Project Lore

In all my time raiding in WoW I have not seen an issue quite as polarizing as the Sartharion Encounter in The Obsidian Sanctum with all three drakes left alive (commonly called Sarth 3D.) This has been especially true in my guild lately as it is the last major hurtle we still have to overcome.

This encounter is commonly regarded as the most challenging fight in the current end game, and is something only a handful of guilds have accomplished. The incentive for winning this encounter is an achievement, an awesome title, and a rare mount that will only drop in this encounter. For me, there is also the sense that you have beat the hardest fight in the end game, but for many that is not enough.

See, there has been a lot of debate in my guild if this is something worth striving for. The guild has been split sharply into two separate camps. One camp, the camp I am a member of says: yes, this is important. My reasoning is simple. It is progression, it is the only fight we have yet to win, and I want to win it!

The second camp says: no, its is not worth all the time and resources we put into it. They say it is not progression, as it does not add any usable gear to the loot table, there are no new bosses behind him, and downing him will not help us at all in Ulduar. Essentially they see it as an achievement and nothing more.

While I am full aware that the 3 drake loot table adds no gear over the 2 drake loot table, I am going to have to express my opinion against camp 2. For me, raiding has never been about the loot. I’ve downed hundreds of bosses without the benefit of receiving loot personally. I play the game to overcome challenges. More importantly overcome challenges with my friends and guildmates. That’s why I play the game, to do something fun and challenging! This is the last challenge left for our guild.

Now I am aware that people have different priorities in this game. Some like raiding more than others. I for one love raiding and am not bothered by wiping for hours on end, as long as it is a means to an end. Some people clearly are bothered by it, it can be frustrating, and more importantly expensive (repair bills aren’t cheap!).

While we continue to grind away, and I am hopeful we are close, there is an undercurrent of internal conflict on every pull. For me it seems that Sarth 3D is something you have the motivation for or you don’t. My guild is unfortunately split on the issue. How about you guys? Is this a worthy goal, a waste of resources, or something you got out of the way a long time ago?

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Fresh on the heels of my post about cool things to explore in the old world, I thought I would take a moment to highlight one of the more interesting ones: Stratholme. I will say this now, I am extremely lucky. I received the Baron mount on my 4th attempt. For those of you who don’t know what that means (I was surprised to learn how many are unfamiliar), let me explain what I am talking about. The Baron mount, or The Deathcharger's Reins, is an epic ground mount that drops from the final boss of Stratholme’s dead side: Baron Rivendare. It has a 1 in 100 drop rate. This has been greatly increase recently as it used to be 1 in 1,000 and 1 in 5,000 before that. Now that it exists in the world of attainability, lots of people spend time farming for this unique mount. Doing the “Baron Run” is not only a great way to get Argent Dawn rep for those of you going for Argent Champion (be sure you have your Argent Dawn Commission equipped!), but there is that great carrot of a mount at the end to keep you grinding away. Stratholme is a level 60 instance, and can be easily soloed by level 80 characters, and with a little more work if you are 70+. If done correctly the Baron run can be completed very quickly, with some able to do it in under 10 minutes. The easiest place to start is at the service entrance, far to the east of the main entrance in Eastern Plaguelands. To do this you must have The Key to the City. If you do not have the key, simply go in the front. You can also have somebody else open the gate for you, or even pick the lock if you have the ability. Once inside, make sure you kill Magistrate Barthilas as this will make future runs much simpler! Trash is packed tight in Stratholme, so you best policy is to kill things as soon as you aggro them so they don’t pull other mobs. That being said, a vast majority of the trash is completely skippable due to a very small aggro radius, especially for level 80s. In order to get access to Baron Rivendare, there are 3 bosses that must first be killed: Baroness Anastari, Maleki the Pallid, and Nerub'enkan. None of these bosses should present a challenge at high level, just make sure you enter their temples after the boss dies and kill all of the acolytes. You can find a great map of where to find these guys at Wowhead. Once the acolytes are dead you will gain access to a new area full of abominations. These must all be killed in order for the door to Rivendare’s room to be opened. It is good practice to save one for last, and kill him in front of the door to the Baron's chamber. That way, you can run in before the door shuts. Once this happens you have one more boss to kill: Ramstein The Gorger. Get him down and go kill the Baron! The run is quick, and I wish you luck on the drop! If you aren't lucky enough to get the mount, be sure and pick up all the loot, as it can be sold for a suprising amount of gold.

