Demolisher
Latest
The Art of War(craft): Absolute beginner's guide to Strand of the Ancients
Zach enjoys the Battlegrounds a lot. He thinks it's one of the most re-playable content in the game, so he writes about it every week to spread the word. When all players are finally in the Battlegrounds bashing each others' brains out, he'll consider his mission complete, and he'll sneak out to farm Shoveltusk Meat in peace. We're now at the end of our Absolute Beginners series, which has been surprisingly helpful to a lot more players than I expected. As it turns out, the game still gets a lot of new players even after five amazing years, which is really cool. Players still leveling up might want to check out where we kicked this series off, an introduction to the Battlegrounds. Once you get an idea of what its all about, you can get your feet wet (or swords all bloodied...) in Warsong Gulch. Ten levels later, you can enter the proving grounds of Arathi Basin, or wait until you level up a bit more for the snowy landscape of Alterac Valley. Players who have upgraded to the Burning Crusade and leveled past 60 can get a taste of some space action in Eye of the Storm. When Wrath of the Lich King shipped, Blizzard introduced a brand new Battleground unlike anything that had come before it, an assault and defend scenario that was about as balanced as a Battleground could be because the factions took turns playing the exact same map. Strand of the Ancients also introduced the new vehicle combat system and destructible buildings, which made for a whole new gameplay experience. Click on read more to see what this Battleground is all about.
Patch 3.2 PTR Isle of Conquest upcoming changes
I hope everybody's been having fun on the PTR. I know Matt's been having a grand time in Patch 3.2's new Battleground, the Isle of Conquest. Thanks to all the players who have been airship-dropping, flag-capturing, glaive-thrower-riding, and general-killing, Blizzard has announced that they will be making some changes to the Isle of Conquest in the next iteration of the PTR build. The changes are as follows: Increased all the gates' health from 300,000 to 600,000. Increased the reinforcement count from 200 to 400. Significantly increased the health and damage of the keep generals. Reduced effect range of the siege damage caused by Seaforium. Both the player damage and the siege damage caused should be 10 yards now. The Huge Seaforium piles will now despawn for 20 seconds once looted. Glaive Thrower - Reduced the cooldown of Blade Salvo from 60 seconds to 30 seconds. Glaive Thrower - Reduced movement speed. Demolisher - The Hurl Boulder and Ram effects no longer share a cooldown. Keep Cannons - Fixed a bug that was causing them to do much more damage than intended. Keep Cannons - Can now be repaired once they are destroyed by clicking on them. This repair process takes 8 seconds and can be interrupted, similar to capturing a PvP objective. Siege Engine - Significantly Increased health. Zarhym thanks all the players for their invaluable input and encourage further testing and continued feedback on the PTR. The Battleground looks like a whole lot of fun, and the changes should lengthen the considerably short matches. See you guys on the battlefield... as soon as I get this blasted client patch to download, that is...Patch 3.2 will bring about a new 5, 10, and 25 man instance to WoW, and usher in a new 40-man battleground called the Isle of Conquest. WoW.com will have you covered every step of the way, from extensive PTR coverage through the official live release. Check out WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2 for all the latest!
Ulduar on the Patch 3.1 PTR: The Flame Leviathan
The developers sent us for a bit of a loop today, putting an Ulduar boss up for testing with very little notice immediately after PTR maintenance. Matticus, ever reliable, threw together a quick 10-man raid and welcomed me along to try out the Flame Leviathan. Unfortunately, Michael Sacco (who walked you through Hodir and the Iron Council) wasn't able to go with us this time around. I think he did it on purpose so I couldn't make any jokes about his inability to perform, if you know what I mean.The Flame Leviathan is the boss (or one of the bosses) that uses siege vehicles in its encounter in the outdoors portion of Ulduar. For the safety of those that do not wish to be spoiled on anything Ulduar related, I'll put all information on the encounter beneath the cut below.Again, if you do not want to be spoiled, do not click the link below.
WWI '08 Panel Analysis: PvP part I, Lake Wintergrasp
We've been receiving a constant stream of news from the ongoing Worldwide Invitational in Paris, France, and we've gotten hints of changes coming to the game that promises overall improvements to PvP. In the developers' panel discussion, we learned of a Shadow Priest talent called Dispersion, which Blizzard hopes will allow the underrepresented Shadow Priests to become more viable in Arenas. The dungeons and raids discussion yielded plans to further continue the purchase of PvP gear through PvE, such as from reputation. The panel at the WWI earlier was cleverly titled "PvP Game Systems", where Tom Chilton and Corey Stockton discussed Lake Wintergrasp, new Arena maps, and the new Battleground. It was a rather uninspired panel compared to the previous ones, revealing very little that anxious players didn't already know. Because of the suspiciously lengthy yet predictable presentation, very little time was left for questions (of class balance, I bet), although a few good ones were asked -- and surprisingly answered -- during the session.
