magisters-terrace
Latest
More calls for midlevel content, the return
Back before patch 2.3, one of the most repeated calls from players was not for new raiding instances or a particular class balance change, but for new midlevel content. As we've said on the WoW Insider Show, a large percentage of the population of Azeroth is perfectly content hanging around the 30s and 40s and not bothering with endgame PvP or raiding, and previous to patch 2.3, they wanted new content to roll through.Then patch 2.3 came, and with it, a whole new series of quests, and even a new hub in Dustwallow Marsh. Midlevel players finally got what they wanted, and for a while, the requests for new things for midlevel players to do were quelled.Until now.
The changing face of WoW 2.4
When Blizzard released patch 2.4 for World of Warcraft in March, they brought a plethora of changes to all types of end game play. They introduced new casual daily quests, a new five person dungeon, and a new raid zone for twenty five person play; all of this on a new island off the northern coast of the Eastern Kingdoms called the Isle of Quel'Danas. Many who play WoW consider patch 2.4 to be the largest and most complex patch to date, sans the actual expansions. It is quite rare for Blizzard to open up a whole new zone in a free patch, and even rarer for them to completely change the raiding landscape (a staple of WoW) by removing attunements and lifting other restrictions. Despite having a large and successful release of the patch, Blizzard has continued to update the game in with Patches 2.4.1 and 2.4.2. They offer more tweaks and changes that make the WoW community even happier. Take a look through our gallery for a highlight of the changes we've seen in 2.4 through 2.4.2. %Gallery-8792%
How to convince tanks to PuG
I'm getting back to WoW Insider after a month's real-life-related absence and have been spending some time playing catch-up on the site. One of the articles that caught my attention was Matt Rossi's popular "One reason tanks won't PuG," in no small part because I play a tank and my own PuG runs have been few and far between of late. My main, a Tauren Druid, respecced from balance to feral at level 69 because there were so few tanks on my server, and I literally spent months and months tanking PuG's to get experience and gear. During that period I saw everything from rogues rolling on +healing maces to warlocks needing on tanking cloaks, and I learned that you never can tell what you're going to get from a PuG. Yes, you'll get hunters who can't trap, mages who never resheep, rogues who mistakenly believe they leveled a warrior, and priests who Power Word: Shield you straight off the pull -- but you'll also find people who know their class well, or are in the process of learning just like you are, and who are fun to be around. I have now killed Illidan with a contingent of people who showed up to my PuG's back when I was a wee lolbaretank in quest greens and Heavy Clefthoof, so as a matter of personal experience I think PuG's are a somewhat underrated way to meet people who will later turn out to play crucial roles in how you experience the game.I don't PuG as frequently anymore due to time constraints and increased time spent leveling alts, but I still hang out in LFG from time to time for the pure enjoyment of meeting new people. Yes, it is often difficult to PuG tanks and healers (I would submit, as someone who typically tanks or heals in dungeons, that it is also difficult to PuG skilled DPS), but a lot of people could make it easier on themselves than they do. If you're having problems finding a tank or healer for your PuG's, try these.
Tuesday Morning: Maintenance time
Good Morning Azeroth! It's Tuesday, May 13, 2008, and that means maintenance. As we mentioned earlier, it's an extended maintenance, from 3 AM to 11 AM PST (That means you have about a half an hour of play time left), and it's looking rather likely that 2.4.2's going to drop. Exciting news, but that still means that you'll have at least 8 hours in which it is impossible to play World of Warcraft. Of course, this means the perfect thing to do is browse WoW Insider. Since 2.4.2's probably on it's way, why not browse all our 2.4.2 news? The original patch notes are posted here. We break down the Undocumented changes here -- including pictures of the new mounts added to the game files. You can find the latest test realm page notes here. MMO-Champion points out two new changes: Prince Kael'thas will now drop Primal Nethers in Heroic Magisters Terrace, and the Darkmoon Card: Madness' buffs will now last 60 seconds. Check out our reports on all the Hunter class changes, Including Growl and Scare Beast, the math problems and controversy surrounding the Growl change among the Hunter community, and getting your own flight-formed Druid pet. Good News for Weaponsmiths, with the epic one-handers becoming non-unique. But enough about 2.4.2, what about the big news? First, of course, is the fact that Blizzcon 08 was announced. Check out the details and look back on some old Blizzcon 07 memories in our announcement post. You may also recall all the Wrath of the Lich King news that dropped this week. Of course, you know we have it all for you on WoW Insider. Check it out after the break.
Blood Pact: Dressing for the occasion
After a serving a short stint with the intern babes - involving tape and piñatas - V'Ming returns to laughing ominously in AV, tanking Olm with his own minions and pondering troll fashion from Zul'Aman. He's rocking SSC and TK with his 0/21/40 build and still bragging about consecutive 8k shadow bolts.Your comments in my previous Badge loot shopping article got me thinking about warlocks having multiple outfits, just like tanks and hybrids. Warlocks usually serve a single role - DPS - so our outfits aren't generally as dramatically diverse as what a druid, for instance, might pack. After accumulating a bunch of epics with varying stats, most of us have moved beyond the "one outfit for everything" situation. In fact, I'd say we're spoilt for choice now and can afford to use the right gear for the right situation.
Singing the praises of Heroic Countenance
Lariana on Skywall has words of praise for "Heroic Countenance," a new NPC spell in patch 2.4 that unlocks you to the Heroic mode of MrT -- to get it cast on you, you have to complete the instance on Normal mode first by doing a quest to kill of Kael'thas once and for all. Basically, it replaces the Heroic reputation keys, which Lariana says were a much less interesting system than Heroic Countenance.And Bornakk basically confirms that Blizzard agrees (well, all he says is that they'll talk about it on the next Blizzcast, but he adds a smiley, so odds are that Blizzard is down with the Heroic Countenance). They've been talking for a while, too, about making the reputation grind easier for alts and guilds, so maybe this type of spell is how they'll deal with that -- get it cast on one of your characters, and it will be cast on all of them.The only question, then, is what to do with all those Heroic keys that we've picked up. The answer is probably nothing -- Blizzard doesn't really care, it seems, about updating old content, and my guess is that the instances in Outland won't be changing much from their current form. But in Wrath, it might be fun if the keys stayed, but opened up other, less consequential content. Instead of Heroic mode, what if a Revered rep key opened up the way to an additional optional boss, or an additional loot area per run? Not enough to make it necessary, but enough to reward those who went all the way with the reputation factions in the game.
The best of WoW Insider: March 2-8, 2008
Yes, the news that we were becoming Hello Kitty Online Insider last week was actually a joke, and we're back covering the World of Warcraft and all of its ten million players (most of which showed up on the Isle of Quel'danas this week, as you can see above, courtesy of WI reader Sync). Here's a look at the most popular and interesting posts from Joystiq's Azeroth-inclined sister site, WoW Insider. News Sunwell griefing runs rampantWhat happens when you put hundreds of players in the same place? Rampant griefing, of course. Shattered Sun Offensive pendants make some regret faction choicesRegretting that Aldor or Scryer faction choice that you made way back when? Too bad. Proudmoore gets badge vendor to 100%, chaos ensuesOn the first realm to unlock some of the world event rewards from patch 2.4, things get a little nuts. Patch 2.4.1 available for downloadBlizzard wasn't just joking around last week -- they were working, too. Sunwell Daily QuestsOur feature page on the Sunwell Dailies has everything you need to know about unlocking the NPCs on Sunwell Isle. Features Guildwatch: Years between bossesWhen guild drama rears its ugly head, our weekly Guildwatch column is right there to document it all. The trinkets of Magisters' TerraceWhat to look for in terms of trinkets inside the game's new five man instance. Hybrid Theory: Brutallus and youMaking it past patch 2.4's big gear check with a hybrid class. Ready Check: Getting your first bearOur hardcore raiding column tells you how to head into Zul'Aman and pick up the coveted bear mount. Know Your Lore: The Wrynn dynastyKYL covers the kings of Stormwind and what happened to most of them.
The trinkets of Magisters' Terrace
The release of patch 2.4 was epic by anyone's standards. New content accessible to every level 70, new items, new high end raids, and a new instance. Magisters' Terrace is the newest addition to the WoW 5 man instance family, and has a lot of great goodies in it for the intrepid traveler.Heroic mode Magisters' Terrace can be a thing of beauty or a real pain. I find that while it's challenging and requires a lot of good social communication amongst participants, it can be a bit ridiculous at times. Especially the 9 mob pull right before you face Kael'Thas.However with that said, one of the best rewards in any five man instance comes out of heroic Magisters' Terrace's Priestess Delrissa: the trinkets. The tanking trinket in particular makes me cry it's so great. Five hundred seventy more HP and an amazing live saving dodge increase. The DPS trinkets, casting trinkets, and healing trinkets are equally great. Let's take a closer look at them.
Phase 4 Dailies: Open for Business
Once you've opened up the Alchemy Lab through many turn-ins of Discovering Your Roots, the quest Open for Business becomes available.If you've been looking at those sparkling bushes scattered through Quel'Danas funny since patch 2.4 hit, be confused no longer! Those bushes are for this quest. Dear Mar'nah has discovered a new elixir here on the Isle! Bloodberries are a naturally growing plant in the wilds of Azeroth, but it seems being exposed to the Sunwell has made the ones in Quel'Danas special.Mar'nah needs five Bloodberry samples to show you what it is that she found. This quest is hit or miss. Sometimes you can get strong circuit around the island and get the five you need in under a minute, sometimes you go batty competing with others for bushes. If there's one quest on Quel'Danas you want to do in hours other than peak time, this is it.My recommendation is that you shouldn't pick just this one quest up and set out to do it. When you have access to this quest, progression on the island is just about over, so no need to stop and do just this quest. If you're going to do it, do it with some of the other quests. The frustration of the bushes being camped melts away if you have other things to occupy your time. Since these grow on the entire island, you can be sure you'll end up with five before you're done.Unfortunately for you, the elixir is not as unique and she leads you to believe. The elixir, the Bloodberry Elixir, is identical to the Elixir of Mastery, adding a flat 15 to every stat. The Bloodberry Elixir can also only be used on Quel'Danas. I suppose it is good to use in Magisters' Terrace, or perhaps save for the following day's round of daily quests. Even if the potion is lackluster, the other rewards are about equal to the others. 11 gold, 99 silver, and 250 Shattered Sun Offensive reputation.As always, if you need further information you should take a look at Wowwiki or Wowhead!
Undocumented 2.4.1 change list
2.4.1's had a chance to settle in, and as usual, people have been finding a few extra changes that didn't get in the patch notes. There's nothing too earth shattering, though any Shamans out there who have been trying a dual-wield elemental hybrid build might be feeling a bit set back, since quite a few +spell damage one handers have been changed to main hand only, namely Sedai's Blade, Terokk's Gavel, Archmage's Guile, Seeker's Gavel, K'iru's Presage, and the Battle-mace of the High Priestess. Those of you jewelcrafters who have been feeling guilty about killing your poor Nightseye Panther will be happy to know that it now only fades away instead of dying when its buff ends. In addition, Normal and Heroic Magisters' Terrace mobs have had thier reputation gain adjusted, and you should now be getting about 2k Shattered Sun Offensive rep per a normal clear. For raiders, they'll find that Brutallus' Meteor Slash is now an unlimited range frontal cone attack, apparently to fix a problem with paladin taunting, accord to World of Raids. In case you missed our previous report on it, the Distraction at the Dead Scar bombing run is also a bit easier to finish. Finally, one documented non-change: The chat filtering problems that the notes claim were fixed are still present on live servers. Hortus confirmed that the fix had some bad side effects and was pulled at the last minute, but will hopefully reappear in a future patch. We'll keep watching for any other changes to pop up, so keep it tuned here to WoW Insider.
No chests in MrT, and that's just fine with Blizz
Here's something that didn't really hit me on the first few times through Magisters' Terrace: there are no loot chests in the instance. Eleste of Frostwolf asks why, but Drysc only answers "why not" -- apparently Blizzard isn't too bothered that the only loot to be found in the instance is on dead mobs.Which isn't exactly new -- not only are chests open to many exploits, but Blizzard has slowly been taking steps away from putting random caches of loot out there for anyone to grab. In the last patch, they even made it so that chest loot gets rolled on, so it's probably a fair guess to say that most loot chests are on their way out of the game.They weren't in there for no reason -- Blizzard wanted to make it so that after toppling a group of mobs, you could be lucky enough to spot an extra stash of loot to grab all for yourself (not to mention that they give Rogues something else to do in instances). But apparently the problems of loot chests outweigh the positives, and it's probably true that MrT is a preview of Wrath -- loot chests are going to be rarer than ever.
Arcane Brilliance: Mage version 2.4
Every week, Arcane Brilliance endeavors to provide a small peek into the mysterious world of Mages. On Tuesday--in case you just teleported in from under the Dalaran bubble this morning and weren't aware--we got a new patch. This week, we'll take a long hard look at the patch as it relates to Mages, including some Mage-related observations and a giant list of all that sweet, sweet, cloth gear.I almost didn't have time to write a column this week, guys. I don't know if you've noticed, but there are 8 billion daily quests out there for us to do and most of them involve competing with several hundred players for the same 3 mobs. At some point on Tuesday I may or may not have started sprinting around Quel'Danas Arcane Explosioning over and over until I tagged something, but I can't be sure. The whole day is sort of a blur.So far I absolutely love the patch. We've had the better part of four days with it now, and I have a few thoughts, if you'll indulge me. First, Magisters' Terrace is hard. I like that. You have to know what you're doing in there, so either find a patient group, study up yourself on what to do for each of the boss fights, or invite someone who's run it a few times. Unless you know what you're doing, you're going to wipe a few times. It's just the right amount of challenging for what will eventually be the final 5-man dungeon before the expansion. There are a lot of ways for Mages to make themselves useful in the place, what with all the sheepable mobs that pull in large groups and the value of ranged DPS in many of the encounters. If you haven't gotten to AoE the living crap out the room before Vexallus yet, you're missing out. Just make sure the healer has a quick trigger finger.Secondly, If you haven't respecced to try out the new Improved Blink, you should consider it. It isn't going to let you tank an instance by any means, but it provides some very nice extra survivability in PvP. When you Blink, you get this very nice phased-out effect going on, and you can actually see the arrows and spells pass through you instead of hitting you 25% of the time. Good clean fun, believe me. Makes running the flag in the new and improved Warsong Gulch slightly more entertaining.Come back after the break for more gear than you can shake a magical stick at.
Priestess Delrissa, bringing a little PvP to your PvE
A brief glance at the Dungeons and Raids official forum last night was a bit of a surprise. The third boss in Magisters' Terrace has inspired a lot of hatred and arguing. Why is that a surprise to me? Well, it's becoming one of my favorite 5 man boss encounters in WoW! Either the QQ is going strong on the official forums, or I'm a complete and utter masochist. I'm leaning towards that second one, considering Blackheart the Inciter is my former favorite.If you have never seen this encounter before, or don't know how it works, Eliah touches on it a bit in his Magisters' Terrace guide. Basically, it's a 5v5 arena match. You can't tank it, there are no threat tables. It's a game of control and survival. Priestess Delrissa, who is a Holy Priest, can spawn with four random friends, chosen from a pool of eight.
Magisters' Terrace illuminated
Patch 2.4 is just a win all around, if you ask me. Very casual player? Only have an hour or less to play? Hit the dailies. Super-hardcore raider? Sunwell Plateau, baby, the hardest raid yet (or so I hear; I'll likely never see it myself). And if, like me, you flat-out love five-man dungeons, you have a new playground too: Magisters' Terrace, lovingly known as MrT.The gallery below is a comprehensive, step-by-step, illustrated guide to the Terrace on normal mode, starting from the first pull and going all the way through to Kael'thas. First, some quick notes on group composition. In my opinion this isn't the hardest of the level 70 instances (that honor would go to Arcactraz or Black Morrass), so you don't need everyone to be group-specced or raid-geared, but it does help tremendously to have some crowd control available. The more, the better. And if you don't have much CC, you'd better hope you have a tank that can keep threat on multiple targets (might be a bit more difficult for Druids).The good news is that the bulk of the mobs in the instance are humanoids, and can therefore be sheeped or seduced; traps also work well. There are also a few demons around that can be banished.But before you can start pulling, you've got to get there. The Terrace is on the new Isle of Quel'Danas (IoQD); taxis from Ironforge and the Silvermoon City will get you there quickly for 25 silver or so. Or, if your realm has completed the quests to activate the Sunwell portal, you can port straight from Shattrath to IoQD. Once you get on the island, just ride east up the road to get to the instance. It's hard to miss, what with the meeting stone and big glowing portal and all. Click on to the gallery below to see a picture of where it is on the map, and the rest of the walkthough.%Gallery-19389%
Kael'thas in two places at once
This thread over on the forums starts off a little silly (it's a complaint about Kael'thas being both in Tempest Keep and Magisters' Terrace at the same time), but later on gets into some really interesting commentary and thinking about just how the lore and story in this game works. Obviously, there are no problems with having Kael in two places at once (as Bornakk says with an epic burn, a character can be alive on page 1 and dead on page 10 at the same time), but it's interesting that that's not always what happens in the game. Griftah, for example, was never in two places at once, and neither was Hemet Nesingwary -- both of those characters had progressive lore storylines. But Kael, like Thrall, has a storyline that evolves as a character moves forward in their own storyline, and so Blizzard has placed him in two different places at once, and asked players to move their own characters to see the storyline in order.Interesting stuff. Scuzz makes a particularly interesting point in the thread -- the World of Warcraft really does revolve around player characters, not NPCs. If you discover through quests that Onyxia is actually pretending to be a woman in Stormwind, all of the NPCs your character meets will be shocked. It's a sign of Blizzard's talent at game creation that something can be both known by most players and discovered by one player almost every single day.Of course there's no problem with Kael being in two places -- I would rather have my character move through a changing world than have Blizzard worry about making sure "reality" was kept correctly. But it's an interesting line being walked very well -- if you do the two instances in order, you get a much better story than if we were simply fighting a generic third boss in Magisters' Terrace.
MT, MrT, MagT, MST, Magisters' Terrace
We hit on this a while back, but now that Magisters' Terrace has finally landed on the live realms, it's time to choose an official abbreviation. Players are apparently all over the place, but the time for debate and discussion is over. Let's come up with the real choice for Magisters' Terrace abbreviation.When making this decision, lots of things have to be considered. MT is out no matter what, as not only do many things in game use it as an abbreviation (main tank, mistell, Montana -- ok maybe that last one is a stretch), but it also leads us to confusion with the other "MT" instance in the game: Mana Tombs. For that reason, MaT is also out, though MagT has found a lot of foothold with many players, as has MgT. I originally thought MT would work well (since Mana Tombs is actually "Mana-Tombs," and would therefore be abbreviated M-T), but I haven't see that too much so far.But almost surprisingly, the thing I've seen most players using is something that I originally mentioned way back as just a joke. Yes, most players I've seen are actually describing the instance as MrT. Not that that makes any more sense, but it does kind of provide a nice homage to a Mohawked WoW hero.So in our (un)official capacity as WoW Insider, one of the 50 most influential blogs on the net, we're declaring the winner: from now on, the new Sunwell 5man will be known as "MrT." And we pity the fool who doesn't agree.Haven't been to MrT yet (or MagT, or MgT, or whatever you decide to call it)? We've got a Kalecgos-sized roundup of info on the brand new five-man, including a step-by-step walkthrough of what's in there and how to kill it.
Magisters' Terrace: Great instance or the greatest instance?
