Project Lore

Dorkins continues his rep grind, this time with The Oracles in the Sholazar Basin. He grabs the three daily quests and goes to find a few shinnies with his new friend Jaloot. Find out how in this episode of Project Lore.

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"If you reach 80 before I do, I will pull out my hair." Not the smartest thing to say to your competitive friends. Especially not with witnesses online. But it started off innocently enough. A couple weeks ago, I was enjoying a nice evening of playing WoW and chatting it up over Teamspeak with the RL friends in my small guild. I was commenting on how quickly a couple of my friends have been leveling. The guild leader's alt and one of my friends who is new to WoW had been playing together and already reached level 60, in the same amount of time that it took me to go from 60 to 70. But I'm not the fastest leveler by any means. I like to take my time enjoying the lore and quests, I get distracted in-game pretty easily by non-xp-driven tasks and to top it off, I just don't play quite as much as my buddies. They've been bugging me for a while about my not-so-hasty leveling process. Sure, the comments always are friendly, but I know they really do want me to get to 80 fast ("We want to start on those 10-mans, Pixie, hurry up already!"). So, I started to pick up the pace a bit in Northrend. And by the time I reached level 76 a couple of weeks ago, they were at level 70. Not too bad on my end. So when one of them commented that they would reach level 80 before me, I was feeling a little over-confident. And in a weak moment of expressing my frustration at their seemingly limitless play time, I said it. "If you reach 80 before I do, I will pull out my hair." As soon as they started asking how I would look bald, I knew that they wouldn't back down. Although I hadn't REALLY meant it seriously, it didn't matter. If I take it back, I lose. So I logged off that night determined to make it happen. Then life took over, and I didn't log in for two weeks. Every day that life kept me away from WoW, I dreaded more and more the thought of logging in and realizing that I had lost. Then, last weekend I finally got some free time back again. The first thing I do upon logging in? Pull up the guild window and look at everyone's levels. Turns out, RL kicked in for them, too. Or maybe just summer. Because they're only level 72. /Cheer! Now I have to get busy! Whether they start seriously or not, there's plenty of friendly in-game bets that add another aspect to gameplay. You could make it a race to complete quests under a certain amount of time, or time how long it takes for each of you to reach a certain level, or you could compete to get specific achievements before the other. What are your stories of wagers or competitions you've had in-game? Did you come out on top, or lose?

