Project Lore

Project Lore delves deeper into The Blood Furnace and faces Broggok. Will Project Lore stop Broggok's madness or get the evil eye from him? Find out the strat essential to this fight as Project Lore comes eye-to-multieye with Broggok. Check our Blood Furnace Guide for some more tactics for this guy, and let us know if you know a good way to take out this strange demon. Armory links for characters featured in this episode: Dorkins, Goggins, Lylelovett, Shnoobins, and Xenophontos. Our Subscribe page has links for you to follow us on your favorite sites. Use the Episodes RSS feed or Twitter to find out when new episodes are out, and join our Facebook Group, Facebook Page, and MySpace. The next boss fight will be out Thursday at Noon Pacific, watch for it!

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Project Lore ventures into Heroic Blood Furnace and finds the first boss, The Maker. Will the guys dismantle The Marker or will they make his day? Find out the lore and strat for the first boss in The Blood Furnace, The Maker Check our Blood Furnace Guide for some more tactics for this guy, and let us know if you know a good way to take out this strange demon. Armory links for characters featured in this episode: Dorkins, Goggins, Lylelovett, Shnoobins, and Xenophontos. Our Subscribe page has links for you to follow us on your favorite sites. Use the Episodes RSS feed or Twitter to find out when new episodes are out, and join our Facebook Group, Facebook Page, and MySpace. The next boss fight will be out Tomorrow (Tuesday) at Noon Pacific, so stay tuned!

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Episode 8's instance guide has been posted! This week, Project Lore will be taking on Heroic Blood Furnace! The Project Lore gang will be taking on The Maker, Broggok, and Keli'dan the Breaker. Check out our guide, and let us know if you've got any tips or secret tactics that aren't in there. DrDark is playing Shnoobs, and Juggy has brought Xeno. Here's our release schedule for the week! Episode 8.1 - Noon PDT on Monday, September 1st Episode 8.2 - Noon PDT on Tuesday, September 2nd Episode 8.3 - Noon PDT on Thursday, September 4th Episode 8.4 (Wrap-up) - 3PM PDT on Friday, September 5th Remember to look at our subscribe page to find us all over the web, and use the Episodes RSS feed or follow our Twitter to find out when new episodes are out! You can also find us on MySpace and Facebook, so friend us up.

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The Maker

Abilities

• Melee: A melee attack which will hit everyone in melee range and appears to have a threat reduction component.
• Domination: Mind Control on a target that increases the target's damage and healing by 100%. Domination is non dispellable
• Acid Spray: Melee range AoE spray of acid
• Exploding Beaker: throws a beaker at a target, dealing 1000-1200 nature damage and knocks target into the air

Strategy

The Maker is a very straight forward fight. Tank him facing away from the party, be ready for domination with CC, and just DPS him down. The only thing that might make this fight difficult is an unfortunate mind control at an inopportune time, but keeping everyone topped off with health will make this fight a breeze.

Heroic

Damage and health increases, but nothing else complicates this fight.

Broggok

Abilities

• Poison Bolt: Deals damage and puts a DoT onto a party member
• Poison Cloud: Slowly expanding ring of poison appears directly beneath Broggok that damages anyone inside of it

Strategy

To start this encounter, you'll need to pull the lever in front of the gate. Before facing Broggok, you will have to kill four waves of orcs that emerge from the four cages in the room. The order that the cages open, if you're looking at Broggok from the entrance of the room, is far left, far right, near left, and then near right. On normal difficulty, group one is four non-elites, group two is three non-elites and one elite, group three is two non-elites and two elites, and group four is one non-elite and three elites. On the fly crowd control and good communication are extremely helpful in these fights. Polymorph, Fear, Freezing Trap, even short term things like blind and scatter shot will help you get situated and minimize damage. It can also be useful to stunlock a mob to free the tank to grab other enemies. Since the first wave is non-elite, they can be AoE'd. The second wave can be handled similarly, but waves three and four should be tanked and cc'd as much as possible. Once the final orc from a group is killed, the next gate immediately opens, so the tank should move into position to get the next group before the last mob dies. As soon as the last wave of orcs is killed, Broggok will emerge. Note that you will not leave combat between waves or before Broggok comes out, leaving no chance to rest, so be prepared to use potions, health stones, mana gems, or any cooldowns to refresh mana and health through all of the waves. Once Broggok is active, the most important thing is to move him away from the poison circles that he drops. If you survive to face Broggok, you will usually be able to beat him, since none of his abilities are difficult to handle.

Heroic

All of the orcs in the groups leading to Broggok are elite. The first two waves have three orcs each and the last two waves have four orcs each. Each successive wave will be released on a timer after the previous group if it is not killed, so you won't be able to keep one crowd controlled for a long break. Broggok is the same if you manage to down the orcs unscathed, with increased health and damage. Survive the waves and you should be able to make it through Broggok.

Keli'dan the Breaker

Abilities

• Shadow Bolt Volley: Launches shadow bolts in all directions hitting all players in 40 yard range. Normal 1000 damage, Heroic 2000 damage.
• Burning Nova: Keli'dam will emote and turn invulnerable before casting this massive AoE, giving you time to run away.

Strategy

By attacking any of the Shadowmoon Channelers they will all be pulled, starting the boss encounter. Keli'dan will not be released until the last channeler is dead. The channelers will cast Shadow Bolt and Mark of Shadow, which should be dispelled before engaging the boss if possible. If you don't have anyone in the group who can dispel the debuff, you can keep the last channeler crowd controlled until it falls off of everybody. Once Keli'dan is released, the major thing to avoid will be his Burning Nova. Once you see his emote and he becomes invulnerable, melee including the tank should run away from him until he casts it. Ranged should also make sure to be out of its range. Once it goes off, get back to him quickly to avoid multiple shadow bolt volleys.

Heroic

The fight prior to the boss is the same, but now Keli'dan will pull everyone who is not in melee range to him when he starts casting the Burning Nova. Everyone needs to turn and run as soon as this happens.

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Episode 7 is now complete! Alexis is here to wrap up this awesome episode, which had some classic moments for everyone. Goggins keeps the hits coming with his termor totem song.  Rob's already made his own awesome version of It's Goggins!, so are any of you guys going to adapt this one? Here are quick links to each part of this week's episode Episode 7.1 Episode 7.2 Episode 7.3 Episode 7.4 You can find all of our episodes here, and head to our subscribe page to follow us on your favorite sites. Use the Episodes RSS feed, the Blog RSS feed, or Twitter to find out when new episodes are out, and join our Facebook Group, Facebook Page, and MySpace!

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Some more details have been coming out about the pre-Wrath of the Lich King content patch. As you know, the upcoming patch will act as a “bridging” patch. What this means is that Blizzard will use patch 3.0.2 to introduce a chunk of the Wrath changes, before Wrath is launched. This is the same thing Blizzard did with patch 2.0.1, introducing some aspects of The Burning Crusade into vanilla World of Warcraft. That addition came just a little over a month before TBC's release. Eyonix mentioned as part of patch 3.0.2's announcement that the notes would be coming shortly. However they still have not been posted. Nevertheless, Blizzard has posted additional information through alternative means. First we have a promise from Bornakk that the game won't be broken by the patch. I still remember the horror of “Assault on Blackwing Lair” or patch 1.6.0. I never wanted to use add-ons again after how long it took for all of my add-ons to be repaired, and then the time it took to go find them.  One by one.  Thankfully, we have tools like BLASC now. Bornakk also mentions that the patch should arrive “in the coming weeks”. To back up that statement the PTR forums have been wiped. An act that always happens shortly before a new patch is tested. Zarhym brought us the first list of detailed changes yesterday, the long promised changes to raid buffs/debuffs and stacking. The changes are drastic and the post is long, so it is worth the read for the hardcore PvE players out there. The Summation:

• Most buffs/debuffs will be raid-wide (ie Warrior shouts, Shaman totems).
• All buffs are categorized in one or more of 30 categories. Most categories have only a few buffs in them.
• Buffs from the same categories will not stack, with the most powerful buff taking precedence
• Mana regeneration buffs to be assigned to 10 players with the least mana
• Numerous existing buffs and debuffs have been reworked for the new system

Blizzard hopes that the changes will allow raiders to bring whomever is available to a raid – within reason - instead of requiring a concrete template be filled. Zarhym noted that Blizzard will be fine tuning the system and changes as needed based on internal testing and community feedback. So start the feedback process.

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Vanity pets, non-combat pets, small pets, companions, mini-pets, waste of bag space, whatever you know them as, they are here to stay. I am by no means a collector of the pets, but I know plenty of people who are. Way back in vanilla World of Warcraft, I had a guildie whose goal was to fill up all his bag slots with the buggers and then pull them out one by one during a Molten Core run. But just because I don't collect them doesn't mean I don't enjoy them or strive to achieve a few. This year's Children's Week brought the cutest pet I have seen in the game. Getting a hold of the foul beast meant that I had to spend a few hours running all over Azeroth to get Egbert's Egg. Seeing that little Hawkstrider wig out when you stand idle was well worth the time. Then Blizzard Entertainment got into the Olympic mood and added a Gold Medallion that would summon a small dragon known as the Spirit of Competition. This pet also required a bit of a time commitment. For each PvP battleground a player won, they had a chance to be rewarded with the item. The chance was fairly high, making the non-combat pet a fairly common one on my server. Nevertheless, being a huge fan of the Olympics and dragons, I had to have one. The Worldwide Invitational also had an interesting pet that I was not able to get my hands on, Archangel Tyrael of Diablo II fame. Shortly after people began populating the world with Tyrael – not to mention trying to get him to duel with Diablo – I heard that he wasn't that cool of a pet. In fact, Tyrael has one animations to speak of, crossing his arms. He also responds to /dance, he just won't stop dancing until he is re-summoned. Seeing as my main is a rogue, I don't get to run around with my pets too much. It wasn't until I ran a string of heroics and some Karazhans that I realized the Spirit of Competition doesn't have any animations to speak of either. It just floats there, acting like a Wind Serpent. Lame. So what this means is that the last two semi- to near- exclusive pets have almost no animations, idle or emotes, to speak of. It appears that the newest pets have had far less time put into them than the easily accessible rewards from Children's Week or the dozens of other companions running around. I know vanity pets aren't that big of a deal but these are supposed to be the exclusive ones, they should be the coolest to own. What's up with that Blizzard? Did they finally revolt?

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Some of you may know that I, SaintGermain, am a bit of a scholar, a man of the world you might say. My travels throughout Azeroth, the Outlands and the mysterious realm of RL have brought to me many realizations about life lessons, many universal truths you might say, that I feel the need to share with you. Over the next several weeks, I will give you my perspective of life lessons, 33 to be exact, learned while adventuring in the WoW universe and how they may apply to you when you when you choose to venture into the ominous zone of RL. Rest assured that this will be fun and might even make you see WoW in a whole new light. And, as life, will be presented in no particular order. :) Yes, this WoW is a fun game, and yes, it's a place to have fun and enjoy yourself. It's great to slay a few monsters, get some gear and make pretty dresses. And it is also a place to learn about yourself and RL if you are willing to see it that way. It's always been fun for me to see the macrocosm and microcosm in all things so why not in WoW? What life lessons you ask? Well that's for me to type and you to read whenever you like. Just know this: they are WoW based and applicable in RL right now. So hold on to your philosophical hats my fine internet friends. Things are about to get interesting.

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A few things have cropped up in the larger World of Warcraft community that are likely to interest many of you. Both of them are Wrath based, although I would not call any of the upcoming information a “spoiler.” So feel free to read on without learning that Arthas is a sled and that Azeroth is really Earth in the distant future. First up, we have a YouTube look at the new calendar system. The guild calendar is one of the biggest changes that Wrath of the Lich King will bring to the user interface. Although, we now know that the change will be coming as part of the last content patch for The Burning Crusade. When the patch launches, guilds can stop depending on, and the author can stop creating, GroupCalendar. Since the video is from the beta, things may change a bit before it goes live. Highlights include:

• Personal calendar filtering by Battleground Holidays, Raid Lockouts, Darkmoon Faire, Weekly Holidays and Raid Resets.
• All users can create events viewable by a selected group and/or the guild.
• Created events can be of various categories - PvP, Raid, Dungeon, Meeting, Other.
• Creators and moderators can modify the event including attendee status.
• Users will be notified of event invites by a flashing calendar icon on the minimap. They can then RSVP to the event.
• Events will display the number and classes of players that have RSVPed. Inviting from the calendar interface is also possible.

The next piece of Wrath goodness isn't created by Blizzard in anyway. WotLKWiki has put together a tidy, interactive map of Northrend that acts a lot like Google maps (it is “Powered by Google” after all). You can click-drag the map, center, zoom in and out. Double clicking on an area will zoom in and center. So yea, just like Google Maps. Really there isn't anything too impressive with the map but it's fun to take for a spin.

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Blizzard just announced on the World of Warcraft site that they have selected the 'winners' of the BlizzCon opt-in ticket drawing. These lucky 1500 people now have the chance to buy two tickets to BlizzCon for $100 each. If anyone who was selected doesn't purchase both tickets, another round of selections will be made. For those of us patiently waiting for BlizzCon tickets, it's a big moment. This is likely one of the last chances for Blizzard fans to get tickets to the show, although who really knows how good those odds were, since we don't know the number of people who actually opted in. This drawing, of course, was the result of a failure on Blizzard's part to ensure that their online store would be able to handle the amount of people wanting tickets when they went on sale a while back. It was a good enough solution for this year, but in the future, more and more people are likely going to want to get tickets to BlizzCon. They've got to come up with something that will allow tickets to be distributed fairly. I'd love to hear all of your thoughts on the subject, too. How do you think this whole debacle was handled? What are your thoughts on a solution for the future? A bigger venue? More expensive tickets? Fewer swag items? Also, how many of you guys opted in to get tickets, and did any of you get that email letting you know you could purchase them?

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