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The best of WoW.com: August 11-18, 2009
It's BlizzCon fever over on Joystiq sister site WoW.com. Blizzard's annual convention takes place this weekend in Anaheim, and boy are we ready to go there. While we're all packing and flying cross-country to see what Blizzard has in store for us (a new expansion announcement? More Diablo III and Starcraft II info?), you can read up on our most popular stories of the last seven days below. News World of Warcraft: Cataclysm leakedSpoilers aplenty in this roundup of leaks about the expected new expansion. Onyxia returns in patch 3.2.2The big black dragon is back for another go-round. Possible new race/class combinations dataminedA new PTR hints that certain races might be able to take on new classes soon. Patch 3.2.2 PTR: New Onyxia loot revealedWhat'll she drop? Find out here. Felicia Day unleashes geeky pop singleThe Guild folks release a pop song that's as geeky as it gets. Features Raid Rx: Raid bosses that brought healers to their kneesOur raid healing series looks at bosses that give healers an extra challenge. Breakfast Topic: What if you knew the day WoW would go offline?Would you play differently? Or not at all? PTR Patch 3.2.2: First impressions of OnyxiaFirst look at the big 5th anniversary boss fight. All the World's a Stage: Reflections on the passing of a roleplayer's momVery sad but poignant column -- a must read this week, whether you're an RPer or not. Totem Talk: Starting a ShamanHow to begin being a totem-dropper.
European weekly maintenance: 19th August 2009
Greetings folks, the middle of the week beckons once more! Only a few more days until BlizzCon and the Big Reveal. Excited yet? Come on, be honest, we're all friends here. As the rest of Team WoW.com boards their planes, trains, automobiles and - in Turpster's case - boats to rendezvous in sunny LA, some of us (eg me) has to stay behind and cover things remotely. While it would be nice to be there, I get to watch all the cool stuff from the privacy of my own living room come office, enjoy my Grunty (in six to eight weeks) and work in a brightly lit room on a comfy chair. Oh, and no blisters.So, it's maintenance time. Thankfully, it's a brief week with a live maintenance (yes folks it's rolling restart time) for all realms between 5:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. CEST. As per usual every realm will receive the customary fifteen minute notice prior to being restarted. There we go, nice and simple. If my beloved cats let me (ha!), I'm sleeping right through this one but if you happen to be up an about, don't forget there's a lot to catch up on this week from the return of the Broodmother to the appearance of the patch 3.2.2 PTR servers.See you on the other side!
WoW Insider Show Episode 103: Lots in common
Great time on the show again last week -- Lesley Smith and Patrick Beja (of, err, all the stuff he does) joined Turpster and I last Thursday afternoon to chat about the biggest news in Warcraft recently, including what we've heard about the new expansion, Ghostcrawler's attempt at comedy, and the re-emergence of Onxyia. How exciting! And of course we chatted live with folks in the Ustream chat and answered all of your emails (which you can send along to us at theshow@wow.com).Next week, our show will be a little bit different. Instead of the usual Saturday at 3:30pm show, because of BlizzCon, we'll instead be doing a live broadcast straight from our meetup on Thursday evening at 7:30pm Pacific. It won't be a formal show -- rather, it'll be your chance to sit in on the meetup, and meet and greet some of our bloggers live in video person. Both Turpster and I will be there (along with a bunch of other folks from the WoW.com staff), so if you can't make it to BlizzCon, you can still tune in and see what it's like and chat with us (we'll try to save some giveaways for you, too).We're also planning two different live podcasts next weekend, one each night of BlizzCon, so stay tuned on the site for more information about those. We'll probably combine those into one for iTunes next week (so even if you can't be around live, you can still listen in). More on that later -- meanwhile, enjoy the show, and hopefully we'll see you via Ustream at the meetup on Thursday night.Get the podcast:[iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes.[RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator.[MP3] Download the MP3 directly.Listen here on the page:
Breakfast Topic: Which boss would you revamp for level 80?
With news that the Broodmother herself is returning for WoW's fifth anniversary and patch 3.2.2, it got me thinking about other old world bosses which could be revamped. Now don't get me wrong, I totally get that Onyxia is a one-time thing this expansion. All fun and no lore, to paraphrase one of our commentators, Maxim. But the concept is ripe for a Breakfast Topic, after all Onyxia is a classic raid but she wasn't the only one. Granted, she remains the most popular and the most legendary, the raid itself was almost a reward for completing what has to be the game's most epic quest chain. And then there was the loot, the lovely legendary (if not in colour) loot. Excuse me while I drool.So lets say, hypothetically, you could bring back any lower level boss for a short time period aimed at level 80s. Which would you choose? Personally I'd love to see the Dragons of Nightmare, simply because they were so epic. Indeed, they are still a challenge to down today, especially with that annoying debuff. I also live in hope of seeing something of the Emerald Dream soon but that's for another day. So, constant readers, if you could have one boss return revamped for a hardcore level 80 raid, which would it be?
Patch 3.2.2 PTR: New Onyxia loot revealed
Onyxia's loot is coming into focus on the test server, and we here at WoW.com's secret headquarters are pretty much sitting here drooling and gabbling incoherently over it. As promised, we're seeing the promised buffed up Onyxia loot, but it looks like Onyxia's been doing some raiding of her own, coming back with upgraded versions of some other classic raid loot as well. Also, the Quel'serrar is back.The promised helms are in, and so far, it looks like they're the same color and model as the old T2 exactly, and they are still class restricted. Luckily, they have stuck with the improved itemization and stat outlays that have come into play since vanilla. In fact, you'll exactly see multiple versions of many helms dropping, one for each basic playstyle of the class. For example, there's tanking, healing, and DPS versions of Judgment. If there's one downside for this, it seems like it means it may take a lot of runs until you see the helm for your exact spec drop.
Patch 3.2.2 PTR: First impresssions of Onyxia
Onyxia. Pictures, text and video cannot express the emotions associated with this classic boss fight. I'm going to try nevertheless, though. Announced mere days ago, the idea that Onyxia will be revamped into a level 80 10 and 25 man raid (for a limited time) has suddenly become reality with the return of PTR testing for patch 3.2.2. Everyone and their best mate is currently swarming Onyxia's Lair, determined to dispatch the Broodmother once more. This time for kicks and enhanced loot.Her name is reverberating around the PTR right now. In fact, within three seconds of logging on with my premade I was asked if I wanted to join a 10-man raid to kick her scaly butt. Of course I accepted and found myself once more outside the scary gates of the Broodmother's lair. Let's me be straight about one thing, the only things which have been changed about this fight are the suped-up uber-trashkin and Onyxia herself. There's no need for a key or attunement, you just grab a raid and walk right on in. The cavern leading into her lair is the same as it ever was, except the trash now have the power to kick serious butt against level 80's wearing full epics. Such is the case, our group wiped the first time we pulled two of the dragonkin.%Gallery-70078%
"Zero lore. Maximum fun." with Onxyia back in town
When the news first broke yesterday about Onyxia returning to her status as a raid boss, I, probably like many of you, went into lore-generation overdrive. She's dead in the comic (Varian Wrynn decided her head didn't so much belong with her body any more), so how was she going to be a raid boss? I stabbed at ideas: she's in the Caverns of Time! Arthas could resurrect her as a Frostwyrm of some kind!Fortunately, cooler lore-heads (Ziebart and Sacco) prevailed: they pointed out to me this comment by Maxim in the original post: "Zero lore. Maximum fun. HOORAY!" That perfectly sums up why Blizzard is doing this: there's no lore reason or explanation behind it, it's just a straight up fun thing for us to do to celebrate the five-year anniversary. Bornakk makes it official: Ony is still dead, and she's not coming back. This is a one-time thing on the 5th anniversary.While, unfortunately, that may destroy some dreams about seeing similar old-world content come back to life (at least until the 10th anniversary, when we'll probably see Molten Core updated for the level 100 15-man raiding scheme -- drool), it means that there's no thinking involved about why Onyxia's back. She's back, we get to raid the original raid and pick up some great loot while doing it. Zero lore. Maximum fun.