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It's amazing how time flies! With a new dungeon on the horizon and boss testing already underway, I figured I better get my ass in gear on these second looks! It's been a few weeks since the first article, which covered the Siege area of the dungeon, and I feel like I've gotten a lot more experience with the three fights that make up the Antechamber: Iron Council, Kologarn, and Auriaya. Though the Algalon encounter is technically in this area, it cannot be accessed until after Yogg-Saron, so it will be included in a later second look. Let's move right along, shall we? The Iron Council - I won't lie. I wasn't exactly happy when we made a detour from Kologarn in a raid earlier this week to go pick a fight with the Iron Council first. It's not that it's an especially tough encounter, at least not if you follow the prescribed sequence of Steelbreaker -> Molgeim -> Brundir, but there are just so many easy ways for it to spin out of control. Tanks get their face smashed in by a Fusion Punch, or forget to move Steelbreaker out of the Rune of Power quick enough. People forget to remove the debuff from the tank. Or, maybe, the group in the back lacks the means or forgets to interrupt Brundir's Lightning Whirl. The Iron Council - Steelbreaker, Molgeim, and Brundir A second's misjudgement on the part of the tank, or those that are directly supporting him, can lead to sudden and plentiful wipes, quickly wearing down the raid's morale. And so it is, that whenever we attempt this fight, we almost always get through it, but not before racking up a few losses. One-shots of the Iron Council have been rare for my guild, no matter how experienced with the encounter the players involved may be. As a rogue, there's damage to avoid, but not a whole lot to contribute until interrupts are needed for Brundir in the final phase. Typically, at that point, the fight is already won. The hardest part of the Iron Council is the first third, when resources are spread thin and you have to account for all three generals at once. So how does this fight measure up to my expectations? Honestly, they were pretty spot on. Adds are one thing, but any encounter where you have to control several boss characters at once is going to have consistent challenges to meet (see: High King Maulgar or Fathom-Lord Karathress, both from Burning Crusade). Just as well, it seems that very few guilds have completed this encounter on the hardest difficulty (by killing Steelbreaker last). Why don't we move on to something a little more palatable? Kologarn - Oh, man. Kologarn looked so imposing when we first saw him. He's even the guy that Brann Bronzebeard is running away from the Ulduar preview video. A colossal golem, and a gatekeeper mob at that. He's got to be a pain in the rear, right? Nope. Kologarn in all of his massive glory. This. Guy. Is. A. Pushover. He gets points for looking cool, and he can push some heavy, periodic damage with his Shockwave ability, but other than that, Kologarn is a total piece of cake. Especially on 10-man, where you don't really have to rotate tanks, just keep one on the sidelines to pick up the rubble that spawns when you kill his arm. It's been quite awhile since my guild has wiped on Kologarn and its rare that anyone dies during the fight (only when they idle in the eye beams too long or accidentally fall into the gap). It's not really an issue for ranged attackers, but the only problem I've encountered as a melee dps is that the Rubble that spawns from a smashed arm can dish out a really nasty AoE. Avoid the beams, kill the right arm (four times should be enough), keep your healing steady, and this fight is a piece of cake. Auriaya - We've nicknamed her the Crazy Cat Lady. This fight is painfully simple, perhaps even more so than Kologarn, if (and this is a big if) you can handle the pull. It's dependent on having some really skilled tanks, and even though my guild does, we've still had trouble with engagement. The most typical strategy I've seen is to have most of your raid sit around the corner (down the stairs from Kologarn), and let the tanks stand just out of the line of sight until she gets into melee range. It may be prudent to have a Shaman drop a totem further up to actually pull Auriaya and give your meat shields a little bit more time to react. Her panther adds will immediately pounce the closest aggro targets, which (if we do it wrong) seem to be healers most of the time. The Crazy Cat Lady! To reduce this, I've found it a good idea to have the tanks time their damage reduction cooldowns just right so that they can survive the initial assault presumably without the help of healers. If you get past that point, the encounter is terribly facile. Train everyone to stand in front of her (as opposed to far away or behind her) and dish out the damage. If you're doing this fight on 10-man, you may not even kill the Feral Defender that she summons. Should that happen, simply avoid the large (and very obvious) void zone it leaves behind. AoEs are handy for the smaller adds, but they are not a primary concern. Conclusion - The Antechamber is heavy on quick tank kills, but if your guild has the chops to survive those, it's arguably the easiest section of Ulduar. What may slow you down is exhaustion more than anything. By the time we get to Auriaya, it's usually the end of our first night in the dungeon, people are tired and not nearly as focused as they were in the beginning. This makes managing the pull even tougher than normal because people aren't on their "A-game." It makes a good stopping point, though, because even if you have the energy after killing the Cat Lady, this is where things get real. Ulduar up until this point, believe it or not, has been a cakewalk. The four Guardians, and what lay beyond them, require deeper, more pointed strategies, so its better to tackle them after a good night's rest! I'll be covering the Guardians (Hodir, Thorim, Freya, and Mimiron) in the next edition of the Second Look, and I have to admit that it's my favorite part of the dungeon. There's some good eye candy and dynamic fights to look forward to, not to mention it's the most lore-centric section of Ulduar. All four of these bosses you've met or been involved with while leveling up in Northrend! Meanwhile, I want to hear what the rest of you thought about these fights and the Antechamber in general. Too easy, too hard? Has your guild also been thwarted by the tough pulls or is it smooth sailing all the way through? If Ulduar was an epic trilogy, would this be your Empire Strikes Back? Please let me know in the comments section!