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While spending my days gearing a level 80 toon, it is pretty easy to get a bit of tunnel vision. Some days it feels like my whole world consists of the inside of Naxxramas, The Obsidian Sanctum, and the walls of Dalaran. It is very easy to take for granted the enormous amount of content that Blizzard has already created. It is largely ignored because it is not all geared towards players at the level cap. I really started to appreciate this recently as I have been helping a friend earn her Classic Dungeonmaster achievement. While I had done all these dungeons before, for some of them it had been a long, long time. This is especially true of the instances that are more accessible to horde, or were simply so long or difficult the first time around I had little desire to go back. Given, there is no longer any challenge in these instances, I can take a step back and enjoy them from an aesthetic or even design perspective. Blizzard has done some really cool stuff that is all but forgotten. Remember the temple stair event in Zul'Farak? The giant waterfall in Maraudon? Or tracking down the Archmage in Shadowfang Keep? Neither did I. Furthermore, taking the time to go back and check out these instances really gives you the opportunity to witness the evolution of Blizzard's game design. “They sure don’t build 'em like they used to.” Now if this is a good or bad thing is debatable, but the way instances flow is very different now. Instances seem much more linear, you really don’t get lost in them very often, and I’ll tell you, I got lost in Dire Maul. The events in instances also seem to flow differently. You don’t see things like the druid event in Wailing Caverns very often anymore. Given, I hate the druid event in Wailing Caverns, but it is interesting to see the path that Blizzard has ultimately chosen. What do you guys think? Are there any old instances that hold a special place in your heart? Or are you more content with the way things are now? I’d like to hear your thoughts on the old world. And if you haven’t seen all these places, go check them out! There’s even an achievement in it for you.

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For those of you that haven’t seen it yet, Blizzard has posted a very nice description and screenshots of the new Ulduar raid on their EU web site. For the last while I have been rather impatiently waiting for this raid, viewing it more as something necessary to keep my interest, rather than something to look forward to. Well, after reading what Blizzard posted I must say I have changed my tune. I am excited! This raid sounds freaking awesome. The thing I grabbed onto right away was the size of the content. I have been telling people for a while that I hoped Ulduar would be a substantial raid. Well it sounds like I got my wish. The post says there will be 14 bosses. This makes it larger than all of Tier 5 in Burning Crusade which had 10 bosses (6 in SSC and 4 in TK). Furthermore it claims that 11 of those fights will have hard modes (think Obsidian Sanctum with drakes up). This should provide tons of new challenges, achievements, and most importantly replayability. If I am going to be grinding this instance night after night I’m glad to hear we will be able to change it up and keep it interesting. The post also mentions an interesting "preinstance" that players must fight through in order to reach the instance proper. It sounds as if this will involve the raid taking out an army on vehicles before a final showdown with a boss that must be taken down on the vehicles as well. While I have never been a big fan of the “vehicle fights” I am going to keep my mind open on this one. While not a big fan of phase 3 Malygos and the Oculus, I love Wintergrasp and this seems to be going more in that direction. I couldn’t be happier that Blizzard has throw this carrot out there. I will be feverishly checking out the Blizzard site, forums, and news sites looking for more details. But for right now, I feel this one will be worth the wait. Be sure to read the preview for yourself here, and tell me, are you as geeked as I am about this one?

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As I said in my last post, I have been putting some time into leveling my level 60ish toons and trying to get them ready for prime time. As I’ve been questing away in Outland there is one thing I can’t seem to get away from, Death Knights! They are everywhere!

I’m not saying this is a bad thing, in fact it has worked to my advantage quite a bit. Leveling my resto-shaman for instance, has been a breeze. I just type “Healer LFG any instance, I will heal all you DKs!!” into general and I have a group together within minutes every time.

The fact of the matter is that DKs can destroy anything in Outland, I’ve experienced it myself by soloing groups quests several levels above me on my own Death Knight. Dare I saw they are a bit overpowered when compared to other classes of that level (I’ll save the max level discussion for later)? While not crazy about playing the class myself, I sure don’t mind riding their coattails through instances and leveling myself that much faster!

