kil-jaeden
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The Queue: New Year's Eve
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. I'm writing today's edition of The Queue at 5:00 a.m. Central time. It's already 2015 in New Zealand. Timezones are weird. Beztoko asked: I have a timeline question it has been said that WOD Gul'dan is on the phone with a very angry kil'jaeden, am I wrong to assume that this is a different kil'jaeden than the one we fought in BC?
Blood Pact: To summon or not to summon, that's the question
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Pact for affliction, demonology, and destruction warlocks. This week, Megan O'Neill scraps another attempt at Kanrethad to discuss being a pet class instead. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous pet bugs in encounter design like jumping down into Nefarian's pit in Blackwing Descent so your pet then did nothing but stand in the middle, or to take up Doomguards against a despawning abyssal phase 3 in Throne of the Four Winds -- and by opposing end them: to die, to sacrifice. To sacrifice, perchance to DPS; Aye, there's the rub, for in that sleep of death, what meter-topping dreams of 5.0 may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil (no, not that one!), must give our developers pause. My terrible warlock Shakespeare adaptation aside, we've had the ponderings about how tied to pets warlocks should or shouldn't be. As I continue to throw myself at Kanrethad's own demonic stampede, I've had some thoughts about the subject.
The Queue: Bubble bubble pop pop
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mathew McCurley will be your host today. Oh boy, The Queue! Have I told you guys how much I love writing The Queue? When I'm not YouTubing or twittering, some of my most wonderful memories are sitting at my computer and browsing through your questions and ... Ooooh, looks like someone just put a link into Mumble ... ... ... ... Bubble bubble bubble pop. Happy Monday, ya'll. jamie9966 asked: At the start of the Burning Crusade, blood elf paladins got their powers by bending the light to their will, through M'uru who they held captive at the time. Since they no longer have M'uru in captivity, where do they now get their power from? In the beginning, M'uru was the source of the Blood Knights' powers. It was thought to have been stolen, being ripped from the naaru forcibly. I was always a fan of the ruthless, almost sadistic way the blood elves bent the very light to their will because, well, at the time, it fit the race. After it was revealed that the naaru sort of sent M'uru, who full well knew what he was doing by letting the blood elves take some of his power to create the Blood Knights, that sadism sort of fell to the wayside.
Know Your Lore: The Warcraft cosmos, Tinfoil Hat edition
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. Last week, we wrapped up the second half of the Warcraft cosmos series and covered the additional planes of existence within the Warcraft universe. These layers of planes and the way they interlock is a tricky topic that, quite frankly, gives most people a headache when they think about it too long -- myself included. However, now that we've got the basic layers and interaction between all these planes of existence, there is an incredible amount of speculation to be done. That's right; today's a Tinfoil Hat edition of Know Your Lore. If you are unfamiliar with the Tinfoil Hat concept, these are columns in which we take existing known lore and place our own spin on it to try and speculate on future events. None of the Tinfoil Hat columns should be taken as actual lore by any stretch of the imagination. However, there is a great deal of fun to be had in picking things apart and trying to predict, so let's see what we can come up with, shall we? But first, let's clear up the matter of demonic death.
Breakfast Topic: Where's the epic
So we got a lot of big news yesterday: Badges are going the way of the dodo (and I for one will not miss them), and on top of that astonishing bit of news, the way we raid is about to change forever. Loot from 10- and 25-man raiding will be identical, the only difference being in the amount of loot that is doled out, or so the changes seem to indicate. For those that enjoy 10-man content this is well and good, for those that enjoy 25-man content ... well. It may get that much harder to recruit. But I'm not really going to talk about that. What I am going to talk about is the screenshot pictured above. That's my priest, my first raiding character back in vanilla. She's taking a siesta while waiting for everyone to run back from yet another wipe on Ragnaros, the final boss in Molten Core. By everyone, I mean all 39 other people involved in the raid at the time; when I say this was vanilla I mean this shot was taken before BWL had even been hinted at. See, there's something fundamentally ... off with raiding in Wrath, and I can't really put my finger on it -- but I keep going back to this screenshot and remembering fondly the small army it took to finally make that bastard up and die.
