bloodlord-mandokir
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The OverAchiever: 3 things that should be achievements but aren't
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we wonder how to make more work for ourselves. Not everything in the game is destined to be an achievement, but every so often you find yourself doing something and thinking, "Yes, I deserve 10 useless points for this." This feeling is most likely to occur while playing after a few beers and having one's sense of artificial outrage over the state of the world heightened for a bit, but sometimes you really find yourself wondering why demonstrable accomplishments in the game aren't actually achievements. When I started writing this article, I toyed with the idea of including a list of (largely snarky) possibilities like the following: Pugging an Outland dungeon that doesn't have a death knight in it. (Don't tell me that luck doesn't play a role in any achievements, because we all know it does.) Successfully skipping Baine trash without anyone butt-pulling a mob pack and dying. Participating in two hours of trade chat without the word anal appearing once. Leading a raiding guild for one month or more without suffering a psychotic breakdown. But these aren't achievements. They're myths, like unicorns and balanced budgets. Let us try to examine more reasonable suggestions.
Patch 4.1: Guide to the new Zul'Gurub
Of the two "new" troll-themed 5-mans going live in patch 4.1, Zul'Gurub seemed by far the easier with the groups I had on the public test realm (PTR), though both it and Zul'Aman require an average ilevel of 346 in order to queue through the dungeon finder. However, if you're going to pug this content, be advised that there are a number of different mechanics that can wipe groups quickly. Shifting Perspectives readers will be familiar with elements of this article, as I wrote a guide to Zul'Gurub for druid tanks and healers in late March. I've expanded that here and have also tried to include a sense of the instance from a less class-specific viewpoint. Because the instance's mini-bosses have fairly simple mechanics (and regrettably, I never landed a group that did all of them), I've ignored them here in favor of the instance's five "real" bosses.
Shifting Perspectives: Druid tanking and healing the new Zul'Gurub
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This Tuesday, Allison suffers humiliating wipes in new 5-man content so you don't have to. I got a little more experience in the revamped Zul'Gurub this week on the patch 4.1 PTR and have returned in triumph (and toting many a repair bill) with a comprehensive guide to surviving one of two new Rise of the Zandalari heroics. This guide should help you avoid the dungeon's knottiest problems as either a bear or a tree, although I've had to be less specific than I would have liked. Turns out that most boss abilities aren't up on the PTR version of Wowhead yet, and while tanking or healing, most groups frown on my tabbing out to record exactly how much damage stuff like Breath of Hethiss does ("Would you say that 26,000 damage per second is too much, not enough, or just right?"). (Cats and moonkin, I'm very sorry, but I'm not sure what DPS does. It's been my experience that bosses drop dead for inexplicable reasons, whether it's congestive heart failure, bad oysters, or old Sicilian curses. DPS is involved in some hazy manner here, but damn if I know how.) Keep in mind that I've pugged all of my groups on the PTR, so any estimates of the content's difficulty will necessarily be colored by that. If you're going to do the new ZG with guild groups on the live servers (particularly if your guild's outfitted in tier 11), you probably won't be as worried about some of the issues I encountered.
Patch 4.1 PTR: Running the new 5-man heroic Zul'Gurub
As we've learned this past week, two troll dungeon favorites are returning to Cataclysm as 5-man heroic dungeons for players level 85 to tackle, complete with new stories, new encounters, and a whole bunch of new mechanics. Today, I did a fairly complete run of Zul'Gurub with a great group of random players on the PTR servers, completing most of the encounters and bugging out poor old Bloodlord Mandokir. Click through for my first impressions, boss mechanics, and some difficulty assessments. This post and gallery contain fight and potential story spoilers for the new Zul'Gurub. %Gallery-117659%
The OverAchiever: How to get disappearing mounts
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we offer supplication to the gods of RNG. Four mounts will be disappearing as a result of current Wrath achievements becoming feats of strength in Cataclysm. As such, this article's essentially an extension of The OverAchiever: Do them now!, which singled out all of the known future feats. If you're interested in snagging a Swift Zulian Tiger, Swift Razzashi Raptor, Swift Alliance Steed/Swift Horde Wolf or Crusader's Warhorse, you'll find some information past the cut.
Level 80 Death Knight solos Zul'Gurub
Paladins have been the solo instance kings for a while now, from BRD to Onyxia to Blood Furnace, but there may be a new contender in town. Felblood let us know that his level 80 Death Knight (I believe this is his Armory page) has soloed one of my favorite instances, Zul'Gurub, going from the snake boss all the way to Hakkar with just his character.The snake boss, he says, was easy, just a nuke. The bat boss Jeklik silences, and a few of his resists failed on her, so she got some healing off, but she still dropped. Panther and spider went down all right, though the spider's webbing apparently kept him from healing as well -- being silenced, he couldn't cast disease, so Death Strike didn't heal. Bloodlord Mandokir was super tough, apparently -- I can imagine that watching would be pretty nuts during that. On Thekal, the tiger boss, his problem was that he was killing too fast: the boss would get ressed when one of the adds died early. Eventually he just brought them down to 50% and then just nuked all out, and the second phase was easy.And Hakkar was anticlimactic -- he just basically tanked and spanked. He tried to anti-magic the Blood Syphons, but they didn't heal for much, so he just wailed on Hakkar until he was the last one standing. Quite a feat. Of course, at level 80, he was 20 levels above where this 20 man instance was meant to be, so we probably haven't seen the end of the level 60 content being soloed. But it seems that Death Knights are almost more equipped than Paladins to bring down some of the raid content on their own.
