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Wrath boss names revealed in Achievements
Wowhead recently went live with their database of all the Achievements currently in the Wrath beta. Among those Achievements is one for clearing each dungeon and raid currently in Wrath. Each Achievement lists its requirements for completion, so what does that mean? We now know the names of all the dungeon bosses (as well as a little from the raids)! Everything placed after the cut for those who want to avoid spoilers.
Guildwatch: His name is Rob Parkins
Whatever you do, don't get Rob Parkins angry. That's the lesson Nucholza learned when he watched a Warlock named Adriyel die to a double pull, and then nabbed one of the mobs (and the Fel Lotus it dropped) away. The good news is, Rob Parkins isn't for sale: Nucholza's account never did get "scrubbed." But be careful whose loot you gank -- you never know who's first cousins with Rob Parkins.That bit of funny drama and more, all after the break in this week's Guildwatch. And don't forget that your tips help fuel our column -- send in drama, downed, and recruiting notices (and make sure to include your guild and server, as in "US Cenarius-A") to wowguildwatch@gmail.com. Whether it's your guild's proud downing, or a rival guild's juicy drama on their forums, send it to us so we can all enjoy it!
Guildwatch: Don't stop believin'
We're just going to go ahead and declare this Journey masterpiece the official song of raiders -- apparently one of our guilds in the Downed section this week found a lot of inspiration in these rockin' lyrics, and so for the rest of you, here you go. Just like your guild's attempts on Kael, it goes on and on and on and on. Be thankful -- we could have embedded this raid video, which doesn't quite have the same inspirational music to it.Click the link below to check out this week's news of guild drama, downings, and recruiting notices -- we've got everything from more app drama to a ton of great downed news from regular tipsters. In fact, a few people told us this week that seeing their guild in Guildwatch actually got them raiding better than ever -- if you want your guild here (and have something interesting to tell us), drop a line to wowguildwatch@gmail.com.
Tank Talk: Do you feel lucky, punk?
Tank Talk is WoW Insider's new raid-tanking column, promising you an exciting and educational look at the world of getting the stuffing thrashed out of you in a 10- or 25-man raid. The column will be rotated amongst Matthew Rossi (Warrior/Paladin), Adam Holisky (Warrior), Michael Gray (Paladin), and myself (Druid). Our aim is to use this column to debate and discuss class differences, raid-tanking strategies, tips, tricks, and news concerning all things meatshieldish. At least, that's what the others said they were doing. I intend to use it mostly as a soapbox to complain. Absolute power tends to......something something.Welcome to Tank Talk. I am your bear Druid hostess for this week, with a topic that occurred to me while reading a recent article here on the site. Eliah Hecht wrote that his guild is facing a not-uncommon tank shortage and that he has considered the possibility of leveling a tanking class to 70 before Wrath, or tanking on a Death Knight afterwards. A number of people on my server and in my guild have talked about doing the same thing, or switching mains once Wrath hits. With so many people playing Death Knights, I think it's very possible that more people will discover they enjoy -- or at least, don't mind -- tanking, and may seek to do so in a raid environment without necessarily knowing what they've really signed up for. From those of us who have tanked raid content in vanilla WoW or BC, here are the 10 questions you'll want to ask yourself if you're considering the possibility of tanking serious raid content:
Ten Druids go on nom spree in Kara
First the bears danced. Then the cats tapped their paws. Then all heck broke loose with the moonkin and the trees and the ahhhhhhh! Then the ten Druid team from Immortal Trust on Anvilmar decided they'd better go inside the actual Karazhan instance and make with the serious killin'. Attumen the Huntsman and Midnight went down in cloud of feathers, fur, and branches. Then the druids took a dinner break, feasting on skeleton bones and the occasional orange. Their bellies (or whatever trees have) full, they invited an unsuspecting Moroes to join them, the druids telling him, "We're only here to serve Moroes." Mu-hahahaha! They dumped his bones in a vat of soup, declaring it a chunky brand. The Maiden of Virtue could not resist the Druids' musky allure and she also succumbed. Much posing and dancing ensued. Even little Peanut could not contain his joy at the victory. Alas, their tryst with Julianne was not to be. What sweet sorrow having no spell interrupts in any of the Druid talent trees. But next time, some way, somehow, she and Romulo will be theirs!And the most astonishing thing about this run? The screen-capturing druid using the default UI! Huzzah![Thanks, Shethornclaw!]%Gallery-24361%
Bornakk: Next Blizzcast to include talk on the status of badge loot in WoTLK
One of the biggest and most successful features of Burning Crusade has been the inclusion of Badges of Justice. Especially in 2.4, these badges have allowed even relatively casual players to get their hands on gear that comes close to the same stuff raiders are able to pull out of end game instances. While the system seems to have been mostly a success, there's still some question as to how it will evolve in WoTLK. The current 2.4 badge loot seems to have been created in part to allow a smoother gear transition between BC and WoTLK for both casuals and ubers, with badges dropping out of 10-man instances and the most powerful badge gear yet. But the question is, will this continue in WoTLK? Will we see badges off of Naxxramas' 10-man version (perhaps earning it the name Badgeramas)? Will we see loot purchasable from a Dalaran vendor that will be comparable to what raiders are pulling out of Icecrown Glacier? Or will they dial it back, or maybe not even include the badge loot system at all?