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?
World-first Val'anyr formed by Avant Garde
If you're a raiding healer, you almost certainly know this already: Ulduar-25 contains a legendary healer mace, called Val'anyr. To craft it, you have to gather 30 Fragments of Val'anyr, which drop from both normal and hard-mode 25-man Ulduar fights (though they always drop on hard-mode, and only have a chance to drop on normal). You then have to throw the combined collection of fragments at Yogg'Saron while fighting him when he uses the "Deafening Roar" ability, which he only uses on hard mode. After that, defeat Yogg, and Val'anyr is yours. Well, someone has now completed all of the above steps: Snuggleme, a resto druid of Avant Garde on Kil'jaeden. Congratulations on what appears to be the world-first Val'anyr! We know exactly what it does already, but I'm still curious what it feels like to use it in a real raid - hopefully Snuggleme can give us some insight in weeks to come. Also congratulations to Impervious of Stormreaver, who collected their 30th Fragment last week on a hard-mode Yogg-Saron kill, and will be forming the hammer this week.
WoW movie poster contest winners announced
Worldofwar.net announced the winners of its WoW movie poster contest today. Each winner of the contest received a Wrath of the Lich King beta key. The five winning posters, oddly, have a very sci-fi feel to them. Two of the winners, in particular, gave me a Star Wars vibe. One shows a cast of Alliance characters posed in a fashion reminiscent of Luke and Leia on the A New Hope posters and the other (pictured to the right) reminds me of an Imperial Star Destroyer on the move. Maybe it's just me, but I expected a poster to have more of a fantasy feel to sell this movie. Something that reminds me more of, say, Lord of the Rings rather than Star Wars.I think my favorite one is the one of Arthas staring at the viewer. It looks menacing and the artwork is fantastic. (Not a big fan of the "2012," teaser date, though.) In addition to viewing the winning designs, you can also flip through a gallery of all the entries they received, including a nice one in the honorable mention category called "There is no escape," featuring Kil'jaeden which definitely has a fantasy vibe to it.
New live raid broadcast by Nihilum
We've told you before about Nihilum's new planned broadcast of a Sunwell Plateau raid, hosted by XFire. We just wanted to remind you that the big day's right around the corner -- the broadcast starts live on Wednesday, June 25th at 19 CEST. This time around, there's 4,000 view slots available, and you'll be able to watch the raid over the shoulder of a Warrior, Hunter, Druid, or Warlock. The broadcast is set to run about 3 to 4 hours. As Natalie warned you before, make sure you have the Dyyno plug-in installed and ready to go ahead of time. (Dyyno runs "best" under XP on Internet Explorer, but should work fine with Firefox.) Check out the event's web site for more instructions. Nihilum doesn't promise a Kil'Jaeden take-down -- but why risk missing it?
WoW Insider Show Episode 40: Account sharing with Sean Connery
This past weekend, Turpster, Daniel Whitcomb, John "BBB" Patricelli, and I all sat down for a good hour's worth of discussion about the biggest posts over the past week of WoW Insider. We call it the WoW Insider Show, and the latest episode, number 40, is now available over on WoW Radio and in iTunes. We answered a ton of reader questions on email, including the ongoing discussion of what Turpster should do to ding 70 on his Shadow Priest, and why Blizzard has overpowered a lot of high level crafting items. We talked about the news that two classes had soloed Onyxia, and whether it's impossible for other classes to do it. We chatted about killing Kil'jaeden, and whether those endgame kills matter to the rest of us who aren't in those guilds. And we talked about account sharing: why people do it and why Blizzard doesn't want you to (and will ban you for it). Plus, if I'm not mistaken, you can not only hear Turpster doing a Sean Connery impression, but also John P's favorite new song, Pugging Kara Blues. It's a really fun show this week, definitely give it a listen. And don't forget, if you have comments or questions, you can email them to us at theshow@wow.com, or go ahead and jump on WoW Radio's forums -- next week, we'll definitely be taking a look at some of the topics that have come up in there for sure. Enjoy the show this week!
