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Venturing Inside Naxxramas
There are a number of players out there, myself included, who haven't had an opportunity to see the inside of Naxxramas. This video doesn't show any players defeating any bosses, but gives us a look at the dungeon's design and what to expect in terms of creatures within - with the help of a dream vision potion.
LFM ZG PST
Sometimes, bored players suggest crazy things. Yesterday's madness was a random pick-up-group expedition to Zul'Gurub; twenty bored players venturing into (mostly) uncharted territory for kicks and giggles. I joined simply to see what on earth this group would be capable of, in one of those "well, why not?" moments. The problem with such a group is its very nature -- advertised on the LFG channel, it contained many players who had never been in Zul'Gurub (or even a 20-man raid) before, and who were generally unprepared. No soul shards, reagents, potions or bandages; these brave adventurers had but the (low-durability) clothes on their backs.
So many dungeons, so little time
This thread in the raid and dungeons forum is not the first - nor will it be the last - to complain about the difficulty in scheduling an increasing number of raid dungeons. As raiding guilds seek to advance through higher level instances, some raids need to be cut out of the rotation - and for most guilds, Molten Core is getting left in the dust. Of course this means that players who are still missing the one piece of tier 2 that drops in Molten Core are now stuck without a way to acquire it, but it also has implications for unguilded players and up-and-coming guilds. When I joined my first raiding guild, I had part of my blue class set, as well as assorted blues and greens from Scholomance, Stratholme, Blackrock Spire, and Dire Maul. But for guild exclusively running Naxxramas, Ahn'Qiraj, and Blackwing Lair, that may not be sufficient gear to be able to contribute. As the leader of a small guild working towards gearing up for 20-player instances, I fear that this will intensify the problem smaller guilds have with players raiding for a while and jumping into guilds that have progressed further in end-game content. Though perhaps I am too pessimistic - will players soon simply be skipping over Molten Core to attempt Blackwing Lair in better gear coming from lower dungeons (dungeon 2 set, etc)? As the scourge invasion event completes on more servers we can begin to see what sort of fallout may come from this growing library of raid dungeons.
The Debuff Prioritization System
There's a limited number of debuffs that can be placed on any target - currently, the maximum is 16. This is enough where it's not usually problematic, but in a raid environment it's not difficult to hit that maximum, and when you do, the oldest debuff on the target is bumped off in favor of the new one. This becomes a bit problematic when, for example, the short-lived "shadow vulnerability" debuff left by a warlock's improved shadow bolt talent starts bumping off more important things. To fix this, Blizzard has long been working on a system that prioritizes debuffs and leaves the most important ones on, while letting the less useful ones get bumped off. However, Tseric informs us that the "basic structure" of this prioritization system will be going live in patch 1.11 - to much rejoicing.
Molten Core Done Quick(er)
Ever been to Molten Core? Well, some people have been there few too many times - as you can tell by watching this speed-run through the core by Norwegian guild The Axemen (EU - Ravencrest). Time? 70 minutes (though the video is only 36 minutes long, speeding through non-boss pulls). My best times through MC have been closer to three hours, and were more commonly three and a half to four, with loot distribution and the occasional stupid wipe, so I must say I find 70 minutes exceedingly impressive. And if you've never been to Molten Core, but are curious as to what the place is like, this video should give you a good idea of what you'd see inside.
Breakfast Topic: u want 2 b our healr?
Sometimes, the inevitable happens. You're down a man (or woman), halfway through an instance, and one of you has to pick up a replacement. Or perhaps you're on the other side -- you really want to get into a particular instance to do all those quests cluttering up your log.Some players in the latter category may hang around capital cities occasionally asking in LFG and waiting for appropriate LFM broadcasts. However, it's safe to say that not every player in Orgrimmar wants to do RFC, and not every player in Stormwind wants to do the Stockades. Unfortunately, I've seen a huge rise in the number of unsolicited whispers recently from players asking for help in these instances -- and more.I wouldn't mind so much if they were phrased nicely, or gave me some motivation to join. "u want 2 come to dm with us? u heal?" isn't sufficient justification for a high-level character to leave the comfort of a city and run through a low-level instance with strangers. Of course, some players take this opportunity to play tricks on unsuspecting lowbies -- what's your reaction to random instance invitations? Have you ever found one compelling enough to take up? Or did you manage to phrase your LFG nicely enough that you were deluged with help?