PTR Patch 3.2.2: New pets and mounts revealed
Once again, our friend Boubouille over at MMO Champion has been a busy boy. With the surprise announcement that the PTRs were up for the testing of the WoW Anniversary Patch (aka patch 3.2.2), he's been digging deep into the patch files and guess what he found?Well the big news is aptly summed up in the image above. Yes, it's the Onyxia mount (though not actually the Broodmother herself). A picture really does say a thousand words, doesn't it? However that's not all he's found by datamining. There are yet more mounts, including a Spectral Tiger cub! I suspect this little cub may well be from a future TCG expansion. After all, where did this little guy's parent come from? Ditto the rather awesome Tuskarr kite.On top of that there are some regular mounts in the form of a Little White Stallion and yet another dino-centric mount, this time a Little Ivory Raptor. Boubouille also found the Onyxia Whelping, which is the pet everyone who logs in during November will recieve (think the Blizzard Bear). Ain't it a cutie?However the oddest thing he uncovered was a collection of Mohawk themed spells. These relate to the now memorable TV advert in which Mr. T creates his own class, the infamous Night Elf Mohawk. From the spell descriptions, I can't help thinking this is not some hint towards a new class in the next expansion but, rather, will be some kind of NPC or quest-related summonable pet. Either way, it sounds awesome.
Whither Quel'Serrar?
I am hugely, massively, ridiculously excited about the new level 80 Onyxia raid. Completely, dementedly gleeful. But one small thing does nag at the back of my head: what happens to Quel'Serrar? Will Warriors and Paladins still be able to obtain it? And what about the Mature Black Dragon Sinew? Will Hunters be able to complete their Lok'delar and Rhok'delar? Or will these quests become relics, no longer able to be completed?On the one hand it would seem very odd to go through the rest of the quest chain for Quel, then take the Unfired Ancient Blade in to level 80 Onyxia to complete The Forging of Quel'Serrar in order to run back to Dire Maul and pick up a 20 level out of date tanking sword, no matter how cool it looks. But since the quest doesn't specify what level she is, it might be possible (It was possible to complete a Naxxramas quest from before TBC launched in the current 25 man Naxxramas). However, unless Ony will continue to drop the sinew, I can't see how folks could possibly complete the epic Hunter quest chain. Does that mean those quests will be gone from the game?Since I don't play a Hunter and I already have Quel'Serrar, this is all kind of academic to me. But I do wonder: my dearest hope is that they actually update the Quel quests (or make an entirely new one) which allows you to get an updated Quel'Serrar. Perhaps Quel'Zaram? I guess I might as well dream big while I'm at it. Bornakk's post certainly hints very strongly that there will be a successor to Quel dropped from Onyxia.
Breakfast Topic: What do you think about Onyxia's return?
Onyxia is one of the greatest NPCs of vanilla WoW, from a lore, quest chain and raid perspective. Hands up how many of you have done the quest line to completion? Who visited Blackrock Spire? Who unmasked Katrana Prestor as the giant black Broodmother she truly was? Who got the key and then headed into the depths of Dustwallow Marsh? Who survived? Given my dragon fixation/interest/obsession, I was always keen to kill her. I would have completed the quest chain but for a little bug on the final quest. Still, it was easy enough to nip in once the need for a key and attunement was dropped. Then Varian Wrynn finished her off.And now she's back. I don't understand it either but finding out is certainly going to be exciting. Plus there's finally a 310% dragon mount that I actually want. So, constant readers, what do you think about this revelation? How do you think she will be brought back into the picture? Is it just something to keep us entertained until patch 3.3 or could it be part of the bigger picture? After all, this announcement has come just over a week before BlizzCon. It's gotta mean something, right?
WoW PTR Patch 3.2.2 notes
World of Warcraft's Patch 3.2.2 is on the PTR far, far earlier than any of us had expected. The patch notes have just now been made available by Wryxian over on the official EU forums. This small content patch that will celebrate WoW's fifth anniversary contains the return of Onyxia as was announced recently, along with a number of class tweaks, some larger than others. You can read them in full below.General The Brood Mother Returns After years of lurking in her lair battling the many brave adventurers who travelled from afar to challenge her, Onyxia returns to commemorate World of Warcraft's five-year anniversary. Onyxia has been scaled to offer new challenges to level 80 players and is now available for testing in 10- and 25- player modes. Adjustments have been made to the encounter to keep it fit for modern raiding, but the fundamental experience of fighting the Brood Mother will remain, as will the horror of the Deep Breaths! Some classic items Onyxia offered level 60 players will have their stats adjusted appropriately for level 80 players. Brood of Onyxia, a very rare 310%-speed mount modeled after Onyxia herself will be available for the luckiest of challengers.
