LadyVashj
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Ex-Nihilum member claims guild exploited
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/WoW_Insider_Ex_Nihilum_member_claims_they_cheated_to_down_Vashj'; There's some pretty interesting forum drama going on in the European Raids and Dungeons forums. Lewt, an undead priest who spent two years in the guild before quitting WoW, claims that Nihilum purposely exploited a bug on their world first Lady Vashj kill (instead of an accidental bug that took away HP, as the guild states.) According to Lewt, you can purposely wipe at 20 percent and have a paladin use Divine Shield, which I don't really understand unless Lewt actually meant Divine Intervention. Then Vashj will reset to Phase 2, but since her HP is connected to the pillars she has, the HP will disappear when they despawn. This leaves her at 1 HP. Presto, a priest pops a soulstone and Shadow Word: Deaths her, and there you go. Lewt even provides a screenshot of him finishing off Vashj with an SWD, complete with chatlog. Kungen, Nihilum's guild leader, fires back with some screenshots of guild chat immediately following the kill, which are full of confusion. He said that the HP loss was a bug during the fight that surprised Nihilum, not a specific strategy that they exploited to get the kill. Lewt responds by saying that Nihilum had exploited in the past on BWL, bought gold, and had the guild second-in-command, Awake, pay Kungen's real-life bills. I've heard the first two accusations, but the last one is freaking awesome. My guild leader never pays my bills. And from there, the thread goes on in many entertaining ways, with Nihili (or whatever) and ex-Nihili arguing about the guild: whether it's possible to lead a normal life in Nihilum, whether the "Danish Mafia" edged out the English players, and a lot of other things that I'd probably understand if I spent more time on the Euro forums. I really don't know enough about the Vashj fight to judge this. I don't like Nihilum's guild recruitment policy and the gold buying rumors, but I'm not exactly ready to take the word of someone who named themself "Lewt." Another forum poster probably has the right sequences of events: The raid wiped, they noticed that Vashj had bugged out, Lewt decided to pop the soulstone and SWD her, writing "Sorry, I couldn't resist" in chat. Then the Divine Intervention thing was when they were trying to get their loot off Vashj #1 while Vashj #2 had spawned. And now that Vashj is fixed and the top guilds are on to Black Temple, it's sort of a moot point anyway. As proven with Overrated, guilds who truly cheat will get found out eventually. What do you think?
Vashj attunement scrolls now available on PTR
Our good friend Boubouille over at MMO Champion has unearthed yet another fun piece of loot over on the PTR, but this one's more useful out of battle than it is in battle: it's a Serpentshrine Cavern attunement scroll, that apparently drops from Lady Vashj.This thing will be a godsend to casual gamers, or even hardcore folks with alts who never get played for attunement. Basically (I think it's a one-per-kill drop, though maybe it's less than that), Vashj after 2.1 will drop a scroll (with one use, I believe) that can attune anyone level 70 to Serpentshrine Cavern. So all your guild has to really do now is attune 25 people and down Vashj, and then she'll drop scrolls which will let other folks in. All of the raiding fun, without any of the attunement quest (which ran from Heroic Slave Pens through Gruul and Karazhan).In other Vashj attunement news, Boubouille is also reporting that unlimited Vials of Eternity are dropping-- one for every person in the raid. That's needed for the Mount Hyjal attunement quest, and before, only a few dropped at a time. So a couple of good changes for casual raiders-- looks like the road to Mount Hyjal is a little less steep than it used to be.
Method Man and Vashj
As a society we are not always interested in seconds. We prefer firsts, the first man to walk on the moon, the first man to swim the English Channel, heck even the first woman got plenty of notice in her day. And yes, Nihilum did managed to down Lady Vashj first, but I have been following the story of the second guild to kill the snake-headed wench, and I am happy to report their day has finally come. For those of you not obsessed with minutia the way I am, the guild Method from the Sylvanas (EU) realm killed Lady Vashj on May 5th. Something happened though that makes this kill more interesting than just any old world 2nd. The encounter bugged out and the guild, after all their hard work, lost the chance at looting the corpse. That's right folks, imagine watching Lady Vashj's corpse despawn in front of your very eyes. I know I would cry wet, salty tears. Naturally members of the guild contacted a GM, but to no avail. It was a whole day before the guild finally got resolution. They did get a mail message though that told them that their loot would indeed be delivered. World of Raids says Method received a Krakken-Heart Breastplate and Gauntlets of the Crestfall amongst other things. Congrats to them for getting their just rewards. If you're interested in learning more details about the fight, Method will be interviewed by WoW Radio on May 13th at 12:30 EST. I'm sure they'll have some fascinating insights. [via World of Raids]
Know Your Lore: Lady Vashj
This is the first in a Know Your Lore twofer this week, since we missed it last week. We also have to get these two lore figures down quickly, before someone kills them and makes us all look like fools. FOOLS I TELL YOU! Anyway, first up is a slimy, wily maiden with a deep sense of loyalty and devotion to anyone who commands her. Who: Lady Vashj. What: Formerly a Night Elf, now a Naga. History: Vashj was born over 10,000 years ago in the city of Zin-Ashari at the height of the Night Elves' power on Azeroth. She was of the Quel'Dorei, or the Highborne caste of Night Elves, who would eventually become the High Elves and then the Blood Elves ... I think. It's kind of confusing. As a Highborne, she quickly rose through the ranks of public service and became a handmaiden of Queen Azshara. Unfortunately for Vashj, Azshara liked the High Priestess of Elune -- Tyrande Whisperwind, future ruler of Darnassus and love object of Illidan and Malfurion Stormrage -- better than her, and offered to make Tyrande her majordomo. (No, not the guy with the adds in Molten Core. Read!)
Lady Vashj hotfix: untimely death soon to follow
According to Tigole, a hotfix to the Lady Vashj encounter (the final encounter in Serpentshrine Cavern) should go live on US realms in the next 24 hours -- presumably during this Tuesday's maintenance, though Tigole doesn't specify. Specifically, the hotfix should adjust the amount of hitpoints some of the add spawns have. With only three guilds up to Lady Vash so far, this hotfix sets up some real competition. MMO-CHAMPION makes the reasonable speculation that if the hotfix requires downtime US guild Death & Taxes will likely get the world first kill, because US maintenance comes before EU maintenance. But if it's a hotfix requiring no downtime (that may have even gone live already), EU guilds Curse and Nihilum will have extra time to work on the encounter before their instance resets, giving one of them the world first. So who's going to win this race? If I don't see a first kill announcement somewhere in the next 24 hours, I'll be greatly surprised.
The only group that can down Magtheridon is Blizzard
Just a little Magtheridon server joke. The instance servers kept crashing on Sunday, and eventually they had to restart the whole realm. But in all seriousness, the always inquisitive Ghostwalka asks on the WoW Forums why no one has talked about fighting the boss Magtheridon yet. Magtheridon is a 25-man boss fight that doesn't require complicated keying -- you just walk to the back of the Hellfire Citadel and stroll on in. So why has all the focus been on the recently-downed Gruul and Karazhan, but not Magtheridon? Ravel of Death and Taxes, one of the few guilds to try Magtheridon, said that the answer's pretty simple -- "We fought Magtheridon. And then he killed us. And then we fought him again, and he killed us again. And then we said @@%! that." Magtheridon is either too gear-dependent or too untuned to be defeated now. Death and Taxes is concentrating on Serpentshrine Cavern, where they've apparently begun fighting through the four bosses before Lady Vashj. Other commentators referred to Magtheridon as "quite intimidating" and "a hell of a fight." But since Magtheridon is a one-boss encounter like Onyxia, I'm guessing we'll start to see attempts on him in the next few weeks. Has your guild tried any of the 25-man bosses? How is the raid game looking on your server?