Two Upcoming Raid Changes
Tigole has announced two changes to dungeons that we should see in patch 1.11. These aren't live on the test realms yet, but should be in a few days. The release timer is being removed for players in instances. This should come as welcome news for anyone who has ever died at the beginning of the Nefarian encounter. To prevent exploits, players will no longer be able to zone into an instance during certain encounters ("almost entirely raid bosses," explains Tigole).
Breakfast Topic: Favorite Fight
There are a lot of interesting encounters throughout Azeroth, but some seem to be more memorable than others. Certain raid bosses will always inspire players to gather around the corpse to take screenshots and display their accomplishment, but sometimes smaller encounters are more intense and exciting. One of my favorites must be the fight on the top of the temple in Zul'Ferak, where you look down to see a mass of trolls grouping up at the bottom of the stairs - and knowing you're going to need to fight through all of them to escape. What's the one fight you most remember? An instance or a wandering elite? Or maybe even a PvP kill - let's hear about them!
Breakfast Topic: To Raid or Not to Raid
With the honor system's PvP rewards starting to look a little tired, and a new raid dungeon and tier 3 armor being released in patch 1.11, any player has to wonder what there is to do at level 60 other than raid. Of course there's more small dungeons coming in the Burning Crusade expansion, and the community managers have been vaguely suggesting future improvements to the PvP system, but for now the game seems to strongly push one towards raiding. What do you think of the existing raiding system - love it or hate it? Do you enjoy the raiding game or have you found other ways to enjoy Azeroth after level 60?
Penalty for being the worst raid leader ever? 50 DKP MINUS! [update 1]
In the NSFW video that follows, a raid leader flips out ninja-style as his team of 40 raiders fails to kill the dragon known to World of Warcraft players as Onyxia. For those who've never raided Onyxia, you need to know that this multi-phase fight is laden with traps and tricks, and usually takes hours upon hours of failed attempts before a group finally downs her for the first time. An experienced raid team can finish the encounter in 20 minutes. The video that you're about to see captures the frustration of the Onyxia experience, showing just how emotional things can get when total party wipe follows total party wipe. It also highlights the hilarity that results when people with very little management experience are given the opportunity to lead a large group of people. Some soar, some flop. Our protagonist in the following video flops like a pancake. Click here to watch. Turn the sound down (or put on some headphones), because the raid leader loves to drop the F-bomb. [Update 1: Fixed autoplay issue.]
The Truth About Drop Rates
If you've ever participated in a raid, you've heard countless theories about what rules over loot drops. Perhaps the drops are decided by the class of the first player who enters the instance? Or the raid leader? Well, every time such rumors are posted around the forums, Blizzard denies that there's any system to it, saying that loot drops are completely random. Kylindra of Cenarion Circle server has put together a good write-up on drop rates and explains that "random" drops and fair drops aren't always the same thing.
Learn2play: a guide to class roles
While trying to explain the difference between MT, OT, DPS and healer to a new player, I found this well-written guide to party roles in WoW. If you're unsure quite what the difference between a main and offtank is, or which classes are considered "DPS", it's a great read.As a druid, I love the fact that my class appears under all headings, but as a recent instance run taught me, it's best to ensure you know which you are before you begin. Hybrid classes can cause no end of arguments when they fail to remain hybrid, too, so don't be afraid to switch roles if necessary -- a healing class that refuses to heal when the only other healer is out of mana is a great party annoyance.