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There is only a month and a week to go before a swarm of nerds infest Anaheim, and likely Disneyland.  Initially I planned on putting this post up next week, for the nice round month figure, but some BlizzCon news was broke early morning.  That makes today's maintenance hours a far more fitting time.  According to an Internet sleuth named SeanbaJuice, comedian Jay Mohr will be MCing BlizzCon for the second year in a row.  Blizzard's PR, which is likely still sleeping as of this writing, has yet to answer calls for confirmation.  Rob Pardo should have never given me his cell number. I've been to numerous game conventions before, E3, NYCC, VGXPO, but never one dedicated to a single company.  Oh, I've tried.  When id Software was still the king of FPS (not to mention independent) I almost ventured out to Texas for the free QuakeCon.  Those aspirations were dashed, twice.  I wasn't about to let that happen to BlizzCon this year.  Since the quasi-annual conference was announced for 2009 I have been plotting my attendance.  I ferreted away large wads of Washingtons for the plane ride, located multiple forms of identification, squirreled away some Lincolns for the tickets, and turned in my change for spend money.  Finances in order, I awaited that faithful day.  By the grace of the greater Internet I scored a pair of tickets and officially marked my calendar. Even if I wasn't a fan of Jay Mohr there is still plenty to get excited about.  I won't be partaking in any of the contests, original song, fan art, costume, movie, sound-alike, dance or otherwise, but I will take a gander at them, time permitting.  Instead I will be focusing my attention on the as-yet-detailed panels for all things Blizzard Entertainment.  Being a fan of all of the company's franchises it will be hard to play favorites. Who am I kidding, the reveal of WoW's third expansion will have be backflipping over turtle mounts and prancing around cosplay nutjobs.  But we all know the real reasons I am attending, Grunty and the rest of the goody bag. The silent auction may be of interest.  Perhaps we should start a donation page to put whatever-it-may-be in PL's studio?  Is anyone else getting pumped yet?  Tickets ready, bags packed and Game Fuel acquired?  Could Cataclysm really be the next expansion?  Is this going to be anyone else's first BlizzCon.  Anyone been to them all so far? BlizzCon 2009 will be held in the Anaheim Convention Center on August 21 and 22.  Tickets are sold out, and beware of scalpers! What's this I hear, Ozzy Osbourne at BlizzCon?!  Interesting...

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Being someone who likes to keep tabs on what the major raiding guilds are doing, I must say the last several weeks have been among the most interesting I have seen in a long time. If you are not familiar with the recent news I am talking about the whole ordeal surrounding the "Heroic: Alone In The Darkness" achievement, which is the hardest of the Yogg-Saron hard modes. Killing Yogg with the help of zero keepers means giving up a lot of help. There is no one to save you should you nearly die, the tentacles are much nastier than usual, there are no sanity wells, and most importantly you cannot kill the immortal guardians in phase three. Winning this encounter is considered the peak of the current raiding content; it is more difficult than taking down Algalon himself. What is interesting to me is when people first started trying this encounter not only did they think it was hard, many thought it was impossible. That's right many theorycrafters at sites like Elitist Jerks thought it was literally and mathematically impossible. This belief was so commonly held that many top guilds, including guilds like Ensidia, seemed to give up on it, waiting for a nerf before they continued working on this encounter. It is this belief that made so many people cry foul when Exodus first got the achievement by exploiting the encounter. The point I am getting to is just how utterly impressed I am that despite all this; a few guilds, most notably Stars, continued to grind away at this night after night until they came up with a strategy that was able to beat what they are calling the most difficult encounter in the history of WoW. Being the raid leader of a guild who has spent nights wiping on much tamer hard modes, I can imagine the type of dedication and endurance that doing something like this would take. Since Stars' world first we have seen two other guilds, one EU the other US, win this fight. It is impressive all around, but I think special recognition needs to go to those that strived to do something that was deemed unobtainable. I have to hand it to Blizzard for not caving in and nerfing this before guilds like Stars could prove everyone wrong. For the rest of us, maybe it proves that nothing is impossible after all.