It’s not all smiles, however. I’ll admit the DK issue can be a bit problematic, there are of course Horde DKs everywhere, and I don’t stand a chance against them. Also, it does make me miss class diversity a bit, so I hope everything will even out a bit by the time my alts start hitting Northrend.

I know I had heard reports of the DKs running rampant all over Outland when WotLK first dropped, but I would have thought by now things would have calmed down. It appears they haven’t. It begs the questions, is everyone alting on a Death Knight? Or am I just experiencing the second wave of people leveling their DKs after they first geared up their mains?

I can appreciate the new Death Knight craze, but is anyone leveling anything else?

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As I’ve said before, I’m a little frustrated at the level of content available for my main at the moment. Lucky for me I am a bit of an Alt-o-holic, and have elsewhere to turn in this situation: my army of alts.

While the Paladin will always be my first love, I really enjoy giving my alts some play time and seeing how the other half lives. Lately I’ve been having a bit of trouble deciding which alt I want to level. My “main alt” has always been my rogue, but I am finding more and more that I am not enjoying the rogue as much as a I used to.

I also have a shaman, druid, and death knight (obviously) all above level 60. In trying to decide which one of these to spend time on, it occurred to me, why not level all of them!

Going back and logging into these characters for the first time since WotLK dropped, I noticed that they were all at full rested XP. This means that all of the experience for killing mobs is double. This coupled with sped up leveling from 60-70 AND the fact I’m getting another 10% experience from outfitting them all with heirloom leveling shoulders really meant that the experience was racking up fast.

By running two or three instances I could easily gain a level and use up a good chunk of my rested xp. Then I can simply switch to another character the next day and do the same. By the time you work your way back to your first character you are rested again!

Of course this isn’t the most efficient leveling system if you want to get another 80 as soon as possible, but that has never been the point of an alt for me. I like to hurry my first character, and do progression raiding as soon as I can before there are people around that can run me through stuff. On my alts I am much more likely to “smell the roses.” This method seems like the way to do it! Level quick, but try on a lot of shoes!

What do you think? What’s your approach to alts?

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One of my favorite things about playing World of Warcraft has always been the sense that the game is unbeatable. There is always something to do, always ways to improve yourself, and always something to suck up your time if you want it to. Getting a bit of a late jump into TBC raiding, the sense of things I hadn’t done and bosses I hadn’t seen was overwhelming. I loved having far off carrots to chase after and drive me to work on my character day after day. Lately though, I have grown concerned. I know lots of people are saying it, but I am honestly starting to believe that the current amount of content is very inadequate. I have long ago downed every boss in the game. When I saw Malygos go down for the first time, it was bittersweet, but I knew there was lots more to do because of the achievement system. I was content with the fact that while there weren’t any new bosses, there were plenty of new and challenging ways to kill those bosses. The problem now is I’ve spent the time over the last month or so and earned a lot of those achievements. And now I’m faced with the feeling that there aren’t even enough achievements left to keep me very interested. Sure I will likely keep farming Naxx until I have my gear looking exactly how I want it, and I still have the matter of killing Sartharion with 3 drakes up, but I very much want a longer laundry list of things I could still be doing. I consider myself a fairly strong raider, but I am nowhere near as hardcore as a lot of people. If I am running into this issue, I’m sure there are many more than myself who feel the same. In my eyes Ulduar can’t come soon enough, and if Blizzard wants to keep its more dedicated players interested there isn’t a moment to lose.

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Achievements are many things, they are fun ways to pass time, they are ways to show off some accomplishments, but there are just a few that seem to carry a little bigger meaning. These achievements are truly achievements, and they are not easy. Tonight I will start my 3^rd week of working on such an achievement: The Undying. And let me tell you, it is unlike anything I’ve worked toward in this game before. For those of you that are unfamiliar with the achievement it reads like this: “Within one raid lockout period, defeat every boss in Naxxramas on Normal Difficulty without allowing any raid member to die during any of the boss encounters.” Or in other words, it demands absolute perfection from every member of the raid. As we learned the hard way, even the tiniest misstep will end the entire attempt. First time we tried this we had zero deaths up until Kel’Thuzad where a Soul Weaver knocked back a death knight into a void zone just as it went off. It was heart breaking. The worst part about this achievement is that as the run goes on