karazhan with a group 10 paladins, most of them in no better than T4 gear or lower, on a run done on March 1st. They managed to get down all the bosses but Prince Malchezaar and Nightbane - and they have pretty good reason to believe that they could have had the Prince, having him to 15% on their last attempt of the night.
Guildwatch: Get me the board!
Watch your back, Shade of Aran! You're On Notice! This week's Word is "Ninja," but we've lots of all kinds of drama, downed, and recruiting news in today's Guildwatch, your weekly look at guild happenings around the realms.Remember, if you've got tips for us, the address is wowguildwatch@gmail.com. Click the link below to read all the truthiness we could find this week.
Talon King Ikiss and a few other undocumented boss buffs
Alistairover of Thunderhorn (who is an oomkin guildie of mine, and, I must say, regularly outdps's higher level warlocks, rogues and hunters) dropped a note to me in guild chat about Talon King Ikiss, the last boss in Sethekk Halls. We ran that place together last week, and the boss has an Area of Effect spell that hurts a lot, but can be interrupted with kicks, Earth Shocks, or any other interruption spell. Not so much anymore, however, says Ali.Apparently 2.07 made him invulnerable to almost any type of interruption, and players aren't happy about it. I'll still say the fight's not completely impossible (there's a strategy where you can all group around him to keep him from blinking, and then hide behind a pillar to avoid line of sight on the AoE, and another strat where you just do what you can to time heals with the AoE and keep clothies out of range, and I'm sure interested parties will include more in the comments below), but I haven't done it myself since the patch-- I've just heard it's very, very hard.Additionally, Illhoof, a boss in Karazhan, got a nice undocumented buff-- his shadowbolts hit harder, as does his Imp. Players at that level (that's a fight I haven't done at all yet) say he's so hard he's not even worth the drops at this point. And another boss in Karazhan, the Maiden of Virtue, got a little bit of a buff on her "Repentance" spell, but apparently the fight's still easy.As of this writing, there's no official Blizzard response to any of this, which could be taken either way, but is probably a pretty good indication these are all working as intended. Sethekk Halls, it seems, just got a bit harder.Update: Our own Eliah Hecht reports that Tseric has said "working as intended" on the Illhoof and Maiden buffs, but "communication breakdown" prevented it from showing up in the patch notes. More info in the comments.
