Sapphiron
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Know Your Lore: The Blue Dragonflight
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. The past few KYL's have been focusing on dragonflights, and this one's no different. This week, we cover the Blue Dragonflight, Azeroth's masters of magic. Before we do, though, we should go back and link my Red Dragonflight post and Anne's Black Dragonflight one, because a lot of the same ground is about to be covered. In some ways, the blue dragons are the ones players may be most familiar with. From Azuregos wandering about Azshara to Sapphiron in Naxxramas and Sindragosa in Icecrown Citadel, with appearances by Kalecgos in the Sunwell, Arygos in Ahn'Qiraj, and of course two 5 man instances and a raid in Coldarra, players have plenty of opportunity to run into a member of the Blue Dragonflight. The Blue Dragonflight has been involved in many of the important events of Azeroth's history despite suffering unimaginably from those events. From the War of the Ancients and the Sundering to the Third War and to the present with the Nexus War, blue dragons have attempted to hold to their ancient charge to shepherd the world's magics no matter what it costs them. And it has cost them very, very dearly. For thousands of years, the blue dragons were almost extinct, nearly wiped out by Deathwing and the Dragon Soul. Their leader and father, Malygos the Aspect of Magic, was driven mad by the loss of so many of his children and the betrayal of his best friend and most trusted confidant, Neltharion.
Patch 3.3 PTR: Patch notes updated
New patch notes have been release for the patch 3.3 PTR. The changes present in this iteration of the notes will be active when the PTR comes up this evening after the latest patch is applied to your client. While there are a handful of changes to a few classes, there are two major areas which everyone will be talking about for a few days. First, you no longer have to clear Naxxramas to get to Sapphiron's lair. Tha means that raids will now be able to go directly to Sapphiron, and (presumably) subsequently Kel'Thuzad. Secondly, quest objective tracking is now present in this PTR build. This was originally present in the initial patch 3.2 builds, but was taken out by Blizzard after issues crept up with it. We'll have more on this new feature later this evening or tomorrow. The entire list of patch notes changes after the break.
Guildwatch: "Enjoy the Soviet Union"
Oh my -- we've heard about undercutting prices on the AH before (and everyone knows that when you get undercut on the AH, you just buy the lower sales and bring them back up to your prices), but I don't think I've ever seen someone get quite so angry about it. Blueroot was just chugging along, selling Runecloth at what his Auctioneer claimed it should be, and all of a sudden Crunkya showed up, angry that he'd been undercut so much and had to invest so much money in someone that was clearly an Obama voter. Wait, what? Yeah, we're not sure how he got there either, but you can see the result above. Lots more drama, as well as downed and recruiting news, in this week's Guildwatch, which starts up right after the break below. If you have a tip for us, from your guild or just a guild you've been following on your realm, please do take a second and email us about it at guildwatch@wow.com. We get a lot of tips and it takes a lot of time to sift through them, but as long as you make it look like what you see below (keep it short and sweet, include all necessary guild info), you'll see it here.
Guildwatch: Cleared for good
Ulduar is finding its match in many guilds this week -- more than a few folks are heading into the new content and making it their own. But here at GW, we appreciate all clears -- whether your guild is just starting out in Naxx, has finally cleared the place out like the ragtag group of raiders above, or is taking down progression content in Ulduar, a down is a down. Grats no matter what you're completing.Lots of drama and recruiting in this week's column, too, as always. And you can see your guild here in the future, too -- our new address is guildwatch@wow.com, so send along some news if you've got it.
