karazhan
Latest
Breakfast Topic: Thankfully I can now wear pants when I tank
I have never forgotten how annoying it was to tank content I outgeared back in The Burning Crusade. For everyone else, going back to older content was a delightful romp, a chance to flex one's digital muscles and unleash the power gained through gearing up. For a tank, it was often an excuse in taking off pieces of armor in order to lower your chances of dodging or otherwise avoiding damage so that you could generate enough rage (or take enough damage that you could get healed in the case of prot paladins), because if you went in your full raid gear, you could forget about generating any kind of threat whatsoever. I remember the day we were getting two people through the lengthy Karazhan attunement quests, which meant I had to tank Steam Vault, Shadow Labyrinth and the Arcatraz. This meant I was going pantsless the whole time. Honestly, one of the joys of being a bitter, cynical, grumpy ol' guy is that I remember every single annoyance I endured during The Burning Crusade. Not only am I not wearing rose-colored glasses, the second they start to form on my brow, I whip them off, stomping up and down and them while screaming no pants no pants never any pants no pants and then I alternate between demented laughter and hideous shrieking wails of agony. Well, or I just smirk. One of those. How about you? What mechanical change have you enjoyed the most in recent expansions? World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.
Why World of Warcraft lore matters
I started playing World of Warcraft with no real idea of the Warcraft universe. I'd played a lot of RPGs, but I wasn't a big RTS player and I was generally more into tabletop play. My gateway drugs for the MMO genre were games like Planescape: Torment. (Man, I loved Planescape.) As a result, my first time through the game, I barely paid attention to what I was doing, who I was fighting or why. It wasn't until I got to Molten Core that I started really thinking about what was going on. How did Thaurissan summon Ragnaros when he clearly had not intended to, and what was the Firelord up to? At the time, Ragnaros seemed astonishing to me, an entity of pure fire older than the whole world. The war between his Dark Iron servants and the dragons and orcs atop the Blackrock Spire became a central part of my game as I moved on to Blackwing Lair. I started paying a lot more attention to the dungeons and quests I was running. Once we hit Outland and I got to Shadowmoon Valley, I ran the Cipher of Damnation quest line (a quest that is all I could hope for in a long quest chain, frankly), and the end of that quest line raised so many questions that I often point to it as the beginning of my lore nerd status. What is the Cipher of Damnation? If it's the spell Kil'jaeden taught to Gul'dan that he used to raise the Hand of Gul'dan and sever the connection between the orcs and the elements, it's clearly not all it can do. Since using it summons Cyrukh the Firelord and since Oronok Torn-heart says it has been used "in the history of our worlds," I am now convinced that the Cipher is the spell that Thaurissan used to summon Ragnaros. But where did he learn it? It was also the spell Kael'thas used to try and summon Kil'jaeden through the Sunwell, which continued past Kael's death in Magister's Terrace.
Weapons of Lore: Atiesh and Andonisus, Reaper of Souls
It was the first caster legendary available to players, but the amount of time and devotion it took to get almost guaranteed that only a tiny piece of the player population actually obtained it. Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian wasn't a particularly fancy weapon by today's standards. It was simple, smooth staff topped with the carving of a raven and quietly adorned with a bit of ribbon. But to those that followed Warcraft's lore, the simple design was easily recognized as the staff of one of the most powerful casters of all time. Atiesh was the epitome of everything a caster desired, largely because of its roots within the history of Warcraft. This wasn't just a simple staff; this was the weapon of choice for the last known Guardian of Azeroth, the wizard Medivh. Medivh was featured heavily in the original Warcraft RTS games but hasn't been seen since the end of Warcraft III. Atiesh, on the other hand, was seen by many -- and craved by many more. And the fate of this unusual staff ties in with another legendary weapon most never encountered: Andonisus, Reaper of Souls.
The missed opportunity of 20-man raiding
With the release of the Raid Finder and the recent changes to valor points, the debate about 10- vs. 25-man raiding, which is harder to run, and which is harder to balance rages on. I have friends on both sides of the 10/25 debate. I understand both points of view, and I think both are utterly wrong. Completely, absolutely wrong. The issue to me is when we went from 40-man raids down to the current raid sizes, the decision to offer 25-man raids didn't really work. I think we should have gone to 10- and 20-man raiding at the dawn of The Burning Crusade, and I still think we should. We had 20-man raids back in classic WoW -- two of them, in fact, Zul'Gurub and Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj. Neither exists as a 20-man raid any more, so this may seem odd to players who didn't raid then, but these were considered the small raids. People who had just spent hours raiding in Molten Core, Blackwing Lair or AQ40 would put together these runs on the fly to gear their alts or get a shot at off-spec loot, while other guilds that didn't have the numbers for 40-man raids would spend their time raiding these while trying to build up their numbers.
World of Wardrobe: Going out in Outland for tier 4
Heading back to pick up some awesome armor sets from vanilla WoW or that dazzling weapon that'll have your enemies cowering in fear? Transmogrification makes it possible -- and World of Wardrobe shows you how. Now that we've finished our whirlwind tour of Medivh's home and have two pieces of tier 4 in our pockets to show for it, it's time to head to the main highlight of The Burning Crusade expansion and dig up the rest of it. While Karazhan existed on Azeroth, the rest of tier 4 exists in Outland, scattered between two smaller raids -- the lairs of the pitlord Magtheridon and Gruul the Dragonkiller. Both raids were mercifully short when compared to the length of Karazhan, but both required some precision timing by raids to complete successfully. Last week, we touched a little on attunement chains for The Burning Crusade. Long, arduous and a complete pain for those trying to get in on raiding late in the game, the attunement chains in Burning Crusade were systematically removed as the expansion went on. For those who jumped into raiding when The Burning Crusade was launched, however, both Gruul and Magtheridon were required kills to get to the next level of raiding content with the next tier of raiding gear. %Gallery-133615%
World of Wardrobe: Kicking around Karazhan for tier 4, part 2
Heading back to pick up some awesome armor sets from vanilla WoW or that dazzling weapon that'll have your enemies cowering in fear? Transmogrification makes it possible -- and World of Wardrobe shows you how. Last week, we started the journey to pick up the first raiding tier of The Burning Crusade. Tier 4 was a bit of a revolution in the way that tier gear was obtained. Players no longer had to wait for their particular piece of gear to drop; instead, they looted tokens that were then turned in for the gear of their choice. We saw the beginnings of this back in tier 2.5, but the organizational element of it was sadly missing. By the time The Burning Crusade launched, players no longer had to obtain secondary items for their tier; the tokens were all that was required. But there were other differences that were unique to Burning Crusade raids -- mainly, the placement of tier loot. If you wanted to raid in vanilla WoW, doing so required attuning yourself to the various raids available. In the case of Molten Core, Blackwing Lair and Onyxia's Lair, this was done by completing a quest chain and obtaining an item or clicking an object that would allow you passage into the raid zone. When Ahn'Qiraj was launched, raiders had to complete an epic quest chain in order to open the gates to the raid, and non-raiders had to gather resources and supplies for the battle that would happen after. By the time the 40-man version of Naxxramas rolled around, all that was required was reputation, some gold, and a few items to get in. This all changed with The Burning Crusade, and so did tier sets. %Gallery-133615%
World of Wardrobe: Kicking around Karazhan for tier 4, part 1
Heading back to pick up some awesome armor sets from vanilla WoW or that dazzling weapon that'll have your enemies cowering in fear? Transmogrification makes it possible -- and World of Wardrobe shows you how. After the sheer confusion of tier 2.5, players had one more opportunity to get tier pieces in the form of tier 3, available solely from the 40-man version of Naxxramas. As of the launch of Wrath of the Lich King, Naxxramas relocated to Northrend and tier 3 went goodbye, to the disappointment of tier collectors. It's been hinted that the new Darkmoon Faire in patch 4.3 may offer ways to obtain tier sets that are no longer obtainable -- hopefully, this includes the long-lost tier 3. Tier 4, on the other hand, was a step in a new direction. Players were no longer required to obtain additional materials to pick up their tier pieces; all they needed was their class token, and they were good to go. However, tier 4 wasn't found in just a single raid dungeon; it was spread all over Outland in a series of introductory raids meant to prepare raiders for the rigors of Serpentshrine Cavern, Tempest Keep, and eventually The Battle for Hyjal and Black Temple. Tier 4 is scattered through three different raid zones, and today we're going to venture into a zone that still stands out as a favorite in many raider's eyes -- the incomprehensible tower of Karazhan. Once the home of Medivh, Karazhan also offers a variety of cool weapons and off-set armor pieces along with the elusive tier 4. %Gallery-133615%
Know Your Lore: Brotherhood of the Horse
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. They saved the people of Stormwind, and not only did it cost them their lives, but then their bodies were taken by the invaders and desecrated into Undead, used as unliving weapons possessed by Orc necrolytes. In life, these heroes fought the Orcs to a standstill and even drove them back at times. In death, their debased frames were the first death knights created by Gul'dan the warlock. They earned heaven and were instead given hell. They were the Brotherhood of the Horse, the finest knights and warriors the Kingdom of Stormwind had to offer. Their greatest leader and last member died on Blackrock Mountain, and since his death, no one has raised their banner. They gave everything to save their world and received only a mockery of death in return. Before this fate, however, they served their kingdom as its most elite -- the best soldiers it had, the most feared military force humanity could then muster, and they proved it time and again. During the First War, the Orcs learned fear when they heard their horses approach and died battling against their lances and greatswords. It was this prowess that made them the targets of Gul'dan's ire.
