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The OverAchiever: Mountain O' Mounts in raids
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we return to flogging the guts out of bosses that might puke up a horse. Today we're going to look at mounts that drop in (or, in one case, as part of a quest within) raids. I'd initially expected to include mounts like the Ulduar proto-drakes and Icecrown frostwyrms, but they're really more the result of a series of achievements rather than encounters themselves. Otherwise, there are more than enough pure drops to keep us occupied today; Blizzard's always been fond of making unique mounts the potential reward of difficult raid encounters, and you'll get a few extra feats of strength if you nab some of these beauties. Also read: Combining The Ambassador and Mountain O' Mounts Mountain O' Mounts in Outland Mountain O' Mounts in Northrend Mountain O' Mounts in 5-man dungeons
The OverAchiever: The good, the bad, the ugly, and the weird
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we reminisce on that auld lang syne ... that nobody really misses. It occurred to me recently that we've never really done a retrospective piece on achievements. Sure, we've rounded up stuff like entertaining achievements and evil achievements, but we've never really looked at their impact on the game as a whole. There's an article in that, but it won't be this one. New Year's Eve is tomorrow, and I'm in the mood for some brainless fun. While I was writing this article, a number of the achievements that came to mind were the product of tier 7 raids, and I think I know why. Wrath raiding achievements were the first time Blizzard had experimented with their inclusion in raid content, and the implementation occasionally had some bizarre results. There was also the pressure cooker of having to finish Glory of the Raider before the rewards disappeared (a very belated announcement), and there was never that sense of urgency with Ulduar or Icecrown achievements. Anyway, let me know what you think.
Not all fights require a hard mode
Hard modes are some of the most popular encounters in Wrath of the Lich King. They grant better loot and extra rewards like mounts and rare titles, especially for specific server firsts. However, I'm of the opinion that ever since Ulduar, we've kind of lost sight of how the hard mode encounters should work and have instead just started making everything have a hard mode. Frankly, the Gunship encounter in ICC, while fun, shouldn't have a hard mode. It's not really even hard; it's just free iLevel 277 gear for turning on a toggle. I blame Trial of the Crusader -- and specifically, having an entire separate raid lockout for Trial of the Grand Crusader -- for this. I realize I may be on the losing side of this divide, but I really don't think every single fight needs a hard mode. Some fights, sure. The four wing bosses of ICC, absolutely. The Lich King? Heck, it could be argued that Arthas should have taken a page from Algalon's book and only had a hard mode, or maybe Sindragosa should have been a hard-mode-only fight instead of a wing boss, and you only get to fight her after the Lich King is dead in some sort of doomsday scenario where she's chained up by Arthas and breaks free to destroy Azeroth in case of his demise.
The OverAchiever: Dungeon and raid titles, Part 2
After taking a two-week detour into guides covering the Love Is In the Air and Lunar Festival holidays, we're going to return to the list of titles available from dungeon and raid achievements. You can find part one here, covering everything from Argent Defender to Grand Crusader. This week, we'll pick up where we left off. Herald of the Titans (requires an Algalon-10 kill under special circumstances) or Starcaller (requires Observed -- 10 player) Herald of the Titans, much like its ToGC-10 counterpart Argent Defender, requires you to kill Algalon in Ulduar-10 without padding the difficulty with gear from higher-level raids. The result is arguably the coolest Algalon-related title apart from Celestial Defender, but it won't come without a ton of planning and a lot of skill. Starcaller is the same deal, minus the gear requirement.
Shifting Perspectives: Why effective health needs to die, part 2
Every week, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week, we examine the issue of effective health in more depth. We've discussed in the previous column why effective health is important; here, we're going to discuss why it's not as important as you might think if you had nothing beyond the collective opinion of the Tanking forum to go on. While this has something to do with the mob mentality of the forums themselves, it has more to do with how the concept of effective health isn't usually placed in context. Tank death on hard modes is quickly attributed to EH discrepancies, with rather less discussion on encounter mechanics, inappropriate gear, or that great but frequently unacknowledged bugaboo -- player error. It is for this that I say effective health needs to die. What is effective health? I neglected to put some hard numbers on this in the last article, but calculating base effective health is actually pretty simple. It's your health as modified by the damage you'll take after armor contribution (AC), or Health / (1 - AC%). A 50,000 health tank with 25% armor contribution has 66,666.67 effective health (50,000 / 0.75). A 50,000 health tank with 50% armor contribution has 100,000 effective health (50,000 / 0.5). A 50,000 health tank with 75% armor contribution (the maximum functional AC) has 200,000 effective health (50,000 / .25).
Guildwatch: More common than you think
We've seen quite a few guilds go back lately and take on Sarth 3D for the first time. Of course, it's got to be much easier now with Ulduar-level gear wandering around, and ToC giving out gear and tokens relatively easily. But especially if your guild has the time, why not go grab an "Of the Nightfall" title for everyone? That's what our friends in The Risen here did, and they look pretty snazzy. Lots more guild progress, as well as recruiting and drama, in this week's edition of Guildwatch, which starts right after the break. If you have a tip for us about your guild or one you've seen on the forums, please format it just like the news you see below and send it along to guildwatch@wow.com. Thanks! Enjoy!
Guildwatch: It wasn't me, man
*Sniff sniff*. Smell that? It's the smell of desperation -- the smell of a ninja who knows he's been caught. Zlickrick above found a piece of loot in his mailbox that was supposed to go to someone who won a raid roll, but instead he put it on. And now, confronted, you can almost see the desperation in his text. Unfortunately, once an item is soulbound, it's pretty much lost. But still, he knows he's been caught. And GW knows it, too.That story and more in this week's Guildwatch, bringing you drama, downed, and recruiting news from around the realms. Send your guild's information (or any drama you've spotted) to wowguildwatch@gmail.com, and click on to read this week's column.
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.
Guildwatch: "This is not a f$#(ing joke"
How dare you find something amusing that raidleader Strakken of Shattered on Winterhoof says?!? What do you think this is, some kind of "game" where people "play" for "fun"? He has been forced, forced to increase the amount of time he plays just to deal with people in his guild. And whereas once he may have been proud of the guild and what they've done in terms of progression, times have changed. There's no way he's "going into 3.1 with a guild like this." Guildleading, my friends, is some serious business.Eesh. That drama and more can be found in this week's Guildwatch. We encourage you to click the link below and read on, if only so you too can realize that it is completely possible to take this game and its guilds way, way too seriously (and by the way, if you know of any guilds you'd like to see here, email us about 'em at wowguildwatch@gmail.com). Because here's the secret: this is a joke. It is a game. And if you're not having fun, it's not time to increase the amount of time you play. It's time to walk away.
Spiritual Guidance: Sartharion with all drakes
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. This week Matt offers some tips and insights for the healing Priests that are struggling with Sartharion and his 3 drakes up Welcome to the toughest raid encounter that Wrath has to offer. By the end of the first night, you will wish you decided to stay home and watch the latest episode of House instead.
Guildwatch: Ninja tested, GM approved
This isn't guild drama, but what a move -- Kokor of Draka convinced a PuG to help him through a second run of Gun'drak just so he could ding level 80. And take a guess what he did as soon as he dinged -- yup, split off to Naxx, leaving the PuG, who'd just helped him level the last few points, in the lurch. The jerk store called, and they just ran out of Kokor.More stories of drama in this week's Guildwatch below, including a prodigal son that isn't so welcome. Plus, we've got downed and recruiting news from around the realms -- if you want to know what the guilds are up to on your server, it's in here. And don't forget, send your tips on drama, downed and recruiting news to wowguildwatch@gmail.com, and you'll see them right here in the future.
Breakfast Topic: Most frustrating moment
The vast majority of the time, WoW is just pure fun to play, and even nights spent wiping on a boss can be an oddly happy experience if you're running with a cool group of people and you feel like you're making progress. But we've all had that moment in a raid or a group where you realize that things have unstoppably taken a turn for the worse, and that there's not much (if anything) you can do about it.I've actually had two of these in recent memory: being within one perfect Kel'Thuzad kill of server-first Immortal and then losing a single player to the second Frost Blast, and then having to call a Sarth 3D kill because people seemed to find an array of new and interesting ways to get themselves killed. The silence in vent on both occasions was pretty awful, and that these two nights occurred back to back probably didn't help anyone's frame of mind. I've had a Hunter buddy previously describe her worst moment as triggering the old Karazhan pet bug -- wherein you could aggro almost everything in the instance due to bizarre pet pathing mechanics -- when she was a trial member with a new guild. A Warlock friend still cringes when he thinks about the night he accidentally looted the Champion gloves off Curator, and then having to keep the group there for two hours while we waited on a ticket (back before any of us knew how loot transfers worked). Sometimes you realize the night's just going to stay bad, and that it's time to get out of Dodge. What was your worst experience in this vein?
The Daily Quest: Of Commandments, insane faction grinding and a little Johnny Cash
The Daily Quest took a break for a few days to stare longingly at Tier 8 armor and try to process the myriad class changes coming. But we're back with a list of great WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Zasp at Egotistical Priest is already prepping for the Patch 3.1 achievement Insane in the Membrane. What's so special about it? You must get Exalted with some of the most obscure factions in Azeroth including Ravenholdt, the Darkmoon Faire and The Shen'dralar of Dire Maul. The Moonfire! blog follows up their first 10 Commandments for DPS with 10 More Commandments. The last one is priceless. (NOTE: We may have melted their servers. Try again later in the day if the link doesn't work. It's worth the wait.) Too Many Annas gives solid advice on how to survive wipe after wipe after wipe. Forever A Noob blog has a series of Rogue guides to Naxx-10 bosses specifically for the back stabbers. Rogue guide to Loatheb Rogue guide to Patchwerk Rogue guide to Grobbulus Rogue guide to Gluth As many of you have learned, Sarth is srs bsns. How serious? Nerf This Druid lets you know with a little help from Johnny Cash. And in honor of the Sarth encounter enjoy the Shade of Aran flame wreath pic above.
Guild leader wins Oscar
I didn't have any interest in watching the Oscars last night (so no, I didn't get to see Wolverine singing and dancing), but there was one piece of WoW-related news to come out of the big event. Steve Preeg is a visual effects artist who's worked on films like the Lord of the Rings trilogy and I, Robot, and last night, he won an Oscar for his team's work on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. And that's not his only achievement: he's also done everything but Sarth 3D with the guild he leads.Yup, we've heard from one of his guildies that Preeg is a guild leader in the game -- he plays a Combat Rogue with 450 Enchanting and Inscription, and runs a progression guild that's downed everything but the big black dragon and his three companions. he's even done all of the holiday events so far (though he's rolling with the "Champion of the Frozen Wastes" title).So he's picked up some excellent loot, both in and out of game (Oscars are epic at least -- the drop rate is pretty low). Congrats to Preeg and his team on the Oscar, and to his guild, good luck with Sarth 3D. Maybe if Anne Hathaway showed up for that you'd have him down by now.
Top five toughest and easiest raid bosses
Jinzuku over on Hyjal has a fun idea: list your top five toughest and easiest raid bosses. C'thun, M'uru, Kil'jaeden and Sarth 3D are appearing on most of the lists -- the old Four Horsemen and even C'thun's trash are also getting called out by Bornakk. Personally, I haven't raided much of the hardest content, but on the hard side, I'd have to say that General Rajaxx gave my guild a rough time, Ragnaros didn't go down easy, and Twin Emps didn't play well with us (or a lot of other guilds, either).Easiest? Chess (duh), I always found Baron Geddon to be pretty easy (though no less fun), Attumen the Huntsman, and Venoxis was a knockover, too. But as you can see from the thread, people are all over the place -- some of the hardest bosses in the game for some were simple for others. And while some guilds fly through content, others can bump their heads on bosses for quite a while. I wouldn't put him on the hard list, but I know a few guilds I've run with had quite a bit of trouble with Moroes while they were first starting out.And it's no surprise that most of the hardest bosses in the game came near the end of expansion cycles -- AQ40, Naxx, and Sunwell. A few people in the thread predict that we'll eventually see the Lich King on these lists, and given that Blizzard goes tough when you get a couple content patches into an expansion, that wouldn't be a surprise at all.
Voidwalker raid tanking going away
Zach Yonzon reported on the above video a few days ago featuring a Warlock's Voidwalker pet tanking the 10-man version of Sartharion with all three drakes up. Needless to say, it's one of the coolest things that I've seen in the game. In the comments Falcrist lists off a few good reasons how this became possible: Best in slot gear for increasing the Voidwalker's HP and relevant tanking statistics. The Voidwalker got a lot of alone time with Sartharion, probably in the range of 5 or so minutes, during which the Voidwalker is building up massive amounts of threat. Pets have 80% passive AOE resistance, so Sartharion's breath really doesn't hurt them at all (and especially at 90,000 HP). Now all you Warlocks, you didn't think this was going to last, did you? Silly Warlocks...