Loot, rationality, and the Sunwell effect
Here at WoW Insider we don't always agree with each other. Whether it's debating the merits of various tanks on different encounters, the damage difference between pure and hybrid DPS classes, the ideal function of a particular healing class in raids, or the superiority of cake over pie, our back-channel discussion tends to be pretty interesting.Eliah Hecht's article "25-man gear should not be better than 10-man gear" sparked a lot of great discussion with our readers and, I think, some illuminating poll results as well. The majority of responders believed that giving 10-man and 25-man raids the same loot table would result in a significant drop in popularity for 25-man raiding. Overall, I tend to agree with this, but I also think that Eliah touched on something that speaks to Blizzard's evolving sense of game design, much of which is evident in the transition between late Burning Crusade and Wrath. I would like to call this the Sunwell effect, or "ingame rationality." To wit: don't incentivize players to behave in a manner contrary to your actual design interests. I believe this played a huge role in the differences between BC and Wrath raiding, and that it underlies why the 25-man loot table has to remain superior to its 10-man counterpart.
Observations from running a Naxx-25 PuG
I'm very "up" on PuGs. I started my career as a PuG tank and met a lot of great players that way, many of whom I still raid with today. I've always been a stout supporter of throwing caution to the wind and joining LFG for an afternoon to see where it'll take you; it's been my experience that random players on your realm can and often will surprise you. Once you master the art of the 5-person PuG, the ultimate risk is a raid PuG. One-shot the instance, or spend the night wiping? You won't know until you try.I used to run Hyjal PuG's in late Burning Crusade and got to be the person in charge of arranging healers on Anetheron, explaining where to die on Azgalor, and uttering a hollow laugh at suggestions on whether or not Archimonde was in the cards (answer: hell no). I wasn't around for my guild's Naxx run one of these past weeks, and a few guildies were interested in gearing up their alts, so we thought -- PuG a 25-man Naxx? Why not?
Shifting Perspectives: The dual-specced Druid
Every Tuesday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting Druids and those who group with them. This week, in the interests of keeping our writer away from editors of the opposite faction on PvP servers, we examine dual specs. Between lollygagging here at WoW Insider Central and engaging in some extracurricular indolence, I've often wondered where I'd take the column after finishing the bear pre-raid post. I could write something on how to theorycraft the highest-HPM tree, I thought, or get around to testing whether weapon skill has an unintended effect on bear threat. Look at the potential return from Eclipse procs as a function of fight mobility? Argue whether it's worth it to take Feral Aggression in a hybrid feral build? Or compose an entire column as a mockument to T.S. Eliot's most famous poem:Q: Let us go then, you and I --A: No.All good ideas. But then we received the following missive from that enemy of all that is good and right in the publishing world, the editor:MEMO: To all WoW Insider class columnistsFROM: You know who.TEXT: Write something on how your class will deal with the upcoming dual-spec system in patch 3.1, or Dan "One-Eye" O'Halloran will "remember" where he left his whip."Well," I thought. "That sounds like a good idea too."
Sapphiron and Malygos hotfixes
Just in time for everyone's raiding tonight, Lead Encounter Designer Daelo has announced two important hotfixes that have gone live.Sapphiron and Malygos both should now be working as intended.Sapphiron's Frost aura has been hotfixed to return to levels that we've all seen previous to patch 3.0.8. This means there should be 1200 damage every 2 seconds in the 10-man version, and 1600 damage every 2 seconds in the 25-man version. Note however that the tooltip is incorrect, in that it says the damage occurs every second. According to Daelo this will be fixed in the next client patch (and no, there is no indication of when that is).As for Malygos...
Incoming hot fixes and other bugs
There are a number of hot fixes and a couple notable bugs we wanted to bring to your attention. Ideally all these will be fixed soon, according to our standards and not according to Blizzard's definition of soon.First is the Malygos bug where Circle of Healing and Wild Growth were not function when a player was in a Vortex. Ghostcrawler has posted that this will be getting fixed in the next couple of days. I wouldn't be surprised if this is fixed tonight.Daelo, the lead encounter designer, also came out today and said the following with regard to what they're looking at: "We're checking into the various issues noted here, including why his cone breath hits targets behind his centerpoint, issues with malygos deciding to attack in phase 2, and trying to make the defense bubble's protection work even if you enter the bubble in between the time a missile is launched and when it lands."
Naxxramas optimization
Crygil posted an important announcement last night concerning the lag and associated performance issues in Naxxramas. Blizzard has made some recent optimizations to Naxx, and they want to know what all of our experiences are like in the instance this week. As such, they're asking everyone to post feedback in terms of performance in the thread over on the official forums.Now by performance I don't think they mean "My pocket Paladin can't tank." What they're looking for are detailed reports such as "When I was attempting to do the Heigan dance, my entire group lagged behind a good 5 to 10 seconds. We decided to go and raid Hogger after we wiped for six hours in a row." Or "The Ice Block appeared after Frost Breath when my guild was taking down Sapphiron because of the 30 second lag."Matt Rossi wrote a great piece yesterday on the need for designing the fights around latency. Hopefully this will become less of an issue as Blizzard works out their backend mechanics; and it appears this change is a major step forward.
Spiritual Guidance: Secondary stats and what to stack
Every Sunday (usually), Spiritual Guidance will offer practical insight for priests of the holy profession. Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of PlusHeal, a new healing community for all restorative classes. Some requests were made recently to help newer Priests figure out what secondary stats are important and what to aim for. Matticus shall help! I know when I started playing World of Warcraft, I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to secondary stats. To be fair, stats like Hit didn't exist back in the day. This post is meant for newer Priests who aren't quite sure what these secondary stats do or what they mean. Just to be clear, primary stats are base attributes like stamina and intellect. Secondary stats are things like haste and critical strike rating.
Ready Check: Guide to Naxxramas (Sapphiron)
Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, ZA or Sunwell Plateau, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. This week, we're heading to Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad to visit a few old friends, complete Naxxramas, and wonder to ourselves why everyone on the server has a Journey's End but us.Welcome back! With the Spider Quarter, Construct Quarter, Plague Quarter, and Death Knight Quarter out of your way, the teleport to Sapphiron's room (and from there, Kel'Thuzad) will become available. There's no trash to worry about, just two big, ugly bosses between you and the completion of Naxxramas. Tonight we'll deal with Sapphiron; tomorrow we'll head in to finish off the big lich himself.
The Queue: Frost resistance, hot or not?
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.We're very light today, as most Mondays are. Coming off the weekend when everyone is playing instead of reading we're pretty short on questions that aren't repeats! No need for elongated excuses, though. Let's dig into the few questions we do have.Phyalt asked...As a healing Priest should I be worried about frost resist going into Naxx?
Loken the most dangerous mob in the game
The Top Lists on the official World of Warcraft website are endlessly interesting and fascinating. The last time we looked at them was well before Wrath launched, so we decided to take a look again now that we've been in Northrend for awhile.The first list I looked at was, of course, the Most Dangerous Creatures. What's more fun than seeing what's destroying your fellow players? Nothing. Nothing at all. It looks like Loken of Halls of Lightning is topping the charts right now, followed by Sapphiron of Naxxramas. I can see that. Loken can be pretty deadly, especially on Heroic. Most players will probably wipe to him at least once their first time seeing him, assuming they don't know the strategy ahead of time. Sapphiron is just plain painful.
The Queue: Reputation, daily quests, and performance in Dalaran
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.Daily quests and reputation has been a really hot topic lately, not only in The Queue but across WoW in general. Some of our questions today will focus on that, but I'd also like to let you guys know that WoW Insider will overall have more information on those things coming really, really soon. Keep an eye on the site today and in the coming days for all of that good stuff.Alright, let's gets started with my2cents' question... Where, if anywhere, is the quartermaster for Valiance Expedition? I'm almost revered and I'm curious to see if there are any rewards available.
Traces of the Wrath cinematic found ingame
Just in case, like me, you were wondering just what happened in the cinematic for Wrath of the Lich King yesterday (wait -- Arthas puts Frostmourne in the ground and a dragon comes out?), it looks like we're likely to get some answers. We didn't exactly see any familiar player characters or races in the trailer, but apparently the location of Arthas' little dragon summon can be seen in Northrend, as per the shot above. We still don't know what spell it is that summons a frost wyrm, but you can clearly see the hole in the ground the thing left.And while most players assumed the wyrm was Sapphiron (the frost wyrm boss of Naxxramas), MMO Champion doesn't think so -- there's a model in the beta called Sindragosa (labeled "The Frost Queen"), and there's a place called "Sindragosa's Fall" -- we're not sure where it is in the game, or if that's it above, as Icecrown Citadel has barely been explored.So maybe further questing and lore in the expansion will give us a little bit of a clue as to what exactly Arthas was doing in that trailer. Odds are that dragon we saw is ingame somewhere, and we players are probably just the dragonslayers to slay it.Update: Yep, the area is Sindragosa's Fall, which makes the dragon almost definitely Sindragosa. So it looks like the summoning we saw in the cinematic might be more story significant than we thought.
One Boss Leaves: Sapphiron vs Kel'thuzad wrap up
Last week the first showdown of the Final Four went head-to-head in a neutral Arena. Did the undead Blue dragon Sapphiron overcome his Naxxrammas neighbor, the Archlich of the Plaugelands Kel'thuzad? Or did Kel'thuzad overwhelm his opponent in the battle of the undead bosses?Though both bosses have heavy frost based powers, they also both have heavy frost resistance. That leaves their remaining abilities of which Kel'thuzad's Shadow Fissure was considered by commenters to be Sapphiron's downfall. The master claims victory over his guard. The Archlich moves on to the final battle of the series next week to face off against the winner of tonight's titanic battle between the notorious scourge of the Outlands, Illidan Stormrage and possibly the most difficult boss in the game, the old god, C'thun. With only two weeks to go before we crown a winner, who will be the last boss to leave?
Two Bosses Enter: Sapphiron vs Kel'thuzad
Two bosses enter... but only one will get to leave in WoW Insider's series of fantasy deathmatches. We've scoured the instances of Azeroth and Outland looking for the most interesting bosses Blizzard has to offer us and picked out a group of 32 to pit against one another until we come out with a single winner in the end. And the best part -- you get to tell us who wins. We're down to the Final Four. First up, two bosses of Naxxramas face off. Will the undead frost wyrm Sapphiron be able to take down his partner in crime, The Archlich of the Plaguelands Kel'Thuzad? Want to learn more about these two bosses and voice your opinion on who would win in a fight? Keep reading
One Boss Leaves: Sapphiron vs. Hakkar wrap up
Last week, the undead frost wyrm of Northrend, Sapphiron squared off against the Troll god of Zul'Gurub, Hakkar the Soulflayer in a neutral arena to see who is the top boss. Did the Blue Dragon freeze out the competition or did the Faceless One slither into victory?Though Hakkar has a mean damage/healing combo and an earlier Enrage timer, the votes confirm that Sapphiron's superior dps output and own healing & Enrage abilities would allow him to triumph over the Blood God. There was some debate about Hakkar's abilty to mind control the undead, but in the end only one boss leaves the arena. Sapphiron moves on to the final four where he will face off against the winner of our next Two Bosses Enter showdown. Who will win when the Firelord of Molten Core, Ragnaros goes up against Kel'Thuzad, the Archlich of the Plaguelands? Voting starts tomorrow.
Two Bosses Enter: Sapphiron vs. Hakkar
Welcome to the beginning of the third bracket. It's been six months since we began this battle of the raid bosses and we are down from 32 to just 8 contenders for the title. Here's the line up for the next four weeks:Sapphiron vs HakkarRagnaros vs. Kel'ThuzadIllidan Stormrage vs. The Twin EmperorsPrincess Huhuran vs. C'ThunToday, we jump into the first of these titanic battles with the undead frost wyrm Sapphiron vs. the Troll god of Zul'Gurub, Hakkar the Soulflayer. Who shall fall and who shall emerge victorious? Read on to decide for yourself and cast your vote!
