Mechanar
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Know Your Lore: The long game of the naaru, part 2
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. These posts about the naaru are mainly speculative. I hesitate to use the Tinfoil Hat title, because I'm not postulating that they're secretly evil or anything. But the fact remains, we know very little about the naaru. We don't know where they come from, how long they live, if they can enter their Light/Darkness cycle indefinitely, if they ever die naturally or even if they can be really killed. The only one we've ever defeated in combat ended up part of the Sunwell, and who's to say what he's doing in there now? Is M'uru still alive in the Sunwell, or did his mind die with Entropius? We currently have no way of knowing. We know that despite what we experienced in The Burning Crusade, for the naaru, entering the void phase of their existence is an exceedingly rare and perilous event, at least according to the Ask CDev threads. It is this unknown quality that fascinates me about the naaru. As we discussed last week, the Ata'mal Crystal that Velen used to create the barrier of Light and hold off Archimonde and Kil'jaeden's followers was an ancient mystery of his people. We don't really know where it comes from or if the naaru gave it to the ancient eredar or if the eredar constructed it somehow. What we do know is that at some point in the distant past before Sargeras came to Argus, the eredar and the naaru had some form of contact. This implies that the naaru may well predate the Titans. What we do know is this: Somehow, in some way, the eredar and the naaru met, and the Ata'mal Crystal was left in eredar hands until Velen came to call upon it for guidance.
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.
The best of WoW Insider: January 26 - February 2nd, 2008
The Joystiq network is host to the best place on the 'net to get all the World of Warcraft news you can handle, and then some: our own WoW Insider delivers a daily dose of the best Azerothian news you can find, in convenient blog format. Whether it's brand new info on the upcoming patch 2.4, what WoW's community managers have delivered in their precious blue words on the forums recently, or just the latest insider news from around the community itself, WoW Insider's got you covered. Here's our most popular stories of the past week, right here on Joystiq (sure, you could type "wowinsider.com" into your address bar and see what all the fuss is about, but why bother when we package this stuff so conveniently for you?). And yes, should you feel the need to post a comment that you don't care about WoW, we choose to remind you: haters to the left.
General boards poll reveals the obvious
Friday afternoon, Blizzard employee Bornakk posted a poll on the General boards to find our favorite 5-man dungeon of the Burning Crusade. As you can see in the above image, the Caverns of Time is rocking the charts. I can't say I disagree with the numbers there, they're pretty close to my opinions as well. Old Hillsbrad and the Black Morass offer something that most of the other instances don't: Fast pacing, minimal trash pulls, and a story element. The instances aren't very long, either. Black Morass is what, thirty minutes? These dungeons on Heroic remain difficult and dangerous, adding some new elements to the instance, such as a necessity for speed and stealth when it comes to the patrols in Old Hillsbrad. Some of the other Heroics do this as well, but most of them coast along on 'ow this mob hurts a lot'.
Practical and impractical jokes
The other day I was invited via the LFG queue to join in on a heroic Mechanar run. The other four players were all in the same guild and seemed to be good friends, based upon the way they were joking around while we all made our way to the instance. Not long after we entered the dungeon, I received private messages from three of the other group members telling me that they were going to play a practical joke on the tank. As soon as he attacked the first creature, the rest of us were going to run out of the instance, leaving him alone to die. I wasn't really sure what to make of the idea, but when they all ran out, I followed, not wanting to die myself. The guy seemed to take it well and laughed it off with some good natured teasing, but I've seen similar situations where the outcome wasn't as pleasant. For instance, several months ago, when my guild was trying to enlist new members to raid the larger dungeons, we were in an alliance with another guild for a short period. A lot of the people in my guild like to joke around and one of them decided to play a prank on the hunters in the raid while we were learning how to take down Gruul. After the tanks died on one of our attempts, this player decided it would be funny to run to the area near the doorway where the hunters were feigning death, hoping to avoid repair bills. Of course, he pulled Gruul right on top of the hunters, turning their fake deaths into real ones. Most of them laughed it off, but one guy in particular became really upset and made a big commotion in raid chat. It took him awhile to calm down, but the group eventually pulled it together and went on to kill Gruul.Ever had an experience like this? Does this sort of thing annoy you or do you think it has a place in WoW?
PTR patch notes for Friday, Nov 2
World of Raids is reporting lots of small fixes in the latest PTR build of Patch 2.3, but with a few surprises as well. There's a good amount of class changes along with some Badge of Justice loot tweaks and a new Hunter volley animation seen above.Highlights for the class changes include: Feral Druids getting their single target and group based taunts buffed by their +hit rating; Rogues getting Hemorrhage buff as well as a redesign of Shadowstep; and Priests receiving the Focused Will buff as well as Druids getting the Natural Perfection buff even buffer than we reported on earlier.Chest spawns in Hellfire Ramparts, Karazhan: Chess Event and The Mechanar will not be lootable by anyone absent for a significant amount of the boss fights near the chests. On the upside, Heroic Ramparts and Heroic Mechanar chests will contain a Badge of Justice for every member in the party and the Karazhan cache will contain two! I can tell what two Heroic dungeons are about to get very popular.Finally, special Engineered goggles are no longer necessary to see the gas clouds in Netherstorm for mote extraction. However, the goggles will now allow the gas clouds to be seen on the minimap in addition to whatever other tracking the player currently has up.With Patch 2.3 background loading this week, one can only hope Zul'Aman will be available for all of us to enjoy soon and Patch 2.4 introducing the Sunwell Plateau will be served up on the PTR right after.[Thanks Calypso!]