Testing Raid Content
When Blackwing Lair was released, way back in patch 1.6, it was ridden with bugs. In order to keep the content top secret and preserve fair competition between guilds seeking world firsts on the live realms, it was never released on the public test realms - and its lack of polish showed. For Ahn'Qiraj, Blizzard took the alternate approach, releasing it on the public test realms for all to try. Tigole has already announced plans for an "extended test period" of Naxxramas, but some question whether having the instance available for testing ruins the race for world firsts. What do you think - does testing make enough of a difference to be worth spoiling the surprises?
Dungeon Content Updates
Tigole has made a post updating us all on the current status of future dungeon development. Thus far, announced dungeons for the expansion have been smaller-scale, which will hopefully serve to balance out the game when we've been seeing a lot of 40-player raid content released recently. Karazhan: A max-level (70), ten player raid dungeon, to be released in the expansion. Tigole describes it as "non-linear," and I wonder if that implies a winged dungeon (similar to what we've seen in Scarlet Monastery) or if it simply means you can approach the bosses in whatever order you wish (similar to what we've seen in Zul'Gurub). Additionally, there will be shortcuts to allow players to return to their previous location in the dungeon and continue play from where they've left off, if they've had to leave mid-run. Hellfire Citadel: Another expansion dungeon. This one is confirmed as a 4-wing dungeon, with two wings appropriate for level 60-70 players and two wings for level 70 players. One of the max-level wings will be limited to 5 players, and the other will be an Onyxia-like "quick" raid, with a single boss (Magtheridon). Naxxramas: To be released with patch 1.11. This will be a level 60 raid instance that will feature tier 3 gear. We should expect more news on Naxxramas at E3 in a couple of weeks as well as seeing it live on the public test realms in "a few more weeks."
Blackwing Lair Live Blog
alwaysBETA's Blackwing Lair live blog is up and running right now. So if you've never been inside Blackwing Lair but are curious as to what it's like - go check it out! Lots of screenshots are provided as well as details on what's going on.
Want to go to Blackwing Lair?
It's true - many players never have the chance to see the inside of these massive raid dungeons while others choose to avoid them. For those of you curious to see what the raid game is like, intrepid player (and blogger!) Zach will be live blogging a Blackwing Lair raid this Saturday, April 15th, at 7PM. So fire up a browser to alwaysBETA at the appointed time and see what large-scale raiding is like. As for me, I've got to wonder - how can you blog and raid at the same time?
Bug Fix Tuesday
US servers are expecting several bug fixes during tomorrow's maintenance (and I would assume European servers will see them during Wednesday maintenance). Among them are fixes to the time lapse ability used by Chromaggus, the invisible vortexes in the Ossirian encounter, and raid resets (which will hopefully be back on their regular schedule). All good fixes and I'm glad to see them coming - though I honestly wonder how they managed to make it beyond QA in the first place.
Raid Timers Still Broken?
Though all realms were restarted on the 31st in order to restore raid reset timers to their normal behavior, raids still aren't resetting on their ordinary schedule. Blizzard hasn't made any comment on the matter, so it's hard to say whether they're intending to change raid reset timers or whether the timers are still bugged. Nevertheless, my Blackwing Lair ID seems to be resetting mid-day Thursday instead of its scheduled Tuesday. Hopefully we'll get some clarification on what's going on soon, but until then be aware that raids aren't on their usual schedule.
Raid Reset Issues Continue
This morning's server restarts, which were intended to fix raid resets, apparently did not solve the problem. Community manager Eyonix tells us they have managed to identify the problem, however, and are working on implementing a fix that will not require additional playtime interruption. As much as I disliked the initial change that put all raids on a fixed calendar of resets, I've come to appreciate the predictability of such a system. Hopefully we'll see a fix soon!Update: All raid IDs on European realms were manually reset today in order to solve this issue. Ouch.
Raid Reset Fix
All US servers will be going offline at 4:00 AM PST on Friday, March 31st to restore raid reset timers to their normal behavior. Expected downtime for each server is less than five minutes. Yay - one bug down, and how many to go..? I'm personally waiting on that Chromaggus fix. (Time lapse and ignite flesh? It burns us!)