I, like many other players, spent the better part of the morning running the new 5man Magisters' Terrace instance (and yes -- it is "Magisters'," so there is actually more than one Magister in it), and while not everyone is thrilled with it (I know some are saying that it's too hard), I love it. I pretty much agree with AA -- it's not that hard when you actually figure out what to do with CC, and get a handle on the fact that even on normal difficulty, this is a dungeon that doesn't let up.But my favorite part of the dungeon is just the fact that Blizzard put their money where their mouth is on this one -- for a while, they've been saying that they wanted a five man to be like Deadmines, in that it felt like the end of a long storyline. And MT (which is what I think it will eventually be called by most players, since who really runs Mana Tombs anymore?) is definitely that -- I won't ruin the lore too much, but it works perfectly as both a cap on what happened in Outland, and as a sweet preview to Sunwell Plateau. I never thought we'd meet some of those names in a five man instance, but I loved it, and we'll see more of that in Wrath for sure.Plus, the encounters are fun. Unfortunately, there's nothing super new -- Blizzard cribbed directly from Warlord Kalithresh for the first boss and Curator for the second (boy, AoEing the little guys before that is exciting, isn't it?), but the miniboss battle near the end really does play like a little PvP-ish PvE (similar to the .5 upgrade event in BRD). All in all, I think it's a great instance, and a fun way to cap off five mans at level 70.
Have you hit the 2.4 content yet?
Obviously, everyone knows patch 2.4 hit today. You can't turn around without seeing something about it. And, well... if you play WoW, you were probably assaulted with a downloader before you could log in. Basically, 2.4 hit. You know that.Have you really dug into the content yet, though? I know a couple members of my guild decided they would rather spend the day farming Adamantite and Mana Thistle in the 'old' Burning Crusade content because it was mostly abandoned. While it isn't fresh and exciting, it is certainly making them quite a bit of cash.Me, personally? I jumped in feet first. As soon as the servers came up I was flying to Quel'Danas and putting together a Magisters' Terrace group. My original intent was to get the new daily quests out of the way first, before everyone got home from school or work or whatever it is they do, but the server wasn't agreeing with me on that. Amusingly, after the mobs on my server were killed, they weren't respawning whatsoever. The server actually stayed up that way for about two hours, devoid of mobs, with hundreds of people standing around on Quel'Danas trying to figure out what was going on.%Gallery-19191%
The best of WoW Insider: Patch 2.4 special
Today is one of the highest holy days in the world of Azeroth -- yes, that's right, it's Patch Day! Patch 2.4 is now coming to the live servers (they supposedly came back up at 11:00 a.m. PST), and WoW Insider has every square inch of the patch notes covered like a quilt, from the brand new Sunwell Isle zone to all the new daily quests, and class information for everyone out there. It's time for patch 2.4 (the last big content patch before the expansion), and if you want to know about it, we can tell you. News Patch 2.4 Notes, Live versionHere's Blizzard's official live realm notes for Patch 2.4. All of today's changes, all in one post. Top 5 must-dos in Patch 2.4Wondering where to go and what to do first? Worry not -- we've got your agenda planned. Magister's Terrace round-upEverything you need to know about the game's brand new five-man instance, Magister's Terrace. The seven most fun trinkets in World of WarcraftSeven great trinkets, in or out of patch 2.4, that make the game more fun. The WoW Insider DirectoryJust in time for the new patch, our brand new browsable archive of guides, columns and tips opens up for business. If it's on our site, you'll find it in here, too. Features Sunwell Isle world quest walkthroughThe first major world event since the invasion of the Scourge is going down on Sunwell Isle, starting today. Shifting Perspectives: 2.4 badge-a-palooza, Druid styleBadge loot in 2.4 for shapeshifters. Encrypted Text: Gear me up in 2.4What should you wear as a rogue in the new patch? Our weekly rogue column tells you. Hunter changes in patch 2.4What's new for rangers and their pets on the live realms today. Welcome to 2.4, WarriorMatthew Rossi runs down everything warriors need to know about all the new changes to the game. And there is much, much more to be found about the new patch over at WoW Insider. If you log in to find that your character's abilities are different and your addons don't work, come on over -- we've got you covered.
Magister's Terrace round-up
If you're like me, you'll be running the brand-new 5-man dungeon of 2.4, Magister's Terrace, as soon as you can. How can you not love a 5-man with four bosses borrowing elements from 25-man raids, a cutscene, and a guaranteed epic even on normal? If you're looking for more information on what to expect, here's a round-up of WoW Insider's coverage to date and our Magister's Terrace gallery.Follow the cut for a host of helpful articles on bosses, drops, videos, and scenery!