About the Bloggers: Daniel Whitcomb
About the Bloggers introduces you to the people behind WoW Insider. You can find articles on more of our staffers in earlier About the Bloggers profiles. What do you do for WoW Insider? My primary focus these days is to write Lichborne, the weekly death knight column. I also write the Tuesday Morning Post, a weekly maintenance day roundup of all the news that's fit to print from the past few days of WoW. I used to do a lot more posting of general news, spending at least a few hours a day just scouring everywhere for juicy stuff, but then I had to get a day job again. Still, I try to do what I can. WoW Insider is a great place to work. I have pretty cool coworkers, and I get to write about stuff I love. What's not to like? What's your main? My main is, of course, a human death knight. (Yes, I'd rather be a high elf. I won't even lie.) I do a little bit of everything, if only so I can write with authority about whatever I need to for Lichborne, but my preferred spec of the moment is 2H PVE frost DPS. Right now, it feels like the tree and spec with the most consistent and flavorful rotation and role to it.
About the Bloggers: Anne Stickney
About the Bloggers introduces you to the people behind WoW Insider. You can find articles on more WI staffers in earlier About the Bloggers entries. What do you do for WoW Insider? Oh, man. I write Know Your Lore on Sundays, along with the roleplay column All the World's a Stage. On Mondays, you can catch the Weekly Podcast Roundup. On Thursdays, I write World of WarCrafts, and every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I write up The Daily Quest. In addition, I sometimes fill in on The Queue, pop in on the WoW Insider Show when asked, and I do those little guide graphics on the side of the site, too. In short, I write. A lot. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
How I learned to stop worrying and love level 70
It all started on a lark. Some friends wanted to run BWL, but for whatever reason I said, "Hey, why not do Black Temple instead?" In my opinion, BT is one of the best instances in the game, with some fantastic architecture and art and really excellent boss design, both visually and in terms of what the designers did mechanically at the time. The Reliquary of Souls encounter is still fascinating to watch, and I'm kind of a fanboy for Teron Gorefiend. To be honest, I still find myself wondering if Illidan was being controlled by Gul'dan, considering that Gorefiend, Gul'dan's first death knight, ended up gravitating to the Temple. On our way to the Black Temple, as a lark, I asked if I could bring my level 70 warrior I'd started the week before Cataclysm dropped in order to test the new talent spec and leveling changes. Oh, and because I have a problem. I figured what the heck, I could maybe snag a couple of pieces of gear that would last into the mid-70s if I ever played her again. Six drops later, I'd locked her XP gain and run Hyjal, Karazhan, ZA and Sunwell on her, and I am probably going to do so again.
Shifting Perspectives: A history of feral weapons
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This week, we visit a now-vanished world. Once upon a time, feral druids had their own specialized set of weapons. This was very good, because it meant that you weren't rolling against half the raid when an upgrade dropped. This was also very bad, because it meant that 98% of the game's weapons were completely useless for us. This was before the dark times. Before gear consolidation. Before every two-bit jackass with a hard-on for agility thought himself entitled to the armory of the game's noblest class. They were elegant weapons for a more civilized age.
WoW Archivist: The Karazhan Crypt
The WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? What secrets does the game still hold? If you enjoyed Patches of Yesteryear, you're going to love this. Contrary to what I said at the end of last week's column, we're taking a break from looking at old beta patches this week to show you precisely why we changed the column's name from Patches of Yesteryear -- some of World of Warcraft's most fascinating mysteries never appeared in patch notes at all. The Karazhan Crypt intrigued many players throughout vanilla WoW and into The Burning Crusade. By the time Wrath of the Lich King rolled around, it was almost entirely forgotten. The Karazhan Crypt is a piece of unreleased content that is really rather grim. While World of Warcraft has images of death and downright creepy things all over the game, very little stands up to the sights in the crypts of Karazhan.
Know Your Lore: The Council of Tirisfal and the last Guardian
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. He was the last Guardian and one of the most influential people in Azeroth -- but he never meant to be either one. Of all of the myriad and varied heroes in World of Warcraft, there is one man who is responsible for the majority of the events we see in Azeroth today. This man was solely responsible for the presence of orcs, responsible for the Horde, responsible for the ever-evolving conflict between Horde and Alliance. He was responsible for the original destruction of Stormwind, for the death of Anduin Lothar, King Llane Wrynn and many other heroes whose exploits didn't make it into the annals of history. He was responsible, indirectly, for the corruption of Arthas and the subsequent death of King Menethil, the razing of Stratholme and the rise of the Scourge. He arguably has more blood on his hands than any other being in Azeroth. And yet he was also responsible for the first tenuous threads of peace stretched between Alliance and Horde. He was responsible for the rise of some of Azeroth's greatest heroes -- he was the man that made Varian Wrynn who he is today, he was the man who turned Thrall from an orc with dreams of peace for his people into a leader of action. He was responsible for saving Azeroth from being razed and torn asunder by the Burning Legion. He was a man of many talents, and a man of many regrets. His name is Medivh.
Breakfast Topic: Six impossible things
There's a nice quote from Through the Looking Glass in which Alice states to the White Queen that one can't believe impossible things. The White Queen shrugs this off as silly, "When I was your age, I always did it for a half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!" I don't really know if there's any sense to be made of it, but the phrase "six impossible things" always stuck with me. Now how does this relate to World of Warcraft, exactly? With Cataclysm coming up, the world that we play in is changing completely. Some things we remember from days past may not even exist anymore, and some things may change altogether. So I am keeping a list of (more or less) six impossible things to accomplish before Cataclysm. It keeps me occupied when I'm not raiding, and each time I finish something, I add something else to the list. The three achievements above were all on my list, I've replaced them with Attumen's mount from Karazhan, the tiger from Zul'Gurub, and I am contemplating whether or not trying to farm for warglaives would be a good idea. Each time I manage one of the impossible things it feels like I've accomplished something, though the merits of having accomplished anything substantial in a video game can be argued back and forth. Still, it keeps me happy, and it keeps me busy. So do you have a list of impossible things? If you do, what are they? If you don't, what are you doing to keep yourself occupied?
Ready Check: I miss Karazhan
Ready Check focuses on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Icecrown Citadel or Ulduar, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. Recently, your devoted WoW.com staff of journalists and trained monkeys were huddled in the newsroom discussing raiding in Wrath of the Lich King. We naturally looked back to the Burning Crusade for comparisons and recalled that most favorite raid: Karazhan. Man, how the memories came rolling in as soon as its hallowed name came up. I couldn't help but think about all the things I miss about Karazhan. There was something magic about that place. I loved everything from the music to the tapestries to the well-developed NPCs that were lurking around every corner. It all combined to form one of the most engaging, interesting raid instances in the World of Warcraft. I look back at it with the same kind of fondness I usually reserve for music played at my prom or the soup eaten at my wedding. But to me, Karazhan was the best of times I've had in WoW. I readily admit the game has come a long way since the days of Kara, but I have to constantly question what it is about that place that promotes so much nostalgia.
Breakfast Topic: Where's the epic, part two
Okay guys. After spending days thinking this over in the back of my mind and trying to figure out which sock drawer Blizzard stuffed the "epic" into, I've come to a conclusion: It's not about the "epic". What it is about, what's lacking, is something that's strictly based on design. Let's go back to Ragnaros and Molten Core for a moment and see if I can get this point across: the reason that Ragnaros felt "epic" was because the dungeon itself was specifically designed with 40 players in mind. The spacing of the zone, the placement of the rocks and bosses was all designed around the idea that there would be 40 players in this zone. Moving on, Hyjal felt odd at first because I was used to that 40man model. It faded because the dungeons of Burning Crusade were designed with 25 players in mind. Hyjal, Black Temple, Serpentshrine Cavern, all of it, designed with the intent of 25 players being present in that zone, so they felt natural. On the same principle, the 10man dungeons -- Karazhan and Zul'Aman -- both felt exactly right, because they were designed with 10 players in mind. Karazhan was huge, but not once did the experience feel awkward because all boss encounters and rooms were designed around 10 people playing in there. When you get to Wrath, Ulduar in particular -- Ulduar was designed with 25 players in mind. The boss rooms, the open spaces were all created specifically so that 25 people would feel like this space was absolutely gigantic. But when you take 10 people in that space, what was once comfortably "huge" for 25 borders on the absurd for 10 players. That's why it doesn't feel right -- because the space simply doesn't fit the people in it.
The ghosts of Azeroth
I love ghost stories, and one of the nice things about WoW is that Azeroth is full of them. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that one of the nice things for us is that Azeroth's full of them, because lore-wise it's hard to argue that the existence of any ghost is a happy occurrence. While I could (and probably should) turn this into a giant feature cataloging all the ghosts in the game, I have my personal favorites: Caer Darrow The inhabitants of Caer Darrow are my favorite ghosts, not least because you can't see them at all until you've done a bit of work on their behalf. The island seems utterly deserted barring the Sarkhoff couple...until you realize that it's not, and that there's an entire town full of people trapped on its "happiest day," going about its business, oblivious to how the world's moved on. That there's a ghostly vendor you can't otherwise talk to without a Spectral Essence is even better.
Shifting Perspectives: Revenge of the Karapalooza
Every week, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week, we invade the menagerie, shut down the demon factory, defang the beaten dog, carefully avoid Netherspite, play some chess, and face not only Malchezaar but the legions he commands. Greetings, druids. This week we'll finish our look at stomping Kara from Curator through Prince. If you're looking for our first installment (covering Attumen through Nightbane), you'll find that here. Curator For most people, the Curator was the source of the first tier piece they ever got in Burning Crusade as he drops the tier 4 glove token. Note that the Defender tokens in tier 4 and 5 went to warriors, druids, and priests, which forced BC's more popular tanking and healing classes (in addition to the new legion of shadow priests that every raid wanted) to gear at each others' expense. It wasn't until tier 6 that Blizzard went for more sensible class combinations, splitting most tanking/healing classes to different tokens.
Breakfast Topic: Thank you for the music
The very first time I made a character in World of Warcraft was way back during the original beta -- I made a night elf. And then I logged in for the first time, and was immediately assaulted with visual eye-candy that has kept me entertained for over five years. But on top of the graphics, there was the music -- something about the soundtrack just gelled the whole thing into a game I really, really wanted to continue playing. The first time I entered Stormwind, the solemn choral accompaniment made the whole place seem... huge. Dramatic. This was a place where grand and interesting things happened. After the game's launch, I made another night elf. But once I'd hit 60 and realized the only thing to do was run Scholo or Strat or UBRS if you could find someone with the key over and over until you had your blue set of amazing awesome that had just had the graphics updated... right. I got bored. I rolled Horde to see what that side of the game looked like, and once again, it wasn't just the visuals when I first walked into Orgrimmar, it was the music that really hit me. Some time after that I started raiding, and some time after that, I'm not sure exactly when, the repetitive tracks that I'd heard play over and over again just stopped drawing me in. And so I turned them off, and enjoyed a mostly silent game in which I could play whatever happened to be on iTunes at the time. It wasn't until years later when stepping into Kara for the first time that I realized something was missing, and I went into the options and turned up the music slider. I'm glad I did, the tracks from Kara remain some of my favorite WoW music to date; they mesh with the zone so well that I can't go into the zone without listening to it. Blizzard has really stepped up the music with Northrend. With the Invincible track that was released, and the datamined tracks from the Gnomeregan and Echo Isles events that have been posted here and there, I've fallen in love with it all over again -- although I still tend to turn it down in raids. So Breakfast Topic people -- do you leave the music on, or turn it off? What's your favorite WoW track?
