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Guildwatch: Reasons for lack of progressions
I'm not exactly sure why that guy's got a green triangle raid target over his head-- wait a minute. Is that Moroes?? Did he sneak up to the Prince with this unsuspecting guild? Look out guys! That garrote'll getcha every time!On a completely unrelated note, it's time once again for this week's Guildwatch-- your weekly dose of drama, downed notices, and recruiting pleas. If you've got something to share for next week, send your tips and info to wowguildwatch@gmail.com, and click the link below to read this week's GW. But watch out for sneaky raid bosses impersonating fellow guildies!
Kaliban's Loot Lists expanded and updated
My good friend Bonemine on Thunderhorn pointed out to me this evening (during a very successful Arcatraz run) that the great Kaliban's Class Loot Lists has been seeing a lot of great changes lately. Thottbot and Wowhead will tell you about items when you look for them, but if you want to know which items to look for, Kaliban's site is the place to go. They've got all the lists set up first by class and then by instance, so that you can, with a glance, know exactly what you want out of every instance from every boss.But lately, Kaliban's been throwing a lot of new stuff in there. All of the Heroic instances have now been added, and they've even gone to the trouble of listing important gear quests for your class by zone-- so you can know, after 70, which quests to go back and finish to get that gear. Also, they've even added an instance map and tips for each swirly portal, so not only do you know which boss to go to, you can know how to get there and how to beat them. The other feature I really like is at the bottom of every page-- for each sample spec, they've provided a list of five or six items that you can aim for in each slot, so you can build a set specific to your own build. Very cool, and it saves you hours of poking around Wowhead trying to find good items otherwise.As of yesterday, Kaliban has even added a list of raid loot from Karazhan (along with recommendations for who the loot is good for), as well as two 25 mans-- Gruul and Magtheridon. Excellent work going on over there. Before, it was a good guide for picking and choosing gear from instances, but with all the new expansion content, it's an almost invaluable guide for getting your higher level toon outfitted with the right gear.
Blue Notes: Aran's Flame Wreath and Blade's Edge graveyards
I have two quickies for you all in the wake of the Alchemy issues. One bug with the Shade of Aran has been fixed:Beneficial immunity effects from abilities such as Ice Block and Divine Shield will no longer cause the Shade of Aran's explosion effect from Flame Wreath to proc when the duration has faded.I'm sure he'll still wipe my guild without breaking a sweat -- he's what we're currently stuck on in Karazhan. Aran is the sixth boss in Karazhan (or so). Flame Wreath is an effect that puts a ring of fire around you; if you move, thus placing your character in the flames, it pretty much wipes the raid.And another piece of bug-fixing goodness, they've fixed that ridiculously obnoxious graveyard bug in Blade's Edge Mountains. I'm sure I'll still hate the zone when I take my third Outlander through there (Mage perhaps?), but a little less, now:All characters that die on the Northwest plateau of Blade's Edge Mountains will now be sent to the Evergrove graveyard.Previously, if you died up in the northwest of BEM, your ghost appeared at the Sylvannar graveyard (for Alliance; I'm not sure what the Horde equivalent is). While this is geographically closer to the northwest part of the zone than Evergrove is, due to BEM's labyrinthine layout, it takes a good ten minutes to run back to your corpse from there.
Guildwatch: Drama, in comic form
I think the picture above is like the best thing I've ever seen in putting this column together-- a member of the guild has actually put their drama in stick figure comic form. That's only two panels of it, actually-- click on the pic above to read the whole, awesome thing.And click on the link below to get your weekly fix of guild drama, downings, and recruiting notices. If you want your guild to appear here (or know of one that should), just drop an email to wowguildwatch@gmail.com. We're also asking for funny GMOTDs this week (make sure to read the note at the bottom of this week's column). Click on, clickers!
A look at Blizzard's stats, post-Burning Crusade
Last November, Blizzard finally made public a page full of stats for what's happening to all of us in game-- the most dangerous creatures, most gathered items, most completed quests, and so on. Ever since, I always find it fascinating to stop over there and see what's new, but today I realized that I haven't really seen it since Burning Crusade dropped. So let's take a look at what players are up to since the Dark Portal opened, shall we?Netherweave has jumped right to the top of listings in the Auction House, while Arcade Dust makes a nice showing at 7th. Of the Primal elements, only Earth is on the first page (most likely because it's the most farmed from all those Earth Elementals in Nagrand). It also comes from Mining, so it makes a good showing on the Most Gathered Items as well-- Copper leads that category by double everything else, though, most likely because of all the jewelcrafting going on. In fact, while Soul Shards are still number one, Copper Bars are the second Most Created Items in the realms, too. Interesting that you have to go to page 3 before you see a jewelcrafting item, though-- two sets of battleground tokens (Arathi Basin and WSG) are being made more than any Delicate Copper Wire.Warlock pets remain on the top of the Most Dangerous NPC list, but King Bangalash and those nasty Defias Pillagers have company-- apparently people are back playing their mains, and raid bosses like Shade of Aran, Gruul, Nightbane, and the Maiden are killing players by the thousands. The Most Complete Quests screen has interesting info, too-- almost all of the quests are newbie Blood Elf quests (there is at least one Draenei newbie quest mixed in, but BEs have the clear majority). You'd think people would be completing quests in Outland to level, but three months after BC release, maybe that's not the case anymore. According to the stats, it seems like the large majority of players has gotten their mains to 70, are raiding Kara and Gruul, and leveling up their Blood Elf mains.
Guildwatch: Spartans! Tonight, we dine in.. Moroes' room!
Man I hate that Moroes. My guild is so, so close to finishing him off, but our shackles are breaking, our Hunter's trap is resisting, or the aggro is wonky somewhere down the line. But don't worry, faithful readers, we'll get him. Prepare for glory!Meanwhile, it's Tuesday, and here's your weekly fill of Drama, Downed, and Recruiting news from around the realms. Remember, this column lives and dies on your tips, so if you've got news, we want it: drop a note to wowguildwatch@gmail.com. Clicky linky to read this week's GW.
Shade of Aran chant, and other WoW fun on YTMND
So inside Karazhan, there's a boss called the Shade of Aran. He's Medivh's father, actually-- or, more specifically, the spirit of Medivh's father. He's a crazy mage with all kinds of casting abilities, one of which is called Flame Wreath. Flame Wreath targets 3 random people in the raid. If everyone is spread out enough that no one is close to those three players, nothing happens. But if people are close to them, a ring of fire shoots out around the player, and anyone who crosses through it will cause everyone in the room to get hit for 3000-4000 damage.For this reason: I will not move when Flame Wreath is cast or the raid blows up. That's one of the best sounding WoW YTMNDs I've seen, but it's definitely not the only one. You could always check out Riker getting disappointed, Hello Kitty Island Adventure, a little Alliance vs. Horde DDR, or the Patch Day Simulator. YTMND is such a crazy form of expression, but it's no surprise, considering the two cultures, that WoW and their sites find so much common ground.[ Thanks Markalept and Druid dude! ]
Fun with Archmage Vargoth
Seen this wizard (or these wizards) around lately? It's Archmage Vargoth. Actually, it's an image of Archmage Vargoth-- the guy himself is locked, by Kael'thas, inside the Violet Tower up in Netherstorm. The image is summoned with a staff obtained from a long quest chain that starts in Area 52. At around the third quest in the chain, you can obtain Vargoth's staff, which lets you summon an image of him which actually works as a questgiver for the rest of the chain (the eventual end of the chain is to get him out of the tower, though some players say it's not working correctly).In fact, as long as you have the staff, you can summon him again. And again. And, yes, again. And you can do it anywhere. This guy had a little Vargoth party in Karazhan, and Vargoth has been popping up all over Azeroth-- in the captial cities, and even in battlegrounds. The only drawback is that the staff has a 2 minute cooldown on it, and so does the image-- you can't summon more than one at a time with just one staff. But if you have more than one player with the staff, Vargoth clones can appear, which means with a little coordination, he can become a very familiar face around Azeroth.Until it gets "fixed," that is-- chances are that Blizzard will attach a location to the staff, only letting you summon him close to the tower where he's trapped. But until then, I can't wait to see this little purple wizard in as many unexpected places as possible.
Guildwatch: What, no gnomes?
Tuesday means its time once again for Guildwatch, your weekly look into unfolding guild drama, dying bosses, and folks who could use you in the endgame. I particularly like this week's guild picture, because it has both a sitting bear AND a furbolg. Throw in a dancing treeform druid and you'd have everything you need for a fun Saturday night.Remember, just like Sally, the waitress who's worked down at the Sidetrack Tap Diner for more years than you've been alive, this column lives and dies on your tips. If you've got 'em, send 'em to wowguildwatch@gmail.com. Click the link to read this week's GW.
Blizzard posts Burning Crusade attunement tree
While we've certainly seen some excellent player-created guides to instance attunement in The Burning Crusade, sometimes it's just good to know there's also an official source. So it was with great glee that I opened up my email this morning to find that *other* World of Warcraft Insider (you know, the email Bliz sends you that you never read) with mention of this fabulous interactive attunement guide. While I don't know about you (and I hope you'll tell me), I know that a guide like this helps me figure out what I'm headed to do next on my path of content conquering. I honestly had no clue it would be this involved as I was leveling up, but thankfully the faction grind hasn't really felt like a grind at all. In fact, after leveling to 70 on a new shaman, and seeing most of the new instances, I'm now only missing revered with a couple of factions. So, does a guide like this from Blizzard help, or are you more inclined to use the player-generated guides?
Guildwatch: Splitsville, population us
It seems we're right in the middle of Burning Crusade raiding drama-- guilds who had a solid raiding group before the expansion are seeing all kinds of trouble as they reset themselves for new instances and new group limits and requirements. Lots of guilds are splitting under the pressure.Not that it wasn't expected. But there sure is a lot of drama going around. This week's Guildwatch, your weekly look at happenings around the guild scene, starts right after you click the link below. And don't forget: your tips power this place-- if you've got news of drama, downing, or recruiting, let us know at wowguildwatch@gmail.com.
Socketed items still not impressing players
I asked this question when the expansion first hit: do sockets suck? It seemed to me that there were lots of socketed items in game that, even with great gems in them, just didn't match up to the nonsocketed items I was finding.And now, Passion of Anub'Arak posts on the forums with much more concrete evidence of exactly that. Even the epic socketed drops in Karazhan, with great gems in them, don't have the stats of some of the nonsocketed drops from the level 70 5mans. There's no point to wasting all the time, consumables, and gem money to get the higher level items if a run through a 5man instance will net you better gear.Fortuately, Neth replies in the thread, and says that item balance is still ongoing. Unfortunately, she (I'd imagine she did it on purpose, tricksey CMses) goes right down the middle, and says that they'll be looking at items "that may not be living up to what we wanted them to be or are more powerful than originally intended." As for whether that means they'll make the epics dropping in Karazhan even better (yay!) or nerf the 5man drops (boo), your guess is as good as ours.As a final note, I'll just throw out there that this one may not actually be Blizzard's fault. The availability and price of good gems depends on how many players are jewelcrafting, and how often. It could be that everyone tried out jewelcrafting in the beta, and so Blizzard figured that jewels would be better or more plentiful that what's out there right now-- with not enough good jewels to go around, it's no surprise that socketed items are disappointing.
Forum Thread of the Day: Karazhan's timer too long?
Meugly, of Wraith on H-Icecrown-US, asks the simple question "shouldn't Karazhan be on a shorter timer?" Currently, it resets every week (on Tuesday, like all the other weekly raids). ZG and AQ20, on the other hand, reset every three days. Meugly's argument basically seems to go like this: Raiding guilds are having enough trouble transitioning from 40-mans to 25-mans, so Having a 10-man raid as the pathway to 25-mans creates a huge bottleneck. You can't really skip ahead to 25-man content, since you need the gear from KZ to have a chance at later raids. If you've got a raid guild with fair amount of raiders, you've basically got two options: Run one group a week, and leave a lot of people out. Obviously imperfect. Run two groups a week. This is, as Meugly says, "a logistical horror. So many of the boss fights require a pretty specific group make up. If one of the two teams is short a single player in a key class, they probably won't be able to raid at all that night." Reducing KZ's lockout time to three days would go a long way towards addressing this. You could, for instance, have a core group that runs twice a week, with others filling in the ranks as possible. Or you could run two separate teams but just have more flexibility -- if team B is short a Priest, and team A ran before the last reset, a team A priest could come along. Also, as the OP points out, KZ is kind of a step up to Gruul and Serpentshrine Cavern and such, like how ZG and AQ20 were arguably steps up to MC and the rest of the "classic" raids; and those 20-mans were, as I've already mentioned, 3-day resets.What do you all think? Is KZ enough of a "serious" raid to warrant a full week reset timer?
Guildwatch: A crowd of raging ninjas
This week's Guildwatch kinda snuck up on you, didn't it? We're like that-- dressed all in black, toting around sharp stars, and popping in when you least expect it. You know, to assassinate the head of an opposing clan or steal an ancient relic held by an evil ruling family. Normal stuff.And in between our ninja activities, we find the time to churn out a weekly report on drama, downings, and recruiting going on with the guilds throughout Azeroth. The Armory might tell you how many members these guilds have, but you'll only learn the inside story here on GW. As always, send us your tips, early and often, at wowguildwatch@gmail.com. Click the link to read the dirt.
Guildwatch: The anti-ninja strikes
Hey hey all, it's Tuesday, and not only does that mean you sleep in (instead of waking up at 5 am to play WoW), but it also means it's time for Guildwatch, your weekly look at drama, downed, and recruiting guilds from around the World of Warcraft.This week's GW starts, as usual, right after you click the link below. To send us tips on your guild (or any other guilds you happen to know about-- anonymous drama tips are welcome), throw a note to wowguildwatch@gmail.com.
The return of the return of the Luffa
It seems like just yesterday we were talking about the Searing Gorge quest reward the Luffa and how useful it could be for an encounter in Karazhan. I, of course, was off silently cursing the fact that I'd vendored mine ages ago, being unable to think of a single use for it that was more important than the free inventory slot. However, it looks like I didn't need to be so sad about that -- because apparently the Luffa has been changed in 2.0.10 to not work on bleed effects cast by monsters over level 60. [Via official forums]
Return of the Luffa
Answer honestly now: who actually kept the Luffa? The Luffa is a pretty much worthless trinket (except maybe for Rogues who often fight Druids or Warriors) available at level 49 from a quest in Searing Gorge. All it does is remove one bleed effect. It's not a bad trinket when you get it at level 49, but after that, more and more trinkets show up that do so much more that for most players, the Luffa ends up either in the bank, or, more likely, vendored away.I know I sold it. But those of you who hang on to everything you find in the game have a reason to celebrate: the Luffa is back. Apparently in Karazhan, there's a rogue boss named Moroes who lays down a debuff called "Garrote"-- it's a whopping 1000 damage per 3 seconds for five minutes (or until he dies, as of 2.0.6), which is a lot of damage. And yet, while Stoneform, Divine Shield and Ice Block will all remove it, the only other way you'll get it off is, you guessed it, the ol' Luffa.If, like me, you did vendor it, don't worry too much-- the Luffa only works sometimes, and the fight's not impossible without it anyway. But a few players are feeling a little regret at tossing away something they'd never thought they'd need. Maybe a future quest in Outland will someday grant us an extra absorbent Luffa for future use.Update: And here's even more reason to keep it. Commenter Wari asks about Rokmar the Crackler's debuff in the Slave Pens (he drops a bleed that does damage until the player who has it is healed to full), and it looks like the Luffa will clean that annoying buff off too. Who knew the Luffa would be so useful?
Lots of hotfixes kills bugs dead
Looks like the Entangling Roots hotfix, while one of the most anticipated, wasn't the only hotfix that dropped at the end of last week. Tseric has updated the forums with a bit more than a few hotfixes to hit the servers recently.Among them, the Roots problem is now fixed, as well as that problem with the Draenei getting the "Crumpled Up Note" for the quest in BRD. There are also changes with the Maiden of Virtue, the chess pieces in Karazhan, and the Mechanar elevator door that lots of players were having trouble with.All the fixes are reprinted after the jump. Keep that bug squashing coming, Blizz!
Talon King Ikiss and a few other undocumented boss buffs
Alistairover of Thunderhorn (who is an oomkin guildie of mine, and, I must say, regularly outdps's higher level warlocks, rogues and hunters) dropped a note to me in guild chat about Talon King Ikiss, the last boss in Sethekk Halls. We ran that place together last week, and the boss has an Area of Effect spell that hurts a lot, but can be interrupted with kicks, Earth Shocks, or any other interruption spell. Not so much anymore, however, says Ali.Apparently 2.07 made him invulnerable to almost any type of interruption, and players aren't happy about it. I'll still say the fight's not completely impossible (there's a strategy where you can all group around him to keep him from blinking, and then hide behind a pillar to avoid line of sight on the AoE, and another strat where you just do what you can to time heals with the AoE and keep clothies out of range, and I'm sure interested parties will include more in the comments below), but I haven't done it myself since the patch-- I've just heard it's very, very hard.Additionally, Illhoof, a boss in Karazhan, got a nice undocumented buff-- his shadowbolts hit harder, as does his Imp. Players at that level (that's a fight I haven't done at all yet) say he's so hard he's not even worth the drops at this point. And another boss in Karazhan, the Maiden of Virtue, got a little bit of a buff on her "Repentance" spell, but apparently the fight's still easy.As of this writing, there's no official Blizzard response to any of this, which could be taken either way, but is probably a pretty good indication these are all working as intended. Sethekk Halls, it seems, just got a bit harder.Update: Our own Eliah Hecht reports that Tseric has said "working as intended" on the Illhoof and Maiden buffs, but "communication breakdown" prevented it from showing up in the patch notes. More info in the comments.
Is Karazhan worth it?
Reviews are beginning to filter in for Karazhan, the first ten-man raid dungeon in the Burning Crusade, and many raiders seem to be underwhelmed. Complaints include:
