valnoth
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Cataclysm raid progression update
Valnoth comes to the rescue of a forum poster wanting clarification on the intended progression path for Cataclysm instances and raids. Since we figure this is information that will interest a few of our players, here it is in pog form! (Note, it's not actually in pog form.) Valnoth - Re: Can we get some info on Cata-Progression Q u o t e: So with raid testing in full swing, i think it's a good time to ask what the planned progression path will be concerning raids. Will we be allowed to directly do heroic-modes or are we forced to do normal first? Will there be any kind of gating? Any Info on Sinestra? Try-limited? Time limited? Not limited, just hard? Also, will there be heroic-mode testing in Beta? Below is the basic progression map. Obviously your mileage may vary, i.e. If you're Paragon or Premonition you will be able to skip some of the below and/or mix and match at your discretion. *Normal Dungeons/Crafting/Questing to get full set of 85 blues (non-heroic) to do Heroic dungeons. *Heroic dungeons to get full set of 85 Heroic blues to do Normal mode raids. *Normal raids to get full set of 85 epics (non-heroic) to do Heroic mode raids. *Heroic Raids to get full set of 85 Heroic epics, which will presumably help a bit on Sinestra and the next tier (when released with patch 4.1.0) *Badge vendors to help fill in gaps at all tier levels. *No real gating to speak of for ship. *Sinestra opens after Cho'gall is defeated on HEROIC mode. No timers or attempt limits, but she will pound you relentlessly. She has better than Heroic epic level gear (half a tier better). source
BlizzCon 2010: Emerald Dream and/or Nightmare in the future
There are a lot of questions that come up from the WoW community at events like BlizzCon. Will we ever have player or guild housing? Why doesn't Blink work right? Where's my moose? One question that keeps coming up is will we ever see the Emerald Dream or its corrupted version, the Emerald Nightmare? While there is no announcement for an exact date or even which expansion it will appear, Alex "Valnoth" Afrasiabi (lead world designer for World of Warcraft) has finally answered this for us, and that answer is yes. The problem comes down to a matter of finding the right place to fit it in. This might mean something in patch 4.2 or all the way in patch 6.2. It really comes down to when it will fit in the game storyline. At least we now know that it is something they will do. BlizzCon 2010 is upon us! WoW Insider has all the latest news and information. We're bringing you liveblogging of the WoW panels, interviews with WoW celebrities and attendees and of course, lots of pictures of people in costumes. It's all here at WoW Insider!
Icecrown Citadel: Crimson Halls hotfixes
Even though Crimson Halls has been open for about half a week, a series of hot fixes have been applied today. Most of the fixes posted by Bornakk are applied to Blood Queen Lana'thel. I have to admit though, the bug where the Kinetic Bomb could trigger Blood Queen Lana'thel during the Blood Prince Council encounter did make me chuckle. I'm glad that's been resolved as well. Blood Queen Lana'thel will only be available after the Blood Prince Council is defeated. Blood Queen Lana'thel's Essence has a longer duration. Kinetic Bombs no longer aggro Blood Queen Lana'thel during the Blood Princes encounter. Blood Queen Lanathel should no longer cast Vampiric Bite on pets. In addition, Daelo posted another set of fixes for the Blood Princes encounter: Prince Keleseth will no longer melee players. So if you get knocked into Keleseth or happen to move by him, he won't swipe in between his casts and kill a non-tank. The first Shadow Resonance should appear earlier in the fight, which will allow the Keleseth tank to have more orbs on him or her if Keleseth is empowered second instead of third. We didn't want which Blood Prince was empowered second to be a major element of the difficulty in the fight. We reduced the melee damage for the Princes by 10% for the 10 player difficulty. They were doing less damage than the 25 player before the hotfix, but this change lowers the damage further. Empowered Flames will now run out of power after shooting fewer firebolts in the 10 player difficulty. We did not change the initial impact damage. Valnoth states that the Essence duration was lengthened because the developers didn't like the idea of sacrificing a player to get through an encounter. As a healer, I'm inclined to agree. I hate it when I have to stop all heals on a player in order to progress through a counter. It just goes contrary to everything my character stands for.
Patch 3.2.2: 5-man Coliseum jousting woes to be addressed
I'm sure a lot of us have had this experience: You finish up jousting down the three champions in the first encounter of the 5-man Trial of the Champions, then all hell breaks loose. Your tank goes to lock down the Warrior, but in the meantime, the Rogue, who fell on the other side of the coliseum, makes a beeline to your healer, who was the person who dismounted him. Then the Mage, who's on yet a third side of the arena, starts blasting down your Mage who never seems to get any stamina on his gear. Your tank tries to rein everybody in, but since the bosses still have the aggro they built up from the jousting stage, they're near impossible to peel. Everyone dies.
The Queue: Eight
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. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.In yesterday's edition of The Queue, my partner in crime Adam Holisky did some speculation about Battlestar Galactica that was taken as a huge, massive spoiler. As far as I know, it wasn't actually a spoiler. I'm here to fix that. I'm here to give you a real, true spoiler. Are you ready for it?They shoot Old Yeller.hold up asked...Is the Realm First Ulduar Achievement based on completing Ulduar on Easy Mode or is it based on clearing the entire place including the optional Algalon "the Raid Destroyer"?
Engineering motorcycles to be BoE
I met a player in the beta a few nights ago riding one of the brand-new Engineering ground mounts, and he was kind enough to pose for a few pictures and chat with me about it. At the time he confirmed that the mount was being sold in Dalaran for a fraction of its actual value, presumably for the sake of testing its passenger function (which unfortunately still seems to be bugged, so don't count on hauling a buddy along if you run out and buy one right now). He also said the mount was BoE, which both I and Alex had a hard time believing would remain a permanent feature. Blizzard seems to keep most engineering gewgaws in the family, as it were.Well, it looks like we were wrong; CM Valnoth has confirmed that the new Engineering-made ground mount for Wrath is going to be Bind on Equip, so I'd advise making friends with a good Engineer sometime soon (by the way, don't miss Jaylynn's #68 comment on the next page of the thread). We're not sure how expensive the mats are going to be once Wrath goes live, although the player I spoke to estimated it would be less than the current cost of a Turbo-Charged Flying Machine (though quite likely to be more expensive before the Northrend-fueled economy settles somewhat). Daniel Whitcomb's also observed it's likely to remain BoE as having one of these babies is linked to the achievement Get to the Choppa!, so with any luck Engineering is going to be a somewhat more lucrative profession in the expansion.
Onyxia attunement to be lifted
Valnoth announced today that with the return of King Wrynn in Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard will be removing the attunement necessary for Onyxia. In vanilla WoW, Ony was an achievement and many peoples first introduction to raiding in Warcraft. In Burning Crusade it was often ran as a quick way to make a buck or get a nice helmet for an alt.Ony was one of the last, great old school attunements required in the game. With it gone, only Black Wing Lair and Molten Core remain as attunement required raids. This is a sad day for those of us that enjoyed the quest chain. A friend of mine and I were going to run this through on his Shaman and my up-and-coming Mage. Apparently we'll have to actually kick ourselves into gear and do it soon.There is no indication if this change will come with WotLK or with patch 3.0.2. However the King returns in 3.0.2, so I would have to assume the attunement will be lifted then. It should be noted however, that Valnoth did say they would attempt to return the chain some day in the future. But we all know how that can go...Thanks to Jarred for the tip!
