daelo
Latest
Ulduar vehicles will scale with gear
Here's a little consolation to those of you, like Eliah, concerned about the Ulduar vehicle fights: Unlike some of the other vehicle fights in the game already, Daelo says on the forums that the vehicles in the next raid will actually scale with gear. He says someone in blues will have a much harder time in the vehicles than someone kitted out in Naxx gear.Personally, I've only done Oculus, but I do agree with Eliah that putting us in vehicles takes away a lot of the achievement we've gained by leveling and questing -- it's not fun to fail on a boss just because you're trying to deal with a whole new set of abilities you've had no control over until you jumped in the driver's seat. But the fact that the Ulduar vehicles will scale helps a little bit -- players were concerned that every time you went in there, it'd be the same fight, but with new gear that should change. And obviously Blizzard has heard the concerns about the Oculus, so you'd have to hope they wouldn't make the same mistake twice.Elsewhere on the forums, Zarhym promises, comically, that we'll all enjoy this (and that we'll forget to post how much we enjoy it on the forums afterwards). He says that the fight is different from anything else we've done in the World of Warcraft, and that when all is said and blown up, it'll be an epic encounter. We'll see.Need more news about Ulduar? We've got updates, previews, speculation, and everything else you need to know about the next big raid coming in patch 3.1. If the Titans are hiding it up there, we'll tell you about it here.
A plea against vehicle combat
Earlier today Blizzard posted a preview of Ulduar, the tier 8 raid coming up in patch 3.1 (which they promise will be on the PTRs "very soon"). Most of it looks really cool - 14 bosses, massive rooms, hard modes. However, there is one topic that Blizzard enthused about that really worries me: vehicle combat. We've already seen some vehicle-based boss fights in Eregos (the final boss of the Oculus) and on the third phase of the Malygos fight. But Ulduar is, apparently, going to take it one step farther: there will be a vehicle-combat gauntlet leading up to the first boss, Flame Leviathan, and that boss itself will also be a vehicle fight, with players picking among three vehicles (Chopper, Demolisher, and Siege Engine) to command.
Major Ulduar testing news: PTR soon, not all bosses available
Quite big news from Daelo, the lead encounter designer concerning the release and testing of Ulduar. First and foremost, Daelo says that we're getting close to the point where Ulduar will be available for testing on the PTR. That means that PTR is soon, and given the maintenance today and other major announcements, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see it tonight.Secondly, Ulduar will not be tested like a normal instance. The testing will be in phases and only happen according to the schedule Blizzard lays out. They'll announce times when certain bosses will be available for testing, and that means that only during those times will those bosses be open for play. This also means that Ulduar will initially be closed on the PTR.But think for a moment about what this does – it means that we won't be seeing strategies and other guides immediately available upon release of the patch (or in most cases before the patch). It means that world firsts will actually mean something again, and it won't just be a rush to see who can log onto the server first.That is quite big and exciting news. Daelo also lets us know a few other things.Need more news about Ulduar? We've got updates, previews, speculation, and everything else you need to know about the next big raid coming in patch 3.1. If the Titans are hiding it up there, we'll tell you about it here.
Sapphiron and Malygos hotfixes
Just in time for everyone's raiding tonight, Lead Encounter Designer Daelo has announced two important hotfixes that have gone live.Sapphiron and Malygos both should now be working as intended.Sapphiron's Frost aura has been hotfixed to return to levels that we've all seen previous to patch 3.0.8. This means there should be 1200 damage every 2 seconds in the 10-man version, and 1600 damage every 2 seconds in the 25-man version. Note however that the tooltip is incorrect, in that it says the damage occurs every second. According to Daelo this will be fixed in the next client patch (and no, there is no indication of when that is).As for Malygos...
More on Ulduar and hard modes
Daelo, the lead encounter designer, has dropped a few more details about Ulduar, the tier 8 raid that is coming in patch 3.1 (whenever that happens to be). We heard yesterday that there will be more "hard modes" in the raid, analogous to Sartharion. Today we learn that, again like Sartharion, completing the hard modes will give you not only achievements but also additional, better loot. There is also, apparently, going to be an optional encounter in the raid that will be hard-mode-only; I'm picturing something like Nightbane here. Furthermore, Ulduar in general, according to the post, will be harder than Naxxramas is. Naxx was tuned easy on purpose, and the devs have been saying for a while that Ulduar will not be that way, to the same extent. The analogy Daelo makes in his post is that if Naxx is "the introduction to raiding 101 class for players who have never raided before," Ulduar is "the second year class." So we won't be hitting a brick wall, but it probably won't be compared to UBRS either like Naxx often is now. Either way, we won't know much for sure until it's up on the PTR, but I'm certainly looking forward to it.
Blizzard opens up old instances to soloers, changes quest items
Blue poster Daelo has good news for people aiming to solo old instances -- Blizzard has made a few changes to the way keys and unlocks work in the old dungeons, so that you no longer need keys or multiple people to get to the good stuff. The rituals in Blackrock Spire and Uldaman only require one click now, and quintessence (in Molten Core to summon Executus before the Ragnaros fight), the Scepter of Celebras (in Maraudon), and the Mallet of Zul'Farrak (in the ZF, obviously) are no longer needed to do their jobs. Additionally, Nightbane will be accessible in Karazhan without the Blackened Urn.Some may be disappointed that items we worked so hard for are now pretty much useless, but as you probably know by now, that's the way of things when an expansion hits. The good news, obviously, is that people running through instances solo or with just a few people will be able to hit all the content they couldn't get to before. And if you happen to be running the content, you won't need to worry about whether you left the Mallet in the bank or forgot the Scepter on a Princess run.And unfortunately, collectors will be left out as well -- most of the items will actually change form into weapons or other useless objects, so even if you have the old items, they won't be usable in the same way. Sure, the Mallet was a pain to get, but it'll be a little sad to see it disappear in the way we know it forever.
Debuff limit removed
Previously you could only have 40 debuffs up on a single mob. That might seem like a lot, but when you got in a raid with 25 other people all putting up their own set of debuffs and dots, etc... things tended to get a little full.Daelo, the Lead Encounter Designer, announced today that the debuff limit has been removed*. This is a subtle yet important change for many raiding guilds.He notes that the default UI won't normally be able to show all the debuffs, but that's just a bug in the UI. The debuffs are still there and working. We don't have any verifiable information yet as to if custom mods can display an infinite number of debuffs.
Hunter Beta News: Tranquilizing Shot explained, pet focus system adjusted
Good old Tranquilizing Shot seems to be getting a lot of attention in the beta world yesterday. Ever since it was bought back to prominence when it inherited Arcane Shot's old dispel mechanic and the ability to dispel PvP enrage mechanics, people have been wondering what exactly it will be able to do in PvE. Lead encounter designer Daelo clarified the other day with some information on how enrage type effects will work in Wrath:
M'uru nerfed
The small handful of guilds worldwide that have killed M'uru thus far are going to have an achievement therein that nobody else can touch. As of yesterday's patch 2.4.2 (today on the European realms), Blizzard has made the following change to the encounter:We've changed the Negative Energy spells cast by M'uru and Entropius to no longer cause spell interruption on the target. This should ease the frustration of the encounter for those casting classes who can not obtain 100% resistance to spell interruption through talents and effects such as Concentration Aura. Having not done the fight myself, I can't really comment on how big of a nerf this is, but it's something, anyway. (Background: M'uru is the next-to-last boss of Sunwell Plateau, followed only by Kil'Jaeden, and Entropius is another aspect of M'uru that appears during the fight.) Guilds who have been wiping on M'uru, or who intend to try him in the future, do you welcome this change?
No Sunwell Plateau this weekend
If you were expecting to trash around in the Sunwell Plateau this weekend, think again. According to a Daelo post, Blizzard has taken the instance offline for the next couple of days.While I can understand the Blizzard dev's taking the realm offline here or there, and taking down an instance for an extended period of time during the week, it does strike me as odd that they would choose to remove access during the weekend – a prime playing time for a lot of folks. And I know that I and many of my friends only raid weeknights, so we have ample opportunity to test out the content on the weekends.Nonetheless, we can all look forward to reentering the Sunwell on Monday. If this changes, expect to see an update on WoW Insider.
Sunwell closed on the PTR
While it looked like the new 25 man on the PTR, the Sunwell Plateau, was going to be staying open after a few closures in the recent weeks, luck would have that it's not.Daelo announced a short time ago that the instance will be locked until further notice to fix a bug in Lady Sacrolash and Grand Warlock Alythess. What this bug is exactly, we don't know. But I'm sure it has to be quite a good one for them to lock everyone out of the place.Keep an eye out on WoW Insider. We'll let you know when the Plateau is back up and patch 2.4 is ready for more action.
Kael'thas bugged, hotfix not incoming
Daelo is saying over on the forums that the Kael'thas event is bugged. After a player reported that the shield (one of the magical weapons that you first have to defeat and then can fight Kael'thas with) has tons more health than expected, Daelo confirmed that if Kael'thas resurrects his advisors while weapons are "alive" their health will be increased, making the fight much harder and throwing most guilds off of their pacing.So if you're headed to Kael'thas this week, beware. Unfortunately, Blizzard says they can't hotfix the issue, which means it'll have to be fixed in a content patch. Fortunately, however, 2.2.2 is due this week, so if Blizzard can sneak it in yet on that one, raiders will be able to take Kael on as of Tuesday. If 2.2.2 is already too far along in the process for the code to be added, however, Blizzard will either have to create a patch just for this fix (2.2.3), or wait until 2.3 releases (which could be a matter of weeks, severly hampering guild progression past Kael).We'll have to wait and see what they do. This is a confirmed bug, so hopefully we'll see a fix for it with 2.2.2, hopefully on Tuesday.
