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The Queue: Patience is a virtue
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. This is usually the part where I try to be funny and write an eye-grabbing intro to The Queue. Today, that goes right out the window. Why? Because I'm busy. Busy doing what, you ask? Picking our new columnists! We have some good ones this time around, folks. Keep an eye out. Anonymoose asked... "Why does Keristrasza always yell "Preserve? Why? There's no truth in it! No, no, no!" whenever you engage? How is it relevant, lore-wise, to anything we did for the Red Dragonflight in and around the Nexus? Why is she frozen there in the first place?"
One Boss Leaves: Eregos downs Keristrasza
Two Bosses Enter ... but only One Boss Leaves, in WoW.com's series of fantasy death matches. This season's combatants come from the original five-man instances of Wrath of the Lich King. How crazy does crazy get? Keristrasza's brand of crazy was mind-numbing enough to drop her from the skies in this week's Two Bosses Thunderdome. Eregos maintained the upper hand with a full 50% of the vote in this week's fantasy deathmatch. "In her maddened state, I'd say Keristrasza is at a large disadvantage," wrote DruidGuard. "All too eager for her own death, driven mad and facing down one of the major blue dragons that helped imprison her, Keristrasza might very well eat a full Planar Shift burst to the face. Not to mention she'll be facing down a very angry Ley-Guardian Eregos every so often with his Enraged Assault. "If she was on her A game, she might have a chance with careful kiting and freezing, but in her current mental state, I'm not sure how well she'd act. Ley-Guardian Eregos just seems too strong and cunning for this battle, so I'm afraid Ley-Guardian Eregos gets my vote on this one. Such a shame, but remember, this IS ultimately what Keristrasza wants."
Two Bosses Enter: Keristrasza vs. Ley-Guardian Eregos
Two Bosses Enter ... but only One Boss Leaves, in WoW.com's series of fantasy death matches. This season's bosses come from the five-man instances of Wrath of the Lich King. We've let reader votes seed the battles for the next bracket of Two Bosses Enter, One Boss Leaves, which leads straight away to this epic pairing: Keristrasza (The Nexus) versus Ley-Guardian Eregos (The Oculus). To get these two into the Two Bosses Thunderdome, we're going to stage a jailbreak. The two dragons will meet in the swirling skies above The Nexus. We'll remove the drake-riding mechanic from the encounter - there's enough draconic blood here already, don't you think? The ground (err, air?) rules: Assume that the opponents along with their minions share similar levels, health pools and comparative overall damage output. This deathmatch takes place in skies above The Nexus, (or a Thunderdome facsimile thereof). This shall in no way hinder either opponent from using his or her usual resources. All the usual minions will be available to each boss. There will be no drake-riding mechanic involved. Don't get caught up in gameplay mechanics and what actual players might do in each encounter. Don't neglect style, story and scale. Time to take flight now. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls ... Dyin' time's here.
One Boss Leaves: Keristrasza finishes it
Two Bosses Enter ... but only One Boss Leaves, in WoW.com's series of fantasy death matches. Welcome to Round Two of the five-man Wrath of the Lich King season. Grab a seat, and let's get ready to rumble! Keristrasza (tail) swept to another decisive victory this week to obliterate Zuramat the Obliterator by an even larger margin than her 75% first-round win over Cyanigosa. With just a hair less than 80% of the vote this week, the red dragon blasted her way through Zuramat's Void Sentries. The view from the spectator stands:Eddie: The dragon would win if, and only if, the sentries get hit with Intense Cold. If not, then its a clear with for Z. Gunna need some clarification for this one. I think that all the people saying the dragon win is based on the Sentries biting the dust because of Intense Cold.Invierna: You're right, but that's what would happen. One of Zuramat's abilities involves Void Shift on a random player. In this case, Keri would be solo, and could thus destroy the sentries with Intense Cold debuffs. Since Zuramat himself isn't responsible for most player deaths - his Sentries are - I'd give this fight to Keri. It seems currently 82% of readers agree.
The OverAchiever: Voyage of the Glory of the Hero
98 out of 100 people at that party would walk over my corpse for free gum. -- "Veronica Mars." Ah, poor Veronica; so young, and yet so...correct. Well, let's not dwell on that for too long, because we've got more heroics to steamroll in pursuit of a badass mount. If you're just joining us or want a quick set of links, here's what we've covered in our Glory of the Hero series so far: Part I: Ahn'kahet Part II: Azjol-Nerub and Culling of Stratholme Part III: Drak'Tharon Keep Part IV: Gun'drak Part V: Halls of Lightning Part VI: Halls of Stone Let's get cracking. Head west, young player!
Two Bosses Enter: Keristrasza versus Zuramat the Obliterator
Two Bosses Enter ... but only One Boss Leaves, in WoW.com's series of fantasy death matches. Welcome to Round Two of the five-man Wrath of the Lich King season. Grab a seat, and let's get ready to rumble! Welcome back, everybody, to another edition of the Two Bosses Thunderdome! This week's deathmatch pits Keristrasza of The Nexus against Zuramat the Obliterator from the Violet Hold. Keristrasza enters the ring with one of the largest win margins of any competitor this season, glowing after a 75% victory over Cyanigosa in the first round of matches. Zuramat the Obliterator brings plenty of power of his own, however, following up a decisive 55% win over Hadronox in round one.The ground rules: Assume that the opponents and any minions share similar levels, health pools and comparative overall damage output. This deathmatch takes place in neutral territory, which shall not hinder either boss from using his usual encounter abilities. All the usual minions will be available to each boss. Don't get caught up in gameplay mechanics and what actual players might do in each encounter. Don't neglect style, story and scale. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls ... Dyin' time's here.
The Queue: Strategery
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Good afternoon, everybody! I apologize for missing yesterday's edition of The Queue, I sort of forgot about it in my rush to get our April Fool's joke pieced together. The entire team got together to bring that little joke to life. Getting it all put together was like assembling a jigsaw puzzle. Fun, but it took awhile! Hopefully you guys enjoyed it. If not, oh well! We had a good time bringing it to life.I don't think you want to listen to me ramble about that, though. Onto the Q&A!Ghola asked..."Why would the Argent Tournament set up camp in Icecrown, at the back end of the glacier? This makes absolutely no sense to me. Crystal Song seems way better: no quests there, plenty of space, and much better weather!"
One Boss Leaves: Keristrasza claws Cyanigosa
Two Bosses Enter ... but only One Boss Leaves, in WoW Insider's series of fantasy death matches. This season's bosses come from the five-man instances of Wrath of the Lich King.Last week, we launched a new series of Two Bosses Enter, One Boss Leaves, pitting the five-man instance bosses of the Wrath of the Lich King against one another. Our first death match turned dragon against dragon, cone effect against cone effect: Keristrasza of The Nexus vs. Cyanigosa of The Violet Hold.Keristrasza emerges the easy victor from this battle, defeating Cyanigosa with three-quarters of the popular vote. Readers feel that not only is Keristrasza the more capable opponent, but her bondage lends her a deadly edge of passion and desperation. "Flying, porting, jumping or not, it's all irrelevant," comments Omegan01. "Really. Cyanigosa may be a stone cold killer, but Keristrasza is a f@@@ing psychopath. Five minutes flat and Keri's going to be back in her basement, wearing Cyanigosa's face and eating what's left of her. With some fava beans and a nice Chianti." Stick around for the next installment of Two Bosses Enter, coming up later today with a fresh pair of opponents for your consideration.
Encrypted Text: Guide to Rogue gear for new raiders
Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we'll discuss gearing options for a Rogue who wants to break into the raiding scene.Last week, we looked at what stats are important for a PvE Rogue, and how those stats interact with each other and why they're important. To summarize, hit and expertise ratings are very important until you reach a few key milestones, after which the pure damage options like Agility and Attack Power become more attractive.The key is to be over 99 hit rating (the Yellow Hit Cap - YHC) but under 315 hit rating (the Poison Hit Cap - PHC) and to never be over 214 expertise rating (the Expertise Cap - EC)? If you look in the right places, reaching these numbers becomes fairly simple. Bind on Equip Leatherworking goods, Heroic drops, and reputation rewards will form the core of your gear as a newly 80 Rogue. Let's explore where to find the right type of gear to prepare you for that Naxxramas raid next weekend. Much of this information can be found at Shadow Panther, however I have collected the pieces that specifically sport Hit or Expertise that can be acquired in 5 man Dungeons or below. Remember that the PHC and EC are "caps" and not necessarily goals, and that you shouldn't sacrifice other stats to reach these goals unless you have used a spreadsheet to determine which is the better piece of equipment.
Two Bosses Enter: Keristrasza vs. Cyanigosa
Two Bosses Enter ... but only One Boss Leaves, in WoW Insider's series of fantasy death matches. This season's bosses come from the five-man instances of Wrath of the Lich King.We're back! Live from WoW Insider, the Wrath Season of Two Bosses Enter, One Boss Leaves. Two Bosses is our series of fantasy death matches between the game's infamous PvE villains. This season, we'll throw into the pit the bosses of Wrath of the Lich King's five-man instances, two by two, until we come up with an ultimate winner. The best part? You determine who wins.The central tenet of a Two Bosses matchup is an assumption that the bosses are of approximately the same level and health and that they're fighting in neutral territory. It's fighting abilities and scale we're debating here – so don't get caught up in actual game mechanics. Consider the flavor each villainous gladiator brings to bear, and cast your vote for who you think would come out on top.Your first match-up in Two Bosses Enter: The Wrath Season -- Keristrasza versus Cyanigosa. Details and your chance to determine the winner, after the break.
Ask a Lore Nerd: All about dragons
Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, where each week blogger and columnist Alex Ziebart answers your questions about the lore and history of the World of Warcraft. Ask your questions in the comments section below, and we'll try to answer it in a future edition.The last Ask a Lore Nerd brought a whole load of Dragon-related questions, likely a result of the huge amounts of Dragon lore we've been given in Wrath of the Lich King. So today, we're going purely Dragon themed, and I'll be hitting a few of the bigger questions. Let's get started! Ves asked...Who are all these humanoids aiding the blue dragonflight? I did the quest where you find out one of them was a Troll forced to work for them under the threat of harm for his family, and I assume some of them are blue dragons taking human form becuase sometimes blowing up the world requires opposable thumbs, but surely they can't all be either dragons or slaves.
The Queue: Future raids and more on daily quests
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.Be warned that today's edition of The Queue contains some light spoilers at the very end, regarding the Death Knight intro quests as well as some quests in Icecrown. To avoid spoilers, stop reading a little before the end, but you're safe until then. Thiosion asked...What instances other than Ulduar and Icecrown are (is?) Blizzard suspected to be working on?
The Sacred Artifact and Wrath's immersion factor
We posted about this quest months and months ago, but of course now it's available on the live realms -- in the Utgarde Catacombs, which turns out not to be an instance but just a non-instanced quest area, there is a quest to retrive a "sacred artifact" of the Argent Dawn, which is basically a must-do quest for anyone that's a fan of the, err.. "bashringer," if you know what I mean. It's simple, so there's not much to spoil, but yeah, just a few quests in to Wrath, you're already wandering around epic lore territory.And odds are that you've met the main guest of the expansion already as well -- I bumped into him during a walk through the spirit world in Wyrmskull Village, and he wasn't very nice to me already (and frankly, I saw a side of him I've never seen before -- having identifed myself as a Shaman for so long, it was extremely interesting to see him do the same). Blizzard promised from the beginning that we'd meet and greet with the lore heavyweights early on, and they weren't kidding -- we're right in the mix from the time we step off the boat.I love it -- without getting too spoilery, what else is worth seeing in these starting zones? We almost got Keristrasza down last night in The Nexus, and it's almost hard to remember those days when it took 40 players to take down a dragon -- even solo and five man players get to do epic stuff nowadays. What have you done already?
Tips for new Death Knights from a fellow tank, part 2
Dear corpsified bundles of beautifully-armored joy (but more particularly those who tank Azjol Nerub while wearing Expedition Bracers of the Bandit),We had a little bit of controversy in the first installment, so I'm just going to state this as baldly as possible; if you hated what I wrote last time, there's a good chance you'll walk away from this one thinking I eat babies. Delicious, delicious babies. While I never mean to offend people, I reserve the right to tell them the truth, or at the very least a highly entertaining and plausible lie.Truth, she be at times an ugly mistress. And she ain't gettin' any prettier as we move from DPS to tanking.Tanks have significantly more responsibility, both in groups and raids, and they face the competing directives of maximizing mitigation (to keep their healers happy) and maximizing threat production (to keep their DPS happy). I've healed dozens of Death Knight tanks at this point, and while the average pugged DK tank has gotten noticeably better, there are still a few trends you'd want to be aware of as a healer. The problems in beta right now are made worse by Blizzard unintentionally overselling the ease of tanking on a Death Knight in 5-man runs. Many people seem to have interpreted the statement that they should be able to tank well with Blood, Frost, or Unholy specs as being tantamount to saying they can tank well regardless of how their talent points are spent in those trees.Any experienced tank can tell you right now that this is not true, but people believing that it is is how you wind up with 11K-life Death Knights taking 7-8K enraged hits from Keristasza in the Nexus. If you've never tanked before but you're interested in tanking on a Death Knight -- or pragmatic enough to know you'll probably wind up tanking a certain number of 5-mans on your DPS Death Knight -- I hope this article helps you avoid what I went through in May 2007 when I started tanking and sucked at it.I came to the beta to slowly lose my mind trying to heal insane tank damage and gulp Extra Strength Tylenol. And I'm all out of Extra Strength Tylenol.