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The PTR datafiles have once again been mined in order to give us a preview of what the newest Arena season has to offer. MMO-Champion has posted screenshots of the latest armor sets available to the top Arena competitors next season, and I have to say, most of it is pretty good looking. In fact, I have no issues with any of the sets except one. The Shaman set has to be one of the ugliest sets I've ever seen. My only hope is that there are some changes coming up for the colors, at the very least. It could be that I am just overly critical of Blizzard's decisions that affect my class, but in my opinion every other class has a nice evolution from the Season 5 and 6 sets with decent looking gear that generally fits the overall feel of the class. I can't say the same about the Shaman set. Blizzard's design philosophy behind arena gear in Wrath of the Lich has been less flashy gear that has been made by the top crafters that gets better as the seasons progress. While the shaman set certainly didn't start out pretty, it seems to be getting worse. Take a look at all of the sets over on MMO-Champion, I'd love to hear if other players (shaman and non-shaman alike) think I'm just being too particular about gear that I probably will never get - especially the helmet and shoulders.

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Who Needs A Body? For reasons unknown I was meet with a good amount of playtime this weekend.  Rather then ponder on my good fortunes I set out to plow through level 73 (accomplished) on my priest in an effort to have her join the raiding ranks before Cataclysm is released.  With most of the quests in Dragonblight accomplished on my dagger lover I went about my business rushing through quests, burning down numerous mobs and getting ganked.  Then I ran into Orik Trueheart and his eye-catching T2 (recolored) Paladin set. Trueheart is a dwarf on a mission.  He was sent to the Forgotten Shore in Dragonblight to free the souls of those that Arthas betrayed.  In case you forgot, upon hearing that his father had ordered Arthas' troops returned to Lordaeron, the crown prince had the fleets boats burned to their frames.  The actions have been retold numerous times, most recently in the novel, so the setup isn't exactly new.  But we've always followed Arthas' journey into Frostmourne Cavern after that.  Turns out that the men Arthas stranded on the chilly shores eventually died to the Scourge around them and were cursed to defend the landing forever.  That's where Trueheart comes in. Trueheart's questline, one that offers a whopping amount of quick, easy and local experience, has players once again leave their bodies to converse with the dead.  After learning their plight, we realize that the souls have been trapped because they forgot how they came to be.  Naturally it's up to us to release them.  Upon finding a use for the unusual emblem residing in the snow we are graced with a scripted cinematic that brings numerous other names into play.  If you haven't played Warcraft III or read Arthas' novel, then the line is a good place to witness Arthas' descent into madness. This Random Emblem Caught Me Off Guard Until... Sick of reliving old lore and wishing Blizzard would introduce more original backstory?  Stop crying and do it anyways.  Upon completion of the Arthas nostalgia I was given the opportunity to crush some Scarlet Onslaught faces.  Seeing as decimating the ranks of the Scarlet followers, Crusade or otherwise, is a favored pastime of mine, I couldn't say no.  Zelig, Trueheart's "bra", and his compadres of the 7th Legion, sent me off to collect information, curb overpopulation and brush up on my reading comprehension.  How could one pass up XP and nostalgic murder?  Little did I know that my face melting would lead me back to ancient lore.  The scripted culmination with Muradin in the Frostmourne Cavern is both new, and highly interesting.  It also offers sick loot too boot. I was privy to the information given in the cinematic, I just can't believe that I missed such a long questline the first time around.  According to my buddy, the chain continues, becoming far more complex than a little Spock-style retconning.  If it stay on the same level of awesomeness then I will definitely have more for you.  Approaching a year from releases Wrath of the Lich King continues to impress me with its quest design, presentation and integration. These Alliance restricted quests make me wonder, what the heck is the Horde revisting?

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Alex, Jeff and Juggy are back with their toons Droobins, Winterstrike and Juggynaut to go on a mount run in Zul'Gurub. There's two possible mounts in there, but will they get one?  Find out in this episode of Project Lore.

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Blizzard just updated the PTR patch notes to include some changes made in the lastest build of their latest patch, 3.2. Included are some minor but extremely welcomed changes to my class of choice along with a few of the lesser classes. Following are the changes from the previous version of the notes from MMO-Champion:

Arenas

• Beginning with season 7, players will no longer have access to the newest season's weapons or shoulder armor and will not qualify for the Gladiator title/rewards with ratings from the 2v2 bracket alone. Ratings obtained through 3v3 and 5v5 game play will be required for these rewards, while the rest of the newest season's items will remain available to players in all brackets (standard rating restrictions still apply).

Items: General

• Resilience: No longer reduces the amount of damage done by damage-over-time spells, but instead reduces the amount of all damage done by players by the same proportion. In addition, the amount of resilience needed to reduce critical strike chance, critical strike damage and overall damage has been increased by 15%.

Death Knight

• Blood of the North: Reduced to a 3-point talent. Increases Blood Strike and Frost Strike damage by 3/6/10%. There is now a 33/66/100% chance whenever you hit with Blood Strike or Pestilence that the Blood Rune will become a Death Rune when it activates.

Druid

• Swift Flight Form: Druids who have acquired a mount able to go 310% flight speed will now also go that speed while in this form.

Hunter

• Snake Trap: The Mind-numbing Poison effect has been reduced to a 30% increase in casting time, down from 50% to match similar effects.

Mage

• Mirror Image: Images will no longer trigger the death sound when their time expires.

Paladin

• Shield of Righteousness: Now deals 100% of shield block value as damage instead of 130%. In addition, the benefit from additional block value this ability gains is now subject to diminishing returns. Diminishing returns occur once block value exceeds 30 times the player's level and caps the maximum damage benefit from shield block value at 34.5 times the player's level.

Shaman

• Earth Shock: Redesigned. This spell no longer interrupts spell casting, but rather reduces melee attack speed by 10% for 8 seconds (exclusive with similar effects such as Thunder Clap).
• Wind Shock: Has been renamed Wind Shear and no longer shares a cooldown with Flame, Frost or Earth Shock.
• Maelstrom Weapon: Now also has a chance to reduce the cast time of Hex.

Warrior

• Shield Slam: The benefit from additional block value this ability gains is now subject to diminishing returns. Diminishing returns occur once block value exceeds 30 times the player's level and caps the maximum damage benefit from shield block value at 34.5 times the player's level.

Engineering

• Flying Machine: The level requirement needed to learn how to build and use this machine has been reduced to level 60, down from level 70, and the engineering skill level reduced to 300, down from 350. Material costs reduced.

Items

• Tome of Cold Weather Flying: New heirloom item. Players who have reached level 80 can now purchase this book for 1,000 gold from Hira Snowdawn, the Cold Weather Flying Trainer in Dalaran. Similar to other heirloom items, this item can be mailed to other characters of the same realm, account and faction. The book is consumed when read training the character in Cold Weather Flying. Requires level 68.
• Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings: This item's stats and level have been increased to match the power level of healer weapons coming from the Coliseum 25-person normal difficulty instance. In addition, each time Val'anyr is equipped, Blessing of Ancient Kings will be placed on a 45-second cooldown before it can occur.

As I said, the changes to the way Wind Shock (now Wind Shear) behaves is welcomed in the Shaman community - this change will at the very least allow me to do a full DPS rotation while still concentrating on interrupts, as most other melee classes with interrupts (Rogues, Death Knights, Warriors) are able to do. I can't wait to try it out on Vezax. Additionally, Maelstrom Weapon + Hex should be extremely useful in PvP. The other changes that caught my eye were the Druid Flight Form increasing to 310% if the character has a 310% mount and the Val'anyr upgrade. I can only hope they upgrade with my Headless Horseman's Mount the same as the Swift Flight Form. It would be great to be able to keep flying on it once I get my Violet Proto Drake. The Val'anyr change will at the very least make healers still want to run Ulduar once the patch drops (as if they wouldn't anyway). What do you guys gather from the lastest patch notes?