Ask A Beta Tester: Death Knights, bears, and buckets
Welcome back to another edition of Ask A Beta Tester! I've stolen the reins from Elizabeth and Alex for a day, so let's get into last week's comments and get some questions answered. Death Knights: Multiple people had lots of questions about Death Knights, so I'm just going to list a bunch of them and then delve into what's going on: How Customizable are Death Knights? Do they get unique skintones, or unique racials? As to Death Knight Customization, the big difference they have right now are glowing blue eyes for every race. You can see that in action in our Death Knight racial gallery. Unfortunately, I think the Blue Eyes look sort of pasted on for most races, so I'm hoping they keep tweaking that to make them look more natural. We've also been promised different sounding emotes -- every Death Knight will have a deeper, sepulchral voice.
The Brewfest Kodo and what it may mean for WotLK's release date
Tipster Graffias pointed out an exciting find in the latest leaked Alpha files for WoTLK: An Icon for a Brewfest Kodo. You may recall that last year's Brewfest included a Ram mount that was purchasable with tickets by both sides, allowing the Horde very easy access to an Alliance mount with a few days of grinding for Brewfest Prize Tickets. Many Alliance weren't happy with this, annoyed that the Horde got such easy access to an Alliance mount without having to kill Baron Rivendare or a Troll a couple hundred times. Bornakk decided that the best way to answer this criticism would be by promising the Alliance that the Horde would be getting access to yet another previously alliance-only mount skin in the Cenarion War Hippogryph. Of course, Kisirani, being as awesome as she is, later said that we should have patience and things would work out in the end. Listening to the words of the world designer seem to have paid off, as it looks like the Dwarves are going to turn the tables on the Goblins this year and steal some Kodos from them. I can finally fulfill my dream of owning my very own Kodo. My Night Elf Druid is from Kalimdor after all, and you would think there would be some Night Elves who decided to domesticate Kodos as beasts of burden too. But really, as much as I am looking forward to grabbing myself a Kodo (and seeing a tiny Gnome riding around on a huge beast of burden), what's really exciting is this thought: If the Brewfest is in late September to early October, does that mean Blizzard is planning to give us WoTLK by September, Brewfest Kodo and all?
One Boss Leaves: Sapphiron vs. Mandokir wrap-up
It's going to come as a surprise to very few of you (about 11% of you) that Sapphiron came out ahead of Bloodlord Mandokir in our most recent match of Two Bosses Enter. I suppose it's not unexpected, as Mandokir's greatest strength (his ability to grow in power as he kills people) would do him little good in a one-on-one match with Sapphiron. In this fight, Mandokir was little more than a powerful meleer, and eaten alive by Sapphiron's death-from-above approach. The exact results of the fight are as follows: All I can say is ouch. It looks like the Bloodlord is heading back home to Zul'Gurub with a badly bruised ego -- though after eating a few raid groups (who no doubt don't take him seriously, because he's old-world content) I'm sure he'll be right back in the game. Our next match, between Ahn'Qiraj's Moam and Zul'Gurub's Hakkar (yes, after this one-sided fight, our brackets have been rearranged to, hopefully, make for more interesting battles in the future).
Two Bosses Enter: Sapphiron vs. Bloodlord Mandokir
This week, Two Bosses Enter starts its second round of boss deathmatches. We started this game back in June with 32 bosses to chose from and now we're down to a scant 16. Some of our results have already surprised me -- and I have no doubts that more surprises are in store as our next round of battle begins. Our matchups for this round are as follows: Sapphiron vs. Mandokir Moam vs. the Twin Emperors Ragnaros vs. Ossirian Kel'Thuzad vs. Archimonde Vaelastrasz vs. Hakkar Illidan vs. Chromaggus Vashj vs. Huhurahn Gruul vs. C'Thun Today we'll consider the first fight of the next eight: Sapphiron against the Bloodlord Mandokir. Who wins and who loses? Read on and decide for yourself!
One Boss Leaves: Rajaxx vs. Mandokir wrap-up
Last week we considered a fight between General Rajaxx and Bloodlord Mandokir, and the results of the vote were quite clear: Bloodlord Mandokir emerged vitorious, and by a wide margin. As you can see by the vote results, it wasn't even a close fight: Of the people who commented on the battle, all seemed to think that Mandokir's ability to level up off of kills would render him completely unstoppable after he eliminated Rajaxx's army of minions. Those voting for Rajaxx felt that his Thunder Clap ability, which halves the health of anyone nearby, would manage to take Mandokir down anyway.So another battle is finished, leaving the overall standings as follows. And our next fight starts tonight -- so stay tuned!
Two Bosses Enter: Rajaxx vs. Mandokir
Two bosses enter... but only one gets to leave! We've made a list of 32 of the most interesting raid bosses in World of Warcraft and are going to pit them against each other, one at a time, until there's one ultimate victor remaining. And who gets to decide who wins? You, of course! Each of our winners will be decided by your votes.Interested yet? For this week's fight we're matching up Ahn'Qiraj's General Rajaxx (not to mention the General's many soldiers!) and Zul'Gurub's Bloodlord Mandokir. To find out a bit more about these two -- and for a chance to voice your own opinion -- keep reading!
Around Azeroth: Bloodlord Mandokir
For those out in the audience who have never visited the Bloodlord Mandokir in Zul'Gurub, I will explain this shot, sent in by unlucky reader Leviathan of Kul Tiras. In this shot, you see Mandokir hovering over a knee-height human. Now know that he starts the fight the size of an ordinary troll -- but every time someone in the raid group dies, he gains a bit in strength and size. If that doesn't sound bad enough, there are also spirit healers encircling the courtyard, who will offer to resurrect you if you fall during the battle -- so you can have people dying over and over again. By the time Mandokir is the size you see him in this shot, though, I'd say it's past time to call a wipe. Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! You can attach a picture file or send us a link to one -- and don't worry about formatting, we'll take care of that part.
