blackrock-caverns
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Should level-capped players be put into content they outgear?
I do not like The Stonecore. On a recent guild-sponsored alt run, four not-ready-for-heroics players and my level 85 shammy queued up for a random Cataclysm dungeon. We wound up with The Stonecore. We immediately decided that we didn't want to run The Stonecore, but we also didn't want to just wait the 15 minutes to requeue. So, we cleared our way to the first boss and defeated it, successfully eating up the 15 minutes. Not wanting to actually finish an instance that didn't offer us any level-appropriate gear, we re-entered the random dungeon finder. The result: The Stonecore. Again. We gave up, ran the instance for the lousy 70 justice point payoff, and died a little inside. A huge part of my distaste for The Stonecore is related to how often it comes up in the random dungeon finder on both heroic and normal versions. It's a wipe-filled nightmare on heroic, especially with a group that doesn't know what it's doing. (And let's be honest, text-based communication on the fly can only get you so far.) I have no complaint about getting regular Stonecore at levels 82 and 83. The problem is that I get it all the damn time when I'm level 85, and Blizzard gives me almost no incentive to finish it.
The OverAchiever: First look at Glory of the Cataclysm Hero
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we have to see a guy about a drake. As with its Wrath of the Lich King counterpart, the Glory of the Cataclysm Hero meta rewards a nifty drake and bragging rights for defeating the toughest 5-man content in the game. Roughly a month after Cataclysm went live, this is a pretty challenging meta to tackle, and I thought it might be nice to break the achievements down by which dungeons they're in and their general level of difficulty. More involved strategy'll have to wait for more specific articles, but if you're looking for a general sense of per-achievement difficulty and whether you can do them without depending on the oft-fickle gamesmanship of pugged groups, I hope this will help. I've organized the meta according to dungeon and boss for quick reference past the cut. This week, we'll tackle Blackrock Caverns through Halls of Origination.
Cataclysm 101: Zone and instance progression
If you're sitting there at your keyboard right now violently coveting your upcoming Cataclysm experience and daydreaming of all the places you'll go, we here at WoW Insider would like nothing better than to aid and abet you in your wacky escapades. And since Cataclysm is launching on International Matthew Rossi's Birthday, who better to help you figure out where you intend to stream like an unstoppable torrent of locusts? Well, there may be lots of better options, but I'm doing it anyway. Cataclysm has several new zones to experience and quite a few new dungeons to crawl through. Let's take a look, shall we?
Cataclysm 101: What to do first in Cataclysm
Cataclysm has already gone live in Europe, and it's only hours away now for those of us in North America. Are you prepared for it? Do you know what you need to know to hit the ground running when Cataclysm content becomes active on live realms? If you don't, we're here to help. Below are answers to some of the most common questions that have been asked about starting the Cataclysm experience. How do I learn to fly in old Azeroth? You can get your Flight Master's License in Outland or Northrend, but the much better options are Stormwind for the Alliance and Orgrimmar for the Horde. Horde players want to talk to Maztha and Alliance players want to talk to Bralla Cloudwing. Wowhead has excellent maps for finding both of them.
Cataclysm Dungeon Guide: Blackrock Caverns
Blackrock Caverns (BRC) is likely to be your first Cataclysm dungeon; it's the equivalent of Hellfire Ramparts and Utgarde Keep. I can predict what'll happen to a good 90 percent of you zoning into the place, by the way: Everyone zones in and buffs up -- silently, need I add? The tank will pull the first mob pack without preamble, marking, or warning. The DPS will start AoEing or targeting different mobs. The healer will start a heal which will land fruitlessly on a tank who's died in less than 2 seconds. Everyone will scramble out of the dungeon. In a firestorm of threats and recrimination, someone will shoulder the blame for the near wipe and be kicked. Actually, that's not true. You can probably survive most of Blackrock Caverns with the usual Wrath "lawl AoE" approach to dungeoneering, mostly because lots of players will be arriving with ilevel 251+ gear before combat ratings take a digger at level 81. The process described above is a lot more reminiscent of what Throne of the Tides and subsequent dungeons were like in the beta. But ... well, just be aware that a certain amount of ugly death is in store for you with Cataclysm 5-mans and heroics if you play like a nitwit. Most of the bosses in BRC drop ilevel 279 loot, so even players in heroic ICC gear are likely to find upgrades here.
Shifting Perspectives: A peek at the beta bear
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting feral/restoration druids and those who group with them. This week, we push off from the island of Swipe spam and float toward the ominous continent inhabited by Lacerate spam. Hail, druids. I've had another week in the beta, and my main's now level 82. While I would love to tell you that all of the bugs we talked about last week have been tracked down and eliminated; that's not the case, so I'm not sure that a big analytical article on abilities that Blizzard's by no means finished with is a great use of our time. But I did tank a very successful Blackrock Caverns run, and Ghostcrawler (lead systems designer) recently wrote something interesting about the future of AoE tanking, so today's post is going to take a quick peek at how bears are developing. Also, there's a great quest in Mount Hyjal where you throw bears off a tree, which naturally I recorded. It recorded upside down for some reason, so I'll have to figure out how to flip it before it gets posted.
The Queue: What I need is a good defense
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. Mike Sacco will be your host today. I was up so late at the local Irish redneck bar's karaoke contest -- I'm in the finals next Thursday, for singing Fiona Apple's "Criminal", booyah -- that I pretty much forgot I was supposed to write The Queue today. I tried to explain to Alex and Adam (after stumbling home) that I owned that song and I should be off the hook, but they disagreed. So here I am, 3:19 in the morning, answering your questions. Kavu kicks off today's Queue. Kavu asked... Question: I just hit 63. With WotLK extending the cap to 80, is Aldor vs. Scryer such a big decision anymore? Also, should i worry about grinding rep to get lvl 70 gear, or will it all be replaced by greens in Northrend? Good question, and an easy one.
BlizzCon 2009: Cataclysm dungeons
Cory Stockton and Scott Mercer gave an in-depth look into the dungeons and raids available at the launch of WoW: Cataclysm during the Raids and Dungeons panel today at BlizzCon. We'll look at the dungeons first.OVERVIEW: At launch, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will ship with eight 5-man dungeons and two heroic versions of old-world dungeons.Grim Batol: One level 85 5-man.Skywall: One level 80-82 5-man.Abyssal Maw: Two 5-mans; level 80-83 and level 82-84.Deepholm: One level 80-83 5-man.Uldum: Two 5-mans; level 83-84 and level 85.Blackrock Caverns: One level 85 5-man.Shadowfang Keep: One level 85 heroic 5-man.The Deadmines: One level 85 heroic 5-man.Descriptions and info after the jump for dungeons that were covered in depth in the panel. %Gallery-70745%