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As we enter the end of the 3rd 'set' of raid instances in the current expansion, I think it is a good time to take a look at Blizzard's new raid philosophy which made another dramatic change in WotLK, not unlike the change from 40 man raids to 25 man raids in Burning Crusade. With the release of this expansion Blizzard essentially made a promise to the entire WoW community that the raid content would be opened up to everyone (in theory). They changed all raids in Wrath to have two separate versions, a 10 man and a 25 man. Within those raids they had even more lines drawn with heroic and standard versions of many of the fights. For better or for worse though, six months into this expansion we can see that they are well on the way to their goal to opening this content up to nearly everyone. On my home server of Cenarius you can find PuGs for any range of content that fits your need without too many problems. Did your side just capture Wintergrasp? It's very easy to find a group for Vault of Archavon which drops some of the best armor pieces in the game (for both PvPers and PvEers). Naxxramas, Eye of Eternity, Obsidian Sanctum, and even Ulduar are all PuG options for both versions. Granted you most likely will not be hitting up the hard modes with these kinds of groups, but you're seeing the content, which is esentially what Blizzard wants. This is why they brought Naxxramas back (which I missed the first time around, so I am a huge fan of the decision) and why they have expanded the types of groups that can attend these raids, and brought around the philosophy of “bring the player, not the class” (which was a problem in TBC, especially with Sunwell). As positive as these changes are there are naysayers, mostly in the hardcore raiding community. They do have a point as they continually clear through normal modes like nothing. Blizzard really changed the raid designs with Ulduar though. There was only one fight with the release of WotLK that gave those who went “the extra mile” incentive and better gear for doing the fight in a more challenging way (Sartharion with three drakes up). With Ulduar though, most fights have a hard mode, better loot and a greater sense of accomplishment. To even clear the whole instance though players must clear hard modes to unlock the extra boss Algalon. Now that Ulduar has been fully cleared (all hard modes completed) we can shift our focus to the future once again with 3.2. The raid philosophy gets a slight shift again, this time with the separation of 10 man and 25 man raids into regular and heroic, all with separate lockout timers, so essentially you'll be able to run Trial of the Crusader four times a week, all on the same character. In the coming weeks though, we will get a lot more information about this raid zone as we will see the zone live on the PTR for testing. Blizzard seems to be opening things more and more for players to experience the raids. With the change to badges helping players gear up fairly quickly to be able to have proper gear for the new content shows a shift in design philosophy. Previously you absolutely had to have cleared old content (within that expansion) to really gear up for the newest, or next tier, of content. The lines have been blurred now and there is no “one” way to gear up properly anymore. Once patch 3.2 drops we will most likely see an emergence of heroics being run once again, and quick clears of Naxxramas (my guild doesn't even have anything besides Ulduar and Wintergrasp on our raid schedule). It seems as if Blizzard is attempting to please everyone with this patch, the hardcore raiders will have their 25 man heroic and regular 25 man to gear up quickly and easily. While tighter knit guilds still have the opportunity to do regular or heroic modes. Blizzard is also introducing a feature that I think every guild will be able to appreciate, with the ability to extend a lockout period an additional week. This will allow guilds to get additional work on a particularly challenging boss, but will require them to give up loot on the “easier” bosses for one week. I think this will be another level of strategy for raid leaders and guild leaders to use their time more effectively for their guild. Possibly the biggest surprise throughout all of this is that there will be absolutely no trash in this instance, purely bosses! I am a huge fan of this and I think more people will be happy over this than just me, no more complaining that mages pad the meters on trash! Will this be how it is in Icecrown Citadel though? I would be very surprised if they did, as I think this is a special case scenario and I think they want the Colosseum feel to feel authentic and not similar to how it was in Hyjal. If we take a look at our preview of Crusader's Coliseum then it appears that it will be just one area that we fight in (this may or not be the case and we should know very soon). Do you like the way Blizzard is pushing their raid content now? There are a lot more options for people (three separate versions of the Tier 9 gear) do you think this will spread the player base out a bit too much? And one more thing, what will you be doing with your guild, just one tier of the new raid or multiple ones?

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