karazhan
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Guildwatch: Slow going
It's a little silly, we admit, to say "every time an expansion patch comes around," because this is really only the second time it's happened, but every time an expansion patch comes around, guild action slows down a bit, and as a result, this week (and probably the next few weeks) will find Guildwatch poking around for a little more guild news.But the good news is that lots of guilds are taking advantage of the easier endgame, so if yours is, be sure to drop us a line at wowguildwatch@gmail.com -- no down is too small, and no drama is too minor. Whether it's your guild or someone else's, we want to hear about it, and then post it here on GW for all to see.
Wrath lockboxes appear in Karazhan
We did a run through Karazhan last night, and not one but two of these popped up -- Froststeel Lockboxes apparently require 375 Lockpicking (the current limit is 350), and so we have no idea what this might hold. The Ashbringer? Frostmourne? It's Wrath gear for sure, but it could be anything!No, only joking -- of course it's probably just some Northrend green vendor trash (although item level 73... that might be pretty good). Too bad we won't know until someone hits level 75, as lockpicking's general skill formula is five times whatever your level is. But apparently the last patch added at least some higher level loot to the world drop tables -- any of you seen any Wrath greens or other gear randomly drop yet?
Raiding has never been easier than in 3.0.2
Karazhan isn't exactly cutting edge content. It's had a few nerfs in its time. That being said, walking into Medivh's home-away-from-evil with a collection of random alts, sightseers, and new-to-raiders can sometimes prove interesting. And by interesting, I mean "repair bill" and "love of all that's Holy, just kill the dang flares!" Last night was one of those nights. My Guild has spent the last few weeks helping folks prepare for 25-man raiding in Wrath. The gear from Karazhan won't be applicable in the expansion, sure, but the skills and habits you learn now will help you be successful in the future. We had some particularly green folks with us, and while we knew the changes from 3.0.2 would make it easier, we weren't quite aware how easy. We were breezing along. Who doesn't breeze past Attumen, Maiden, and even Opera? When we hit Curator, we started to really feel the difference. The chap barely made it to his first Evocation. We skipped on past, slapped Aran around, and went up to Prince. Prince got down two infernals before dying. Confused, I checked the raid's gear. Had our all-in-greens Rogue somehow been replaced with a Warglaive-wielding maniac? Did the new specs really make that much difference? And then we recalled -- every raid mob in the Burning Crusade got nerfed. So, now, for the next few weeks, we have an odd nirvana in which to help folks learn to raid.
Dinner with the multiboxers
I wish I'd been invited to this at BlizzCon -- TGDaily sat down with a group of multiboxers last weekend, and lived to tell the tale. I don't think multiboxers are the most hated people in the game (Paladins and Warlocks probably get to trade off that title), but it's true that just like twinks, they can draw some ire. Blizzard has given them a free pass in the game (most likely because they're spending ungodly amounts of money keeping up their fleets of characters), but apparently multiboxers are just people. People willing to shell out lots of money and time on overpowering themselves inside a game.And that's really where the issue lies -- most of these people aren't no-lifers, they're just folks with money to burn that want to trounce a battleground all by themselves or run Karazhan solo. But at the same time, there is a sense of superiority that comes across -- they brag (under their breath in a crowded restaurant) that they can beat anyone else's player, and they claim that "other people can only see a quarter of the game," which just patently isn't true. This is a generalization I'm making, of course, but playing 10 characters by yourself seems to give an inflated sense of self-worth in the game (after all, aren't you 10 times better than someone playing with just one character?) and that could be the reason that multiboxers have the reputation they do.
Guildwatch: Prime Time Hours!
It's good to know that, whatever changes in the World of Warcraft, be it talents or raids, or pets or mounts, or anything else, there'll always be people that take the game too darn seriously. And when they do, that's usually when Guildwatch shows up, mostly, let's admit it, to point and laugh.Oh, but we also praise those who get things done, too. It's all in this week's Guildwatch, as usual -- check behind the link below for drama, downed, and recruiting news from around the realms. Patch 3.0.2 is here, Wrath is just around the corner, and Guildwatch continues to cover the good, the bad and the ugly in the world of guilds.
Guildwatch: Still dropping bosses
That's Cooldown of Darkspear, above, basking in the glory of a boss kill. While it seemed like raiding came to a standstill before BC, that's not really the case before Wrath -- while it's certainly slower, there's lots of people out there still killing bad guys.And Guildwatch reports on as many of them as we hear about -- if you'd like to see your guild here (or have a good time on some wacky forum drama, either on the offficial forums or somewhere else), drop us a line at wowguildwatch@gmail.com. And click the link below to see this week's drama, downed, and recruiting news from all the guilds around the realms.
Ask a Beta Tester: Raid zones, plot, and more on phasing
I decided to do something a little different with the image above for today's Ask a Beta Tester. Instead of beating you over the head with another of my awesome Dalaran screenshots, I've plugged in some music you can listen to while you read, if you'd like. Just hit play, and get in a Wrath kind of mood.Milkgas asked quite a few question, but many of them involve story spoilers that I don't think readers would appreciate seeing in this particular column. What I don't answer, you can truck over to Ask a Lore Nerd and I'll squeeze them in on the bottom behind my usual "spoilers be here, yarrrr" line. We can definitely hit a few of them though.Has there been any hints in the quest text of either the Uldum or the Karazhan Basement as a raid or dungeon in this expansion or the next?Nothing that I've seen! We'll have Ulduar as a raid zone in Northrend, so to me that seems like a definite no on Uldum. I don't think they would put two Titan raids in one expansion, unless Uldum turned out to be a 5 man dungeon. We've seen nothing about the rest of Karazhan.
Guildwatch: Sometimes things do go right
It's been a while since we posted a downed picture here at the top of Guildwatch (usually it's some hilarious chat log from our drama section), but let's try to stay upbeat this week. Here's the Deathknight Trainers hanging out with Akama after a successful boss attempt -- congrats to them and all the other guilds making progress in our weekly column.And if that doesn't excite you, well we've still got drama, too. Click the link below to see everything we've got this week, and if you've got a tip on some good drama, downed or recruiting news for next week, hit us up at wowguildwatch@gmail.com with an email (don't forget to include the guild's name and server so we can make sure it's listed below, too).
15 Minutes of Fame: 10-boxing Karazhan, Part 2
15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about.Last week, 15 Minutes of Fame visited with multiboxer Nixi of team Absolute Power-H of Archimonde to bring WoW Insider readers his 10-boxing strategy for Karazhan. This week, we'll step back for a look at Nixi's hardware setup, his top five tips for new multiboxers and a broader look at why he's a 'boxer.Catch up with 10-boxing Karazhan Part 1, then join us after the break for an inside look at Nixi's 10-boxing team.
Officers' Quarters: Friends or content
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.It's the constant dilemma of the casual guild member. You love the people in the guild, but you know you're going to miss all or most of the raiding experience. It's a particularly poignant decision when you're an officer in a casual guild. That's what one reader is facing this week.Hi, Scott.I have been in a wonderful casual guild for almost a year now. And have been promoted to an officer. I love all of officers/people in my guild and generally have a good time with them and try to organize casual events and things to do. We have been attempting Kara recently, but I don't think we will progress past the 2nd boss before Wrath comes out; however, we are not a raiding guild by any means and I can't really stress that enough.Over the last few months I have started to out-gear a lot of people in the guild and have been considering moving just my 70 to a guild that only raids on weekends so I have a chance to explore some new content before it becomes obsolete. Recently I filled a gap in a Kara guild and after the run was asked to join. This guild would only really need me for weekend Kara runs and maybe Mags. Is it fair for one of my alts (which I am trying to level for Wrath) to take over my officer position in my guild and only use my current 70 for raiding in the new guild, and to help out when needed?
Guildwatch: A little raid ID problem
Sure, it's a lot of good items being nabbed from the guild bank there, but how much will those really be worth in the expansion, right? Look on the bright side -- you'll have a bunch of new gear, and that former guildleader will still have a bad reputation.Downed and recruiting news and the ever-popular drama can be found as usual in this week's Guildwatch. To read, just click the link below, and don't forget to send all your tips to wowguildwatch@gmail.com -- things are a little slow before the expansion, so if you've got news of progression (or a nice juicy drama story), please do share it. We thank you, and a host of drama-hungry readers will thank you as well.
First impressions: 5-man healing in the beta
I specced resto in the beta the other week to try out the new talents and abilities Druids are getting in Wrath, and decided to brave the horrors of LFG and scribble some notes for your sake, dear readers. By the way, the aspect of beta that I will miss most? The 1 copper respec fee. Can we keep this?Please note that this is written from the perspective of a 70 Restoration Druid, so unfortunately I can't comment on whether Priests, Shamans, or Paladins might have had an easier or harder time healing the instances. I have a good but not jaw-dropping resto set, and on the live realms clock in around +1998 to +2100 healing unbuffed. If your gear's better or worse, then just adjust the potential difficulty level as needed. And even if you're not a healer, you still might find something useful here:
15 Minutes of Fame: 10-boxing Karazhan, Part 1
15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about.This week's 15 Minutes of Fame is about a multiboxing team – but it's not that team that just ganked you in your last Battleground. Absolute Power-H of Archimonde and its team leader/main tank, Nixi, have made their mark not in Battlegrounds but in Karazhan.Ever curious about a unique perspective of the World of Warcraft, we visited with Nixi & Co. to find out what it's like to "solo" Karazhan. This week in Part 1 of our interview, we go straight for the throat with Nixi's Kara strats. Next week, Part 2 of 15 Minutes of Fame: 10-boxing Karazhan brings you a look at Nixi's hardware setup and his top five tips for new multiboxers.
The marathon raid day?
A friend and I were idly wondering about the possibility of tackling all Burning Crusade raid content the way you'd watch the extended Lord of the Rings trilogy on a rainy weekend: doing it all without stopping, intent on a glorious finish. Nobody's arguing that the point of such a marathon is to have fun every second while you're doing it; I'd say this is the classic undertaking where it really is about the destination and not so much the journey. But let's say you had an enterprising bunch of raiders sitting around bored on a weekend and your choices were either raiding Tarren Mill again or trying something adventurous. Or if you had Wrath coming up the next week and you wanted to conduct a triumphal tour of the content your guild had conquered, stopping only to relish the wholesale slaughter of bosses who'd given you so much trouble (here's looking at you, Gurtogg). Would it be possible to cut a swathe of destruction across the BC raiding landscape all within the space of a day?Assuming a bunch of experienced raiders, we came up with the following figures:Karazhan: 2-3 hoursGruul's Lair: 1 hourMagtheridon: 45 minutesSerpentshrine Cavern: 3-4 hours Tempest Keep: 3 hoursZul'Aman: 1 1/2 hoursMount Hyjal: 2 1/2 hours Black Temple: 3-4 hours Sunwell Plateau: 4-5 hoursOn the low end, that's 20 hours and 45 minutes. On the high end, it's 25 hours (and I have to pause here for a moment's respect over just how much raid content Blizzard programmed for BC). If you lopped Kara and ZA off the marathon in the interest of doing only 25-man content, an experienced (albeit insane) raid that stomped each site and methodically proceeded to the next with no wipes along the way (probably not likely in Sunwell) could probably wreck BC raid content in maybe 18 hours start to finish (giving them a little extra time for travel and bathroom breaks). Has anyone been crazy enough to try this? Should anyone be crazy enough to try this?
Guildwatch: It's not me, it must be you
I don't think I've ever seen the fall of a guild as documented as Underscore is in Guildwatch this week -- someone has been taking screenshots aplenty of all the whispers going back and forth, and surprisingly, most of them have actually come from the guildleader of the guild in question. If you've ever wanted to see how a guild can fall apart from tell to tell, here's your chance.That and lots more (including some actual good news) in Guildwatch this week, which starts right after the link below. Guild news is slowing down for Wrath, so please help us fill our inbox: send your downed, drama, and recruiting tips to wowguildwatch@gmail.com if you have them, so we can make sure the column is nice and packed next week. Thanks!
Officers' Quarters: Tanks for nothing
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.The Tank Shortage of 2008 -- is it worse than the Tank Shortage of 2007? Over the past two years, few guilds haven't felt the sting of being shorthanded on the front lines. Blizzard's response has been to give us the Death Knight, a class that supposedly will be able to tank with any talent tree. And while many of us are enjoying them on the beta servers, everyone in live is still struggling. As more and more players take a break from WoW prior to the expansion, it's a problem that's only getting worse. In these desperate times, it seems like raiding guilds are taking anybody that can equip a shield or go bear. But even today, some tanks are so terrible that it's just not worth keeping them on the roster. One reader wants to know how to let a bad tank go. Hi Scott, I'm faced with a bit of a conundrum with regards to a warrior in our guild. I'll start from the beginning: I'm an officer and the Warrior class leader in a small PvE guild on Burning Steppes EU, which has been trying to break into 25-man content before Lich King. As we needed tanks we've been accepting warriors with little experience and gear in order to train them up and get them ready for raid tanking. So far we've had good success, with a number of pre-Kara tanks, including myself, now at the level of MT'ing up to prince. (I downed Prince my first night of tanking him :D) Now my problem comes in the form of a warrior who is on trial. He's not a bad tank, at least not in instances. But when it comes to Off-tanking in Kara, he's awful. He's ignoring markings, failing to listen to tactics, and seems to be in a dream world all the time.
Tank Talk: should the main tank position still exist?
Tank Talk is WoW Insider's 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. Today, dear readers, we might make ourselves hated by the entire population of undisputed, royal-bloodlined, main tanks, but that's OK. We are used to staying at the top of someone's hate list.One of the accepted facts of raiding life used to be that the main tank was the guild's gearing priority. As Adam Holisky's observed, "Everything that happens in the raid eventually makes it back to the tank." Healers undergeared? You're screwed. DPS incompetent or just badly grouped? Buh-bye. Random number generator wreaking all manner of havoc on healer crits and boss parries? Thar be the graveyard. A truly cynical mind would opine that the tank should be as well-geared as possible if only because it makes it easier for the raid to forget that person existed as anything other than a rapidly-advancing line on the Omen screen that: a). always stayed above their own, and b). never died. There are enough random variables while the raid's learning a new boss that the tank needs to be eliminated as one, and in vanilla WoW that was certainly the goal. Raid and offtank damage on most encounters hadn't scaled to the point where you could make a compelling argument in favor of gear equilibrium across your tanking roster. What was the point of something like that when 95% of the damage in a fight was going to be absorbed by a single person?That changed.
World of WarCrafts: Raid art
Every Thursday, Shelbi Roach of The Bronze Kettle guides you in creating WoW-inspired crafts using real world mats with World of WarCrafts.With Wrath looming over the horizon, the instances we currently spend all of our time inwill become obsolete. The dusty halls of Karazhan will be forgotten and we will never have another chance at obtaining an Amani War Bear. So, here's your chance to commemorate the good times with your fellow guildies and spruce up your WoWspace. Here is what you will need: White Cardstock Color Printer Scissors Paper Cutter Xacto Knife Double Sided Tape Photo Frames (8x10) Matboard (3 for 8x10 frames) Click on the images below to view a gallery of step-by-step instructions. %Gallery-31666%
The best of WoW Insider: September 2-9, 2008
It's dancin' time in Azeroth -- the Wrath of the Lich King expansion is just around the corner, and we couldn't be happier. News is flying off the beta, all the classes are getting upgrades, there's new content to explore, and it all just makes us so happy we can't help but get on down. Here's the top stories from the past week in Warcraft, courtesy of Joystiq's sister site, WoW Insider. News New racial abilities for WrathBlizzard unveils the tweaks to what your Trolls, Taurens, and Humans can do. Ten of our favorite achievementsHere's a quick gallery look at ten cool achievements we found coming to the World of Warcraft. Shaman glyphs in beta build 8905Glyphs will tweak your spells in the expansion, and here's what Shammies have to look forward to. Karazhan three-manned in the Wrath betaAs if there was any doubt that old content would be trivial when the new expansion dropped, here's proof. Boat crews return in the Wrath betaFinally, the boats have some people on them again. More news in here about riding around towns, too. Features Guildwatch: 10 guilds kicked me in a rowOur weekly look at guild drama is even more dramatic than usual -- /gkicks and /gquits abound! Tiers: The past, present and future of dungeon and raid setsA quick retrospective on what kind of stuff has dropped from the dungeons so far. Skill Mastery: Mirror ImageFinally, a new spell Mages aren't crying over. Ask a Beta Tester: All about Inscription and a few other thingsWant to know what's going on in the Wrath beta? Ask a Beta Tester! The ten people you need to know in WoWWe break down the archetypes of the friends you need to make in Azeroth.
Insider Trader: Popular enchants and where to get them
Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.If you've ever spent any time sitting in trade chat, you could probably make a list of some of the most popular enchants. Requested frequently, any enchanter possessing the the knowledge to imbue a weapon or piece of armor with the proper stats stands to make a fair amount of gold. For example, a healer seeking Major Healing, or a meleer seeking Mongoose, will know the materials, and gather them. Each time they replace their respective weapons, back into trade they will go to request the enchant. Today, Insider Trader presents a list of some of the most requested enchants with information about how to obtain them so that you can offer them to friends, guildmates, and your server. It is by no means a complete list, but it will get you off to a shining start and provide you with quite a to-do list. Check out the comments section for helpful details as well. Drop rate data was gathered from the Armory, and Blizzard uses ranges such as Very Low (1-2%). This is narrowed down with data from Wowhead where appropriate, but keep in mind that some bind on pick-up recipes can only be seen by enchanters, and Wowhead cannot filter out that data, making their estimate much lower than the actual drop rate. In the next couple of weeks, I'll be working on the faction recipes series, focusing on enchanting, so stay tuned.
