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The Daily Quest: Changes and reactions
Here at WoW.com we're on a Daily Quest (which we try to do every day, honest) to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we ought to follow? Just leave us a comment and you may see it here tomorrow! Yesterday's hot discussion topic around the web was news of Cataclysm's upcoming stat changes. And today? There's still a lot of chatter, so let's toss out a few more links: Killing 'em Slowly reviews warlock changes. Flame Shock looks at the changes from an enhancement shaman perspective. The Hunter's Mark is here to give us a hunter's perspective. Gray Matter -- as always! -- talks Moonkins. But there's a new hot topic for today: during this morning's maintenance, Blizzard rolled out buffs for players attempting Icecrown Citadel. Everyone loves buffs, right? Wrong. Herding Cats thinks it's too soon. Cannot be Tamed wonders how many guilds will make use of it. BobTurkey thinks that future ICC kills will leave raiders asking "did we push ourselves enough to do it, or did they just nerf it down to our level?"
Icecrown Citadel raid buffs live
If your guild has been struggling throughout the various bosses in Icecrown Citadel, then struggle no more! Icecrown Citadel raid buffs are now live. For the Alliance, it is called Strength of Wrynn and the Horde version of the buff is Hellscream's Warsong. For now, your health, healing done, and damage done are increased by 5%. It looks like it'll eventually cap out and end at 30% but who knows when that will be. All in all, the buffs will definitely help progression raids out. If your raid doesn't need the buffs, you can simply talk to your faction guy and tell him to go away. He'll ask you once just to confirm, but if you are sure, he'll disappear. We've known that the raid wide buffs would appear at some point but not exactly when. Be sure to check out WoW.com's Icecrown Citadel raid strategy and information page!
Spiritual Guidance: Raiding Icecrown Citadel (Part 1), Page 2
The gunship encounter is unlike any other in Icecrown Citadel. Before the battle begins, be sure to talk to the goblin on your ship and pick up a rocket pack. Your main attack is the Cannon Blast (the "1" key), which does siege damage to the enemy ship and that ship's defenders, if you have good aim.
The Daily Quest: Icecrown Citadel
Here at WoW.com we're on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we ought to follow? Just leave us a comment and you may see it here tomorrow! For those of you who may have been living under a rock and haven't heard of Icecrown Citadel, I'll start simple with the basics: Icecrown Citadel is a winged dungeon with both raid and 5-man content. And right now it's the raid everyone's in as they struggle towards a final, epic encounter with the Lich King. I'm not going to round-up everything that's been said about this dungeon -- because then we'd both be here all day -- but offer you a sampling of recent ICC-related articles from around the web. I am a Paladin talks about healing for Valithria Dreamwalker. (And if you're looking for more info on Valithria, we have a guide for you, too.) Rhidach of Righteous Defense learns the hard way that the Blood Council has a 10 minute enrage timer. Larisa at the Pink Pigtail Inn wonders if the hard mode bosses are going down too easily. Almost Evil offers first thoughts on Sindragosa. Teza at Wowraid has collected a number of ICC hard mode videos for your perusal. Spicytuna talks about the Gunship Battle for frost mages. OutDPS offers advice for hunters fighting Festergut. On WoW.com this week, we covered healing Professor Putricide and taking down the Blood Princes. For more from the blogosphere on [topic redacted], check back tomorrow for another Daily Quest!
Raid Rx: Healing Valithria Dreamwalker
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related. Arguably one of the most unique encounters in the entire game, Valithria Dreamwalker is one where the success of the raid rests entirely on the shoulders of healers. After some more practice and attempts, I can pass on several aspects of the fight that I learned onto you.
Crimson and Azure Deathchargers: where do they come from?
Boubouille over at MMO-Champion uncovered two new recolors of the stock deathcharger mount in Patch 3.3.2; one red one, one blue one. There's a summon spell for one of them, the Crimson Deathcharger, corresponding to the red recolored Crimson Deathcharger creature, and while there isn't a spell for the blue one, the files also contain an Azure Deathcharger creature. There's little information on where these come from, and judging from the state of the various spells involved, it's likely that they're simply not fully implemented yet. We can speculate, though! BB notes that Blizzard has said that there'll be at least one more patch before 4.0, and these could be a faction- or quest-based reward involving Icecrown or the Ashen Verdict. I got a little antsy about making the iconic death knight amount available to the general public, if that's even happening, but then my brain turned on and I remembered that the forsaken, human, dwarf, tauren, night elf, blood elf, and troll mounts have been available to other races in one way for a very long time. Of course, no other class can get the paladin charger model, for example, so maybe I'm approaching it all wrong. Either way. We'll likely see these bony ponies pop up again at a later date, and we'll keep you posted.
Paragon scores world-first legitimate 25-man Lich King kill
GuildOx reports that Paragon, from the European Lightning's Blade realm, has defeated the Lich King and acquired the Frozen Throne achievement. While well-known guild Ensidia had defeated him yesterday on 25-man difficulty, they also employed some dubious techniques to win and later paid the price for it by having their loot and achievements removed. Paragon, on the other hand, appears to have completed the encounter in an exploit-free manner and, according to MMO-Champion's Boubouille, did it on their first try. Congratulations go out to Paragon on their clean kill. Now let's see some of those heroic achievements!
Icecrown Citadel raid weeklies activated
Icecrown Citadel is just full of news tonight. Hot on the heels of the Lich King's entire loot table being revealed, it appears that the Icecrown raid weeklies are now available. There seem to be five different raid weeklies (here's the list), existing in both 10- and 25-man versions, and they appear to be given by a different questgiver within Icecrown Citadel for each quest. Tonight Anne, our new lore columnist, did the 25-man version of Securing the Ramparts, and she reports back that the frost giant (a special mob that appears only for the quest) was "friggen HARD" and that although they got it in a couple of tries, a PuG might have trouble. There was an interesting fight mechanic in the form of a disease debuff that must be passed to another player within 30 seconds, or else it kills the target. The original target is now immune for 30 seconds (no tagbacks, I guess). The giant dropped no loot, but for completing the quest you get Sack of Frosty Treasures, which contains 5 Emblems of Frost, some gold, and a chance for epic gems. Has anyone else had a chance to try the new weeklies yet?
Lichborne: Crimson Hall loot for death knights
Welcome to Lichborne, wow.com's weekly death knight column. This week, we continue our breakneck tour of the fabulous Ice Crown Citadel, premiere vacation getaway of the dead, rich, and infamous. Our look at ICC death knight loot continues this week with the Crimson Hall. Prepare for corny twilight jokes to go with your raiding (trust me, I know they're coming, and I will be making many of them). There's only 2 boss battles in this wing, but there's still plenty of loot to discuss. As before, I'd suggest you check out the introduction to the Lower Spire loot guide, as it does include some basic stat rundowns and philosophies that you should keep in mind as you read these guides. There's also a few wrenches in the gears (but good wrenches, since they involve buffs) for your loot selections as of Patch 3.3.2, which I'd expect will be live by the time you read this. We'll be getting an Ashen Verdict strength ring and a slight stat adjustment on tier 10 tank armor, so keep those in mind as you read. In short, you'll probably be keeping the Ashen Verdict strength ring as one of your main rings, and tier 10 tank gear looks a lot sexier now, at least for physical-based fights.
Ready Check: Rotface
Rotface probably has the best name in World of Warcraft. Can't you just see a pair of elementary school kids standing out in the playground, yelling at each other? "Well, you're a Rotface!" "Well, you're just a Festergut!" The comparison's pretty apt when you hear Rotface's voice, too. And then that voice gets even better when Professor Putricide yelling, "Good news, everyone! The slime is working again!" Rotface is the mirror twin of Festergut. I usually raid Festergut first, and then go to visit Rotface. Rotface manages to be both a DPS check and a coordination check in a single fight. This is because Rotface does things to your raid. The longer you let Rotface stack up these things, the more difficult Rotface becomes. It's not necessarily that the damage increases as much as you're increasing the likelihood that something will go wrong. It's therefore best to burn him down as quickly as possible, even while trying to handle the coordination elements of the fight. Jump behind the cut and let's check out the fight.
Spiritual Guidance: ICC-10 gear guide for holy and discipline priests
Every Sunday Spiritual Guidance offers holy and discipline priests advice on how to wield the holy light and groove to the disco night. Your hostess Dawn Moore will provide the music. Hey ladies! Hey fellas! You know you're doin' good 'cause they're jealous *Pop-Pop* And they only hate ya 'cause you're a go-getter *Pop-Pop* Pop ya collar - Don't let 'em sweat 'cha! *POP* No clue what I'm talking about? Trust me, it's better that way. Though, if you don't know why I'm talking about popped collars, let me direct you to the picture above. It would seem popped collars are all the rage in Icecrown Citadel. I don't know what Blizzard was thinking with this, especially for priests. If anything, warlocks and mages are the frat boys of WoW. Or paladins. Well, whatever it is, this week I'll be talking about loot drops in Icecrown Citadel. But first, a story.
It's a trap! Traps are back in Icecrown Citadel
By now, those of you that have slowly progressed throughout the initial part of Icecrown have witnessed (or at least triggered) various traps. Some traps seem to show up after your group has cleared out a room or killed certain mobs or met some other condition like the ones before Lord Marrowgar. But wait, there are more of them! Dinaer at Forever a Noob demonstrates that there are more traps as you progress through the levels of Icecrown Citadel. Spirit alarm: Trip these to bring in the big skeletons. Great for reputation. There are four of these in the two chambers leading up to Lord Marrowgar. Mist trap: Not exactly a trap per se, but it can catch the unwitting raider off guard if they run into it. Either have a rogue disable it on the side, or activate the teleporter on the other side and beam in. You'll run into it after you've downed the Deathbringer and zone in behind him. Geist trap: You'll find these littered in the hallways of the Plagueworks. Have a tank behind the raid to intercept them as they appear. I wonder what other traps we'll see in the remaining parts of Icecrown. I can't remember the last instance that had traps on the scale of Icecrown.
Phat Loot Phriday: Cryptmaker
I've had a number of requests for caster DPS staves lately, so I decided to highlight Cryptmaker, which isn't actually a caster DPS staff at all so I have no idea why I chose this particular intro. Rather than dwell on it, let's move on with our lives. Name: Cryptmaker Type: Two-Handed Mace Damage: 848 - 1273 Damage, 294.6 DPS (938 - 1407 Damage, 325.7 DPS) Speed: 3.60 Attributes: 169 Strength 185 Stamina One red socket and one blue socket Improves hit rating by 95 Increases your armor penetration rating by 100
Icecrown Citadel: Crimson Halls hotfixes
Even though Crimson Halls has been open for about half a week, a series of hot fixes have been applied today. Most of the fixes posted by Bornakk are applied to Blood Queen Lana'thel. I have to admit though, the bug where the Kinetic Bomb could trigger Blood Queen Lana'thel during the Blood Prince Council encounter did make me chuckle. I'm glad that's been resolved as well. Blood Queen Lana'thel will only be available after the Blood Prince Council is defeated. Blood Queen Lana'thel's Essence has a longer duration. Kinetic Bombs no longer aggro Blood Queen Lana'thel during the Blood Princes encounter. Blood Queen Lanathel should no longer cast Vampiric Bite on pets. In addition, Daelo posted another set of fixes for the Blood Princes encounter: Prince Keleseth will no longer melee players. So if you get knocked into Keleseth or happen to move by him, he won't swipe in between his casts and kill a non-tank. The first Shadow Resonance should appear earlier in the fight, which will allow the Keleseth tank to have more orbs on him or her if Keleseth is empowered second instead of third. We didn't want which Blood Prince was empowered second to be a major element of the difficulty in the fight. We reduced the melee damage for the Princes by 10% for the 10 player difficulty. They were doing less damage than the 25 player before the hotfix, but this change lowers the damage further. Empowered Flames will now run out of power after shooting fewer firebolts in the 10 player difficulty. We did not change the initial impact damage. Valnoth states that the Essence duration was lengthened because the developers didn't like the idea of sacrificing a player to get through an encounter. As a healer, I'm inclined to agree. I hate it when I have to stop all heals on a player in order to progress through a counter. It just goes contrary to everything my character stands for.
Patch 3.3: Crimson Halls opened in Icecrown Citadel raid
Crimson Halls, another wing within Icecrown Citadel has been unlocked this week. The Icecrown Citadel raid overview here on WoW.com has been updated accordingly. Summaries of the Blood Princes Council and Queen Lana'thel are available along with links and resources. Just starting out in Icecrown CItadel? Don't worry as information about the bosses in both the Lower Spire and the Plagueworks are still available Good luck! Guess you'll be playing for Team Edward for one fight. Read the Raid & Boss Information Guide 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.
Reminder: The Crimson Halls open tomorrow
As you heard earlier today, tomorrow morning we're being hit with a maintenance period from 3:00 AM PST until 11:00 AM PST. While we're not expecting a patch tomorrow morning (that's next week), tomorrow's maintenance does herald the opening of another wing of Icecrown Citadel, the Crimson Halls, assuming all goes as planned. The Crimson Halls highlights the San'layn, the undead blood elven lieutenants of the Lich King. We'll be facing off against the Blood Princes Valanar, Keleseth and Taldaram as one cohesive unit as the first 'boss' before facing down the Blood Queen Lana'thel. Knowledge of these encounters is currently extremely limited, but you can check out our impressions of the Blood Queen encounter as it was on the PTR. The opening of a new wing also means we'll be getting 5 more attempts at the major bosses in the zone (Deathbringer Saurfang, Professor Putricide, and the Blood Queen) which brings us to a total of 15.
Moonkin may receive a buff soon
Balance druid performance has been noticeably lagging in raids. While moonkin have long had a problem being too easily +haste-capped with Wrath, there's another issue on the not-too-distant horizon in the form of the "lunar +crit cap." Essentially, when a lunar eclipse procs and the player turns to the Starfire portion of the rotation, the combination of raid buffs, gear, and procs make Starfire crits all but inevitable. While this may sound like a welcome DPS increase, it does have the unhappy result of the spec seeing increasingly less benefit from the +haste and +crit that exists in abundance on Icecrown raid gear. Blizzard has known about this for a while, but the issue with Nature's Grace and the soft +haste cap isn't easily fixable without impacting both Restoration and Starfire (where the NG proc is still useful), and the +crit cap is the effect of unintended stat inflation in Wrath. Enter Zarhym on Wednesday to announce news of a possible change to the Earth and Moon talent in a future mini-patch, granting 2/4/6% spell damage to the moonkin, up from 1/2/3%. While this isn't set in stone (and Balance players are already aware that an overhaul to the Nature's Grace issue probably won't happen until the Cataclysm content patch at the earliest), it's been greeted as a decent short-term fix. It's also a means of improving the scaling of what remains the moonkin's best stat (+spellpower). Zarhym did warn that the change may not go through in this form, and we're also waiting for news on when this mini-patch will hit. Stay tuned for future announcements.
Phat Loot Phriday: Precious's Ribbon
This week on Phat Loot Phriday we take a look at the single most important piece of loot in the entirety of Icecrown Citadel. Step aside, Shadowmourne. You're old news. Precious's Ribbon is best in show today. Name: Precious's Ribbon Type: Shirt Attributes: Pink Has no sleeves Is the only green quality shirt in the game Applies a Best In Show buff to the wearer as long as it is equipped Is awesome
Ready Check: Deathbringer Saurfang
Deathbringer Saurfang is the final boss of The Lower Spire of Icecrown Citadel. This is the orc you once knew as Dranosh Saurfang. It turns out that the orc affectionately known as "Little Cleave" didn't simply die at Wrathgate. Instead, while we weren't looking, some ill-mannered Scourge grabbed the body of Dranosh Saurfang and spirited away. We probably assumed that his body had been burned to ash when the red dragons torched the place. Still, however it happened, you've now ascended to the opening of the Plagueworks, and now have to show down with Deathbringer Saurfang. The Saurfang fight is pretty interesting, actually. There's a lot of moving parts and abilities to try and monitor, but the actual flow of the fight isn't too bad. From a tank's perspective, you stand there and taunt every so often. From a healer's perspective, you're healing . . . and then healing some more. It's the DPS players who really need to be on their game. There's adds that show up which they have to kite and kill in short order, or really horrible things start happening to the raid. Let's take a look behind the cut and start talking about all the horrible things that could happen.
The Frozen Throne is now in Icecrown (sort of)
We took notice of this in an earlier edition of the Queue, but I thought this little bit of news merited its own article for the benefit of lore junkies, raid leaders, or anyone who just might have missed it. After being asked a question over where Angrathar was really located in the larger Icecrown raid complex, I flew out to no-man's-land of southern Icecrown/northwestern Dragonblight and tried to get a good handle on the architecture. While doing so, I noticed a new and extremely tall spire nestled in the mountain range past the Wrath Gate and flew over to investigate. At the top of a saronite spire is huge chunk of misty ice capped by a flat surface with a black design vaguely reminiscent of the one on the Lordaeron throne room (although for all I know this is entirely unintended). From above, it bears a startling resemblance to an image datamined by Boubouille some time ago that was guessed to be the location of the eventual fight with the Lich King -- and I think this exterior "set" could be quite useful for any raid attempting to work on positioning once details of the fight become known. Curiously enough, the Throne itself doesn't appear to be present in-game at the moment, but that might change soon.