SK release Kil'jaeden video
As promised, SK Gaming have just released their video of their world-first kill of Kil'jaeden. They call this fight "all about absolute perfection in terms of execution," and "definitely the hardest boss ever made and an impressive final boss." Of course, this video contains full spoilers for the KJ fight. I'm just going to assume SK's site will go down, so I'm embedding it from Filefront above, and linking to WarcraftMovies if you want to download it. It's shot from five points of view, though SK promises that it is not "messy" -- hemo rogue, resto shaman, enhancement shaman, and two different destro warlocks. And since people are always curious, the music used in the video is, according to SK: Airbase - Ocean Realm Alex M.O.R.P.H. - Walk the Edge (B2B Woody Van Eyden Mix) To download in glorious 1680x1050 WMV, head on over to WarcraftMovies (edit: apparently a WCM premium account is required to download the full-res version). An H.264 version is due in a few days.Edit 2: Here's a high-quality version at Filefront; thanks, bdew.
Kil'jaeden's Soul Flay hotfixed
Let's give a quick timeline on what's happened with respect to Kil'jaeden (as a boss) so far in WoW. When patch 2.4 went live, on March 25th (26th in Europe), the Sunwell Plateau, the 25-player raid of which KJ is the last boss, was opened, but several "magical gates" were interposed between would-be KJ-killers and the demon himself. The last of these gates, giving access to KJ, was opened on May 20th/21st. SK Gaming got the world-first kill on him on the 24th, and Method and Nihilum quickly followed; and Deus Vox got the US first on the 27th, with Exodus following the day after (thanks, hyos). Nobody else has killed him, as far as I (and WowJutsu) know.That may or may not be about to change, due to a new hotfix just implemented last night. According to Lead Encounter Designer Daelo, a change has been made to KJ's Soul Flay ability. It now uses "a much simpler rule" to determine its target: the target of Soul Flay is the player with highest threat against KJ (typically the main tank, I would think). Daelo notes that this is not intended to make the encounter easier nor mor difficult, but rather to produce "a more consistent, more understandable, and more enjoyable Kil'jaeden fight." Folks who have done this fight, do you think this is a good description of the change? Or is it a nerf, in the long tradition of nerfing raid bosses?
SK-Gaming downs Kil'jaeden for world first
They've done it again. The first guild to kill M'uru, SK Gaming (of Vek'nilash EU), is now the first guild in the world to kill Kil'jaeden himself, the last boss of the Sunwell Plateau and of The Burning Crusade. The gate to the encounter has been open for three days in Europe. As Nihilum notes, SK's kill does end Nihilum's tradition of taking down every end boss in WoW since C'Thun. This is almost certainly the last world first we'll see until Wrath of the Lich King. The US first on Kil'jaeden is, of course, still up in the air. Their loot was: Hammer of Sanctification Thalassian Ranger Gauntlets Cover of Ursol the Wise Cover of Ursoc the Mighty Hand of the Deceiver 3 Badges of Justice 4 Sunmotes The winning raid has one feral druid, three hunters, one mage, two paladins, four priests, three rogues, five shamans, four warlocks, and two warriors (Thanks to Nihilum for this info, and thanks to Eiel for corrections). SK promise that a video is in the works; as always, we'll keep you posted. Grats to SK!
An illustrated guide to Kil'jaeden's hats
With M'uru now apparently substantially nerfed, and several guilds having been past him for a few weeks anyway, the top guilds are now biding their time until they can face off against Kil'jaeden himself. Before they can do that, one last Sunwell Plateau gate needs to be opened; my guess on when that will happen is May 27, two weeks from yesterday, but no-one knows for sure. So I thought I'd jump the gun a little and give you all a preview of the loot we should be able to expect from what will almost certainly be the final raid boss of The Burning Crusade, thanks to MMO-Champion. None of this is confirmed, of course, because nobody has actually fought him yet, but given the item levels, and the fact that we haven't seen them anywhere else yet, we can be pretty sure these are KJ drops. And an odd number of them are helms.%Gallery-22869%