Onyxia's Lair getting revamped for WoW's 5th anniversary
When World of Warcraft first launched in 2004, Onyxia's Lair was the toughest challenge that players at the highest level (back then, it was 60) could take on. Now that the game has been flooded with more difficult -- and ultimately more rewarding -- content, players rarely visit the flame-toungued Brood Mother. In order to stave off her draconic loneliness, Blizzard is planning on revamping the encounter in time for the game's fifth anniversary, returning it to the pinnacle of difficulty it once represented.This update, which will appear in the upcoming patch 3.2.2, will change the dungeon into a more difficult 10-man and heroic 25-man dungeon. Loot will be improved to compensate for the enhanced challenge -- Blizzard even promised that "a normal drake-sized 310% speed flying mount modeled after Onyxia" will be included as a boss drop. Man, that's adding insult to injury, isn't it? "Yeah, we just killed you. Now, we're going to ride you."There's no release date attached to the patch, but it's assumed to come before the game's November 23 birthday.[Via WoW.com]
Zarhym drops hints about Onyxia encounter, mount drop rate
Over here at WoW.com, we're pretty stoked about the new Onyxia fight, which was why, despite the fact that it came in a somewhat trollish thread, I was pretty happy to see Zarhym drop a few hints about the Onyxia encounter and the drop rate of the new 310% speed Brood of Onyxia mount.He reveals that they aren't going back to the 4-instance heroic and normal setup of the Coliseum, instead just having plain old 10 man and 25 man normal modes. In addition, the mount will have an equal chance to drop from both encounters, so you have a chance at it no matter what your preferred raid size.That said, you probably shouldn't expect to just waltz in and get your whole raid outfitted in matching black drakes. The mount drops one at a time, and the drop rate is pretty low. Think pre-nerf Baron Rivendare's Deathcharger mount low. As Zarhym puts it: "One day I will have it, though as soon as I loot it I'll probably be struck by lightning on a sunny day and attacked by a shark, all while in the presumed comfort of my living quarters."That said, don't get too put out either way. It sounds like Zarhym hasn't ruled out the possibility of an old-fashioned "hard mode" achievement depending on how you face the fight (I'm fully expecting a "Many Whelps Left Side" style achievement myself), and we already know the new Onyxia is permanent, meaning you'll probably have until next expansion to try to farm your mounts.
Onyxia returns in Patch 3.2.2
You read that right. In honor of WoW's 5-year anniversary, in the upcoming Patch 3.2.2, Onyxia will make her triumphant return to the world of Azeroth! The patch will convert Onyxia's Lair to a 10- and 25-player dungeon, along with new items whose models match the old-school gear available in the vanilla instance, like Tier 2 helms. Additional rewards include a 310% speed flying mount modeled after Onyxia herself!As a bonus, anyone who logs in during the 5-year anniversary event in November will get an Onyxia Whelpling pet. The full announcement after the break!
How the "Summon Memory" fight in the Trial of the Champion should have been done
Responses to the implementation of Patch 3.2 have been pretty mixed. I've been trying to see as much of it as I can. I loved Children's Week, for example, but over the weekend, I ventured into Trial of the Champion, the new 5-man content in the Crusaders' Coliseum. My curiosity had been piqued by talk of Hogger as a raid boss and whispers of the power to fight Illidan and Lucifron. Now, having never ventured into either Molton Core or Black Temple, I was quite keen to experience the encounter for myself. So I grouped with my guildies (who all seem quite addicted to the quick runs, easy fight and shiny loot) and headed into the unknown. I was already aware that Trial of the Champion sees you fighting a bunch of champions on horseback, then getting either Eadric the Pure of High Confessor Paletress. We, luckily, got the latter. I like Paletress. She's an intriguing character as well as an epitome of goodness who's not afraid to fight for her beliefs. She also has the coolest attack in the Trial: she summons the memory of a past encounter. This was the bit I was waiting for and when Onyxia appeared, I was momentarily stunned.
Player reaction to the 5-man Trial
All right -- patch 3.2 has been out for a few days now, and I would say that most people who are interested have had a chance to go in and run the brand new 5-man instance. Of course it's not the only change in the patch (far from it), but it's the one I was most looking forward to, and unlike the raid instances, it's all in there and doable, ready for our judgment. So what did we think?I tried it yesterday, and my first impression was "underwhelmed." I definitely don't feel that way about 3.2 as a whole, but the instance itself seems less than impressive, a one-room fight with almost as many boring moments as there are exciting ones. The fights themselves are actually pretty commonplace for a Heroic -- the jousting fight is probably the least-liked among the playerbase (seriously, whoever really loves the jousting mechanic over at Blizzard needs to take a good long look in the mirror for some self reflection), while the best is of course the Argent Confessor, who summons a random figure from our "past memories" to fight. I got Illidan and Onyxia the first few times I ran the instance, but of course Hogger and Van Cleef and Heigan the Unclean also have a chance at making an appearance. I did like the fight, but I was kind of bummed the old memories didn't bring any of their abilities with them -- they all have the same three abilities to throw at the group.
Choose My Adventure: Turpen dings 45
WoW.com readers, it's up to you to decide the fate of Turpen the Gnome Warlock with Choose My Adventure. Casting your vote toward the many aspects of Turpen and make him your own! Well, not literally. He belongs to Alex, but you know what we mean.Well, it took longer than I had hoped, but Turpen has finally dinged level 45 and he did it in the wet, muddy wastes of Dustwallow Marsh. It wasn't particularly hard, but between all of the patch 3.2 preparation I've been doing, it was sort of a scatterbrained trip. Do a few quests here, a few quests there... all in all, it wasn't particularly memorable!Throwing fuel on the 'not very memorable' fire was the completely anticlimactic ding of level 40. I remember that level being something of a landmark, but for Turpen the level came and went without much celebration. Mounts are at level 30 now, and the level 40 talent for Affliction Warlocks is pretty useful, but not much to get excited about. Oh boy, Dark Pact! Mana regen is so exciting! Don't get me wrong, I love me some mana, but could there be anything less exciting to someone who's leveling, questing and exploring? I want toys! I want explosions! I want excitement! This was none of those things. Maybe I would've been more excited if I run around with my Imp or Succubus out, but I've been getting pretty good mileage out of my Voidwalker still. I didn't have mana problems before Dark Pact, so I rarely use it now that I have it.
Blizzard EU & NA comic and lore contest
I enjoy lore, and I enjoy comics. And if you're reading this, you're also probably like me and enjoy the World of Warcraft. So why not combine all those into a nice little contest?Blizzard EU is running a lore contest for their European customers, with the winners receiving a signed action figure. And sorry North American folks, right now this contest appears to be EU only.The quiz is a series of 10 questions, and while I won't give away the answers, the answer to number ten, "Who slays Onyxia?" is clearly "You and 39 friends, or just you." Because my solo warrior skills are just that leet.Head over to check out the rules and enter the contest, after all, you've got nothing to lose!Update: I wrote this article late yesterday evening, and at the time there was no North American version of the contest. However since then, Blizzard has posted a similar contest for North American residents. Enjoy!
WoW Moviewatch: Forrest GumpDK
I didn't originally think I'd feature Forrest GumpDK. Mojorising created the video to help celebrate the four year anniversary of his guild, The Enigma Order. While I like seeing these videos, it's usually not the kind of thing that appeals to an audience-at-large. After watching it through, however, the warm-hearted nostalgia grew on me. I actually found "Forrest GumpDK" to not only be a "happy anniversary!" card, but also a fond retrospective of raiding since Vanilla WoW.The video is based off a certain Robert Zemeckis film from the mid-90s. At the end of GumpDK, the main actor is credited as "Tom Tanks." Hey, it's the little jokes that make things work. Basically, the movie starts off following a feather as it drifts down to a tuxedo-wearing Death Knight, sitting on a bench in Stormwind. The DK then begins telling the tale (in subtitles) of how The Enigma Order has been raiding over the past years.While Forrest GumpDK is talking about his Guild, I think we all remember the days of fighting that big guy who's made of fire, then a dragon, then another dragon. And then, shooting off into "space!" That sense of wonder might have worn thin for some of us veterans, but Mojorising's Forrest gave me a gentle, rosy-glass view of the old times. For that, I thank Forrest GumpDK for a job well done.If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.Previously on Moviewatch ..
The Queue: Dye job
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today. So the Patch 3.1 PTR has dropped and all the madness associated with it has started. I always find it interesting to watch how some ideas and changes morph from "AMG! Imma gonna stop paying MY $15 A MONTH right now and you're gonna be out of a job because Titan's Grip didn't need to be nerfed!" to "WoW! These new Warrior changes make the Titan's Grip nerf pointless! I am so uber again!" I /facepalm at that sort of thought progression, as I suspect many of you do as well.Cielago asked:"How how long do I have to get title and mount rewards for the achievements associated with Wrath raids and heroics? Is it until patch 3.1 when Ulduar gear will make them easier? Until the next expansion? Some time in between?"