D&DO Module 7: Bosses
The first fight we got to see was Suulomendes (unfortunately, that spelling might not be right -- the big winged guy wouldn't sit still long enough for us to ask his name), a winged devil who sits up on a big pedestal while he sends baddies out to finish the raid off, a wave a time. Every once in a while he deigns to get off the pedestal, and beat you up himself, but when he does, it's not pretty -- various curses fell down on our heads every time he showed up. It seemed like a fairly straightforward fight as we did it (defeat the minions, work over the boss for a while), but the devs told us there were quite a few wrinkles (and the fight would take a little longer) than what we saw. The other boss we got to check out was, in our opinion, a little more fun. There is a Lord of Darkness supposedly hanging out in the dungeon below the Marketplace wreckage, but when you show up to take him out, he's not actually home -- his guard dog, named Xy'zzy, is, and she is a real bitch. Literally. She has puppies and minions that you have to fight as well, and oh yeah, one more thing: you can't actually damage her by hitting her. We'll refrain from telling you exactly how to take her out (the devs didn't want us to spoil all the surprises), but we will say that when you figure it out, you'll get to see something really, really hilarious happen. And yes, if you're nerdy enough to recognize the dog's name, you'll realize that these DDO devs know their gaming history.Like many of the boss battles in DDO, both of these fights (and most of the quests we saw) were all about group coordination and cooperation. While a lot of the Three Barrel Cove quests are soloable, the devs at DDO seem committed to make sure that players find ways to coordinate and work together. They are still working on making sure the Monk has a role of his or her own to play in every group ("this is just the beginning of our development on this class," Paiz told us), but in almost all the quests we say, there were lots of ways for group members, no matter what classes or types of players they were, to make themselves useful.But the new content isn't all that's being added to the game -- we also saw a number of new UI updates, and we got to talk with Turbine's communications director about what they thought of the Age of Conan release and the future of this game.Click here to continue the preview...
Age of Conan for World of Warcraft players
Funcom's new MMO Age of Conan opens up their servers today (the game is set for release tomorrow), and like many WoW players, you might be wondering what all the fuss is about. Our good friends over at Massively have put together a guide specifically for you -- it's a look at Age of Conan from the point of view of a player of World of Warcraft.A lot of things are the same between the two games -- talents are very similar, and there are a lot of comparable mechanics and spells (DoTs, healing, and aggro, of course, all play a role in AoC as well as in Azeroth). But there are a lot of differences, too: Age of Conan's combat is based on real-time, which means you actually press a button to strike, rather than just setting a target and going to town. Instances play a different role, too -- you start out in a private instance, and can level in a world by yourself for a much longer time than in World of Warcraft. And Funcom has put in quite a few things designed to pull us away from WoW also: mounted combat, a deeper guild system, player cities, and some more PvP mini games.Of course, even if you do go to play some AoC, Wrath of the Lich King will probably bring you back to WoW anyway -- as fun as killing stuff in the Hyborian Age is, it doesn't hold a candle to meeting Arthas Menethil, in our humble opinion. But if you've heard about Age of Conan and are wondering what the difference is, Massively's guide has you covered.
Is it really OK for Arthas to be 10-mannable?
So one of the most exciting announcements from the recent flurry of news about WoTLK, at least from my point of view, is the that there will be 10-man and 25-man versions of every raid. Think about that for a moment. Yeah, that's right. That means that you and 9 other friends will be able to scale the heights of Icecrown Glacier and topple Arthas himself from his frigid throne. This has more than a few people worried.
M'uru video, interview from SK-Gaming; third kill by Premonition
As the first guild to have killed M'uru, SK-Gaming has now released their video of the fight. You can see it above (if it's working; there seem to be some server issues on their end), or go to their site to download it in full-res glory. There are two different points of view: a BM hunter, and an enhancement shaman. I haven't been able to watch it yet because it's been down, but I'm sure it's an exciting fight. The SK guild leaders also gave an interview a couple of days ago on their site. Here are some things they said that I find interesting: SK is very impressed with the tuning on the fight, and think Kil'jaeden, the next fight, "might turn out to be the best encounter ever made." Everyone gets to take an active role in the fight; for instance, there are adds that can only be killed by an offensive dispell, and melee gets to use stuns, mages get to polymorph, etc. The viability of feral druids has been increased; they think Resto shaman is the "strongest overall class." Most of the loot is pretty good, although they would have preferred a token system. And of course they're looking forward to Kil'jaeden; who wouldn't be in that situation? One final note: a third guild, in addition to SK-Gaming (world first) and Exodus (US first), has managed to down M'uru. Premonition, an Alliance guild on Alleria-US (and the first US guild to kill the Eredar Twins), took him down last night and received the following loot: Breastplate of Agony's Aversion, Bladed Chaos Tunic, Gloves of the Forest Drifter, and Sin'dorei Band of Dominance.
Guildwatch: The aftermath
Just want to get something straight, so you all sending in Downed news can be sure to work out the "notice" mechanic correctly: every guild gets to put just one boss on notice every week. You can't put instances on notice (although if you do, you have to clear that instance all in one go, and we're going to need video or it didn't happen), and you can't put more than one boss on notice -- otherwise, everyone would put everyone on notice. One boss per guild, per week. Any other kills after that are just bonuses.Now that that's out of the way, on to the Guildwatch! Click the link below to see this week's drama, downed and recruiting news from around the realms, and be sure to send us your tips, from your guild or anyone else's at wowguildwatch@gmail.com.
Nihilum vs Brutallus video
The flag ship raiding guild Nihilum has released a great video of them taking on Brutallus, one of the new 25 man Sunwell Plateau bosses. The video is available from several sources, and the downloaded version is of quite high quality. The version provided above, a stream from File Front, is also pretty good.The video itself is taken from the standpoint of their main tank, Kungen, and runs for just over seven minutes. Most interesting is the additional pieces of information Nihilum provides about their raid setup. For guilds attempting him, looking at a successful raid composition can be a major piece of information. The raid setup Nihilum uses is:
WoW Radio seeks your questions for Vis Maior
We've mentioned this a couple of times on the WoW Insider Show already, but just in case you've missed it, here's a reminder that Duncor and Cadwallion of WoW Radio are going to be interviewing Vis Maior, the guild that is cleaning up the bosses on the patch 2.4 PTR server so far, this Friday, March 7th at 7pm EST. And they're looking for questions from you -- if you've got something you want to know from the guild, just drop your suggested question in this thread over on the WoW Radio forums.When we asked Duncor about it on Saturday, he said one of the things he wants to ask is whether Sunwell is progressively harder than Black Temple and Hyjal or if it's equal to those, and though Blizzard has said Sunwell is meant to be the hardest raid instance (the end of Burning Crusade's endgame, basically), I'm interested to hear that answer. And I also would like to hear some discussion on a question suggested by The_Milkcat in that thread, about the difference between world first kills on the PTR and on the live realms.So it should be a good interview. Throw your suggested questions in the forum thread if you have them, and make sure to tune in to WoW Radio on this Friday, March 7th, at 7pm EST to hear Duncor and Cadwallion chat with Vis Maior.
New patch for TR on PTS
Tabula Rasa's long-awaited patch 1.5 has finally entered the process of rolling out (at least, we assume it's 1.5 - it's called 1.5.4 on the update screen, but the notes make no mention of it), as the Destination Games crew has released a new build onto the public test server, and the patch notes along with it. Just a note before you drop what you're doing and go try and log into the PTS, it appears as though only those on the Pegasus server got their characters copied over this time around, so suckers like me on Orion will just get to QQ for another week or so.There's a lot of small changes, but some of the ones that most immediately stuck out to us were: Green, Blue, and Purple Healing Discs and Repair Tools now offer +20%, +40%, and +60% effectiveness like other equipment. Since itemization finally became a big deal, Specialists have had to put up with repair tools that were not as proportionately effective as their weapon counterparts. I've never actually seen a blue or purple repair tool though, so presumably those will be added as rewards. You should no longer be stunned for a significant duration after standing up from a knockback. This may not sound big, but it's a pet-peeve of most players. Thrax have a habit of kicking players in the face, which takes an inordinate amount of time to recover from. We're also getting reports on the Planet TR forums that boss drops have increased significantly, and now drop named items. This is a big (and welcome!) change, as bosses were rarely worth the trouble in previous versions. We'll have more on this patch as it develops. Check out the full patch notes after the jump.
The Eredar Twins dead in PTR
Vis Maior once again adds another PTR first by slaying the Eredar Twins, Lady Sacrolash and Grand Warlock Alythess (courtesy of worldofraids). If you were fortunate enough, you were one of the 1300+ viewers of their live stream when they killed the 4th boss of the new Sunwell raid instance. The loots were:Band of Ruinous DelightGrip of MannorothShroud of Redeemed SoulsSin'dorei Pendant of ConquestEssence of the ImmortalsAccording to their Ustream schedule, they're at it again at 9:00 p.m.(EST) tonight.Video of their kill inside.
Getting what you paid for: Should the endgame be accessible to casuals?
Hardcore players are frustrated with game changes that benefit more casual players. Casuals are overwhelmed by the amount of play time required to be competitive in the endgame. This brings up the question of who deserves to see the complete story unfold. Seraphina of Baelgun brought up the issue of accessibility to endgame content on the WoW official forums. Like all of the other Warcraft games, WoW has an interesting and compelling story line, with several sub-stories along the way. While all players pay for the same content, not all of them can experience it. In many role playing games, once you've played through certain story line elements you can access the endgame content. Relatively few players will be able to complete the Sunwell Plateau prior to the release of Wrath of the Lich King, just as relatively few players were able to down Naxxramas before Burning Crusade was launched.
World firsts on the PTR
So here's the question: Do PTR world first kills count? MMO Champion has done a great job of following along with world firsts in the Sunwell on the PTR, and Vis Maior, an Alliance guild on Bonechewer has done most, if not all, of them-- they were the documented first to topple Kalecgos, Brutallus, and Felmyst (Forgotten Heroes and our old friends in Death and Taxes are also among the first boss downers on the PTR). But do kills on the PTR count as world firsts, or do the kills need to happen on live realms before they're considered world firsts?Now, I know lots of you readers don't care about world first kills anyway (and you've got a point-- the only down that matter is the one you do with your guild), but lots of players believe there is value in being the first guild in the game to down a boss, and certainly the best guilds in the world work really hard for that honor. But technically, a boss isn't really "done" until it reaches the live realms. Then again, it usually isn't "done" yet anyway even after that.Personally, I don't think they do count, which is one reason why we haven't yet reported them on this site. I have to applaud Vis Maior and the other guilds for their hard work, and I'm definitely impressed by what they've done, but this content isn't done yet, and in terms of documenting who got there first, my opinion is that we need to wait until after the bosses hit the live realms. You readers disagree?
Breakfast Topic: Gearing up for the patch
With all the buzz about patch 2.4 notes and the public test realm it's time to start gearing up for the Sunwell Plateau. Those brave enough to enter the newest high end raid will be getting a shot at some pretty awesome loot. Many players are chomping at the bit to see the new end-game content and add to their repertoire of daily quests. The patch will feature a brand-spanking-new 25-person instance that finishes off the Burning Crusade raid progression. The new instance will prove more challenging than the Black Temple. Players should be adorned in Tier 6 gear, and can expect better drops including the legendary Thor'idal, the Stars' Fury. Even after the patch goes live, it will take some time for guilds to unlock the final bosses. The first three bosses will be available to all adventurers, but players will have to perform daily quests for Shattered Sun reputation before the last three bosses become available. Are you ready for the new challenge? If you're interested in seeing the end game content, but not in a raiding guild, be sure to check WoW Insider's GuildWatch. Our Mike Schramm regularly serves up information on guild progression and recruiting. If you're currently in a raiding guild how is your guild preparing for the new raid content?
Raiding without addons
Raiding is notorious for the number of addons necessary. Just off the top of my head there's ora2, Omen, Deadly Boss Mobs, Recount, and WoW Web Stats logging. If you're like me you're an addon addict to boot and probably have dozens, if not nearly a hundred, other addons to make life easy.But in all honesty, are these addons really necessary for raiding? There's some interesting arguments both ways.One of the most convincing that I've heard is that if Blizzard really wanted you to use things like Omen, they would have built a threat meter into the game itself. That does make sense in a lot of ways. The rebuttal to this argument is that Blizzard provided a huge Addon API for programmers to make things like Omen.
WoW Web Stats reveals the ins and outs of your raid
WoW Web Stats(or WWS), if you're not aware, is a popular raid assessment tool written by Lossendil. It has recently received some sweet loving from the author in the form of an overall revamp, and now bears a shiny new orangey-brown coat to accompany that same great taste we know and love. Using an uploaded combat log(/combatlog in-game) pulled from your WoW folder, WWS parses it into a neat and clean report for your perusal. Right at your fingertips is your basic overall damage meter and healing meter, and if you dig a bit further, there's so much more. With the ability to see each boss encounter and attempt individually, each players' spell usage, the buffs and debuffs on a character in any given encounter as well as a variety of other things, this is a tool that shouldn't be overlooked if you're in the raid game.