Phat Loot Phriday: Icon of the Silver Crescent
The difference between a good caster and a great caster? Knowing when to pop the trinkets. And when you do so, this is the one of the best you can get.Name: Icon of the Silver CrescentType: Epic TrinketAbilities: Equip: Increases spell damage and healing by up to 43. Use: Increases spell damage and healing by up to 155 for 20 seconds A two minute cooldown, which, I've found, goes pretty darn fast. Depending on how fast your groups move, you can usually pop a trinket at least every other fight in an instance, if not more if you take a while eating and drinking between fights. And as I said: trinkets are the difference between pouring out amazing DPS or healing, and just being average. If you've got trinkets, you should be using them almost every chance you get-- the +43 damage/healing on this is nice, but if you're casting, the +155 is much better. Put those suckers on your hotbars, and light them up near the beginning of the fight (just as you're about to start casting). And as most veteran players can tell you, you can use these things twice on some boss fights-- a player casting without his trinkets in use or cooldown is a player not living up to their full potential. How to Get It: You *are* running Heroics by now, right? If you're not, that's exactly what you got to do to get this baby. G'eras in the middle of Shattrath City will take your Heroic badges and give you epix for them, so bring him 41 Badges of Justice (that's 8 and 1/5 successful Heroic Mechanar runs, or about 60 curse and stress-filled failed Shattered Halls runs, in case you're counting), and the Icon is yours.Oh, and speaking of trinkets, here's an extra piece of Phat Loot for you: If you're a caster, and you are keyed to run Heroic Mechanar, that means you're Revered with Sha'tar, so stop by the Quartermaster, also in the middle of Shattrah City and pick up Xiri's Gift. Great trinket, easy to grab, and while the equip isn't as good as this one, the use is almost as nice, without having to pick up tons of Badges.Getting Rid of It: You don't want to get rid of it. Even if you do, it's a trinket-- put it in your bags and keep it for later. Personally, I carry about six trinkets around with me, and every one has its own place and time for use.
Bugged Instance Gates?
User Chris McDonnald sent us a tip about an issue with a gate in the Mechanar instance in Tempest Keep, Netherstorm. It seems that the gate pictured here has an annoying tendency to lock closed if your party wipes on the final boss. It's been confirmed by Drysc as a known bug here, where Drysc goes on to say that it's not intended, however it requires a client side patch that most likely won't be included in 2.0.7. Blizzard seems to have a bad track record with implementing gates in dungeons. Anyone remember the door to Baron Rivendare on the undead side of Stratholme? Or the gate right before the Razorgore encounter, just inside the instance in Blackwing Lair, which originally would only reset 2 hours after a wipe? Or the door to Vaelastrasz in Blackwing Lair shortly after it was released, which would jam shut in certain circumstances? Or the gates in the Rend encounter in Upper Blackrock Spire? That's the list I came up with off the top of my head. Why do they need to put these gates in, and why can't they check what's obviously been a problem area in the past (well, except for the Razorgore encounter, which was an intended reset time but someone changed their intention later).So, a word of warning. Make sure you have a Shaman have an Ankh up, a Warlock have a soulstone up, and a Paladin use Divine Intervention as required, because if your party wipes here, you either get to put in a ticket in order to be transported through or re-clear the dungeon.
High-level instances bugged
The Raids and Dungeons forumgoers are up in arms about major bugs in Tempest Keep's Mechanar and the Caverns of Time Black Morass event. The Black Morass, also known as Opening the Dark Portal, features portals of angry dragons coming to stop Medivh from opening the Dark Portal. You have to kill these mobs to preserve the timeline. However, it looks like the spawns of the portals are either really random or really bugged. Sometimes multiple portals spawn at the same time, and sometimes you wait ten minutes and nothing spawns at all. Poptrix of Bloodhoof suggests that setting loot to free-for-all and looting everything off the corpses evens out the spawn times a bit. Tempest Keep's Mechanar features an elevator that appears to have some issues being visible. Some people can see it and others can't. This bug killed a run of Mechanar for my guild a couple nights ago. Hortus on the Bug Report Forum says that Blizzard is working on it, but many people trying to get attuned for Karazhan are pretty upset that they can't progress in Mechanar. Kink of the infamous "PALS FOR LIFE" suggests a fix:
