Oondasta
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Know Your Lore: The Kaiju of Azeroth and Outland
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. Okay, let's just put our cards on the table. I just saw Godzilla, I liked it, and now we're going to do a KYL about giant monsters in World of Warcraft because I'm still all sorts of giant monster marking out. So here goes another list. What are the rules? Simple. It has to be a giant. How big is giant? It's sort of a you know it when you see it but to give you an idea, High King Maulgar isn't big enough. Also, if there are two giant monsters that are exactly the same, I'm only using one of them. So let's get on board the monster train. This isn't a worst to best style list - it's just giant monsters, robots, and other critters. The Fel Reaver Yes, the Fel Reaver. While Void Reaver might be the one that drops the better loot, the Fel Reaver was the monstrous robot that made us all wet ourselves when we first stepped through the Dark Portal and began exploring Hellfire Peninsula. The Fel Reaver made such an impression that many of us will stop in Hellfire even today just to kill it.
World Bosses no longer tap to faction
Lead Encounter Designer Ion "Watcher" Hazzikostas has posted on Twitter confirming what some players thought was a bug. Several players have noticed that, when an opposing faction group is attacking a world boss, like the Celestials, they are able to hit it and still get loot and credit. Watcher confirmed via Twitter that this was not a bug, and actually a hotfix that went in recently. That hotfix, he also notes, caused the boss health scaling with larger groups to break. This, in turn, has been fixed. He also later added that this was not just applicable to Timeless Isle bosses, but to all of them. So presumably, that's every boss from Galleon and the Sha of Anger, through Nalak and Oondasta, right to the Celestials, and Ordos. What this means is just as explained above -- if the opposite faction pulls a boss, you can punch it and still get credit and loot. You'd have to be a little brave or foolhardy to do so alone on a PvP server, unless you're a stealth class, but the opportunity remains. It'll be interesting to see whether this change has an impact on the use of the Raid Finder and oQueue for Celestials groups, or not. Given the convenience of those methods for finding a composed group, I suspect they'll prevail.
Patch 5.2 hotfixes for April 22
Some hotfixes went live today after the server restart. The big one that has my guildmates jumping up and down with glee is the change to the cost of Mogu Runes of Fate - they now cost 50 Lesser Charms of Good Fortune, down from 90 previously. Now, I do lots of dailies, so I couldn't get rid of my Lesser Charms fast enough even before the price nerf, but this is a great quality of life change that will give people more Runes of Fate to spend on chances for gear. In addition, players picked from different realms will now be able to get loot and bonus rolls off of Oondasta and Nalak, and there are some minor nerfs to the Twin Consorts fight in Throne of Thunder. The Sinister Primal Diamond has also had some tweaks to its activation rate, particularly for fire mages. The full blue text is below the cut.
Oondasta's health pool nerfed by 50%
The deadly dinosaur that caused the mass destruction you see documented in this picture, which was tweeted recently by Dave Kosak, has had a massive nerf to his health. It's gone from 872 million to 436 million, which is a 50% nerf. The reason for this is likely twofold. Firstly, the boss was very hard to kill, and players were not unfairly deciding that the cost in repairs and time of killing Oondasta was too much compared to the gear drop chance and the quality of the gear. With patch 5.2 there are easier ways to get gear than killing this boss. Secondly, the huge numbers "required" to kill this boss meant that servers were struggling under the load of hundreds of people taking on this boss. One viable "tactic" was to get so many people attacking Oondasta that the server lagged out so badly that he was only using a few of his abilities with long intervals in between. Rygarius said a while back that while Oondasta was great, in that he brought back the epic outdoor raid feel, but that the big groups were causing server stability problems, so this is likely another step in trying to fix that issue. It seems like the nerf, meaning that the graveyard zerg tactic would likely not need 200 people to succeed, will make players happy to pull with smaller groups. This will help with the server stability, but is it a worthwhile exchange? Hit the break for Lead Encounter Designer Ion Hazzikostas' input on the change.
Oondasta in China is full of ... tombstones
We're just going to leave this here... In China, because of cultural rules/laws, dead players are represented by tombstones instead of skeletons. Dave Kosak tweeted as much and shared this picture with us all. And now you get to enjoy Oondasta stomping around a graveyard. You can see a larger version of it right over here.
Weekly news roundup with Panser of TradeChat
TradeChat's Panser returns with this week's WoW Insider news recap, where we look back at the hottest news from the past week and whatever other kickin' rad things may have come our way. This week's topics include: StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm launches Cross-realm players no longer eligible for Oondasta/Nalak loot The few, the proud, the CRZ-less realms There will be no more 5-mans in Mists, will return next expansion PVP season 13 announced World of Warcraft Bloodstorm graphic novel teaser images What's your /played? If you enjoyed the show, make sure to subscribe to TradeChat, leave a comment, and come back next week for the next episode!
Players visiting a different realm no longer eligible to receive loot from Oondasta or Nalak
Oondasta may have the best loot table in the entire universe, but the encounter understandably requires quite an army of players to defeat. And when I say army, I'm not exaggerating -- groups are currently rallying at least four 40-man raids to successfully put this guy down. Due to server stability issues, mainly brought about by using CRZ to bring over enough players, Blizzard is hotfixing how loot is earned for an Oondasta or Nalak kill. In order to receive loot from either, players must be on their home realm. Rygarius - Oondasta and Nalak Hotfixes We're in the process of implementing a hotfix that will remove players' eligibility to receive loot from Oondasta and Nalak, The Storm Lord if they're not on their home realm. We think it's great that encounters like Oondasta have been able to bring back some of the excitement of massive spontaneous outdoor raids. However, with cross-realm groups giving the ability to play with friends on each other's realms, the amount of people concentrating on a single realm to try to zerg these bosses down can unfortunately cause a number of stability issues, impacting the availability of the game for everyone. While Nalak isn't available yet, we want to preemptively address this so that the first realm to unlock it doesn't then become the single focus for the rest of the region. Here's the hotfix note that'll be added to the blog shortly: Players visiting a different realm are no longer eligible to receive loot from Oondasta or Nalak, The Storm Lord. source Many players may take issue with this change, as it's much easier to rally such large numbers through the CRZ system and down the boss with sheer numbers. For smaller realms especially, this change will be a big blow to successfully defeating Oondasta using the zerg strategy. I'm happy with the change, and it'll hopefully turn Oondasta into the challenging world boss he's meant to be -- more like Doom Lord Kazzak was, back in BC.
Lichborne: Patch 5.2 loot for death knights, part 3
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. This week, we'll face down the final few bosses of Throne of Thunder to see what loot they have. After that, we'll take a look at our valor point offerings and the world bosses of patch 5.2 for their loot. This will round out our look at patch 5.2's loot, and as with the last 2 weeks, the same disclaimers apply. Since this is based on PTR information, drops can change. In addition, this preview focuses on normal gear, so your gearing priorities may change if you get thunderforged gear or heroic gear.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: Patch 5.2 and warrior gear part 1
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host. Gear constantly changes. Every major patch, there's new gear to drool over and want. For the next few weeks, I'm going to look at the gear we're getting in patch 5.2 from the Throne of Thunder, Oondasta (holder of the greatest loot table in the universe), and Nalak. We'll also take a look at Shado-Pan Assault, Kirin Tor Offensive, and Sunreaver Onslaught gear. This means we'll be looking at gear with a wide variety of item levels, from the 522 of the world bosses and normal mode Throne of Thunder to the 476 of some of the faction gear. Also, although I won't be covering the items here, transmog minded warriors should take a look at the return of these Burning Crusade blacksmithing models. These weapons won't be an upgrade for you in almost all cases, but they're a welcome addition to our cosmetic arsenal. Now, to discuss gear.
Oondasta has the best loot table in the entire universe
Therapsid Scale Gloves. With this one drop, Blizzard has found a way to get me to level my shaman again. This and much, much more have been found by the fine folks at Wowhead on the mighty Oondasta's loot table, much of which has similarly interesting names. There's the Overcompensating Chain of the Alpha Male, the Carnotaur Battlegloves, the Breastplate of the Iguanocolossus and more. There's also the Reins of the Cobalt Primordial Direhorn, for those of us who like riding in style. If you know me, you know I love all things paleontological, but especially therapsids. I'm so excited that I would go camp Oondasta right now if I could. Well, okay, I would badger my guild to go camp him. So go over to Wowhead and check out the full list of Oondasta's goodies. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
New Patch 5.2 world boss Oondasta
Patch 5.2 brings two new world bosses, the easiest to locate of which is Oondasta. I was exploring the new zones on the PTR today, and, after a failed attempt to fly to Thunder Isle, headed over to the Isle of Giants, to the north of Kun Lai Summit, as you can see in the map I bring up on the video. The Isle of Giants is home to Oondasta. Oondasta is likely the first of many great-looking models to come out of the patch, and might be reminiscent of the appearance of the fantastically named Dinomancers mentioned in the second boss fight of the Throne of Thunder raid. The troll influence is pretty obvious from the boss's appearance, and man, I love the look of the armor! Moving on to Oondasta's abilities, as per the dungeon journal, the Crush ability implies the need for a tank-swap, as it stacks. Frill Blast is a cone effect probably best dodged rather than soaked, given that it inflicts 800,000 damage to all players within it. There's a 200,000 damage roar effect that, similar to Halfus Wyrmbreaker in Bastion of Twilight, or Warmaster Blackhorn in Dragon Soul, interrupts spellcasting, but with a hefty ten-second lockout. Healers will need to avoid this! Other than that, there's a stacking damage increase called Growing Fury, and an interesting ability called Spiritfire Beam, which deals heavy damage and also jumps to up to 20 players in range, dealing 50% more damage with each jump. The logical solution to this might be to isolate the targeted player, preventing the beam from jumping, as the damage will quickly become unhealable as the jumps occur. This boss sounds like it might prove a challenge for PuGs! Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
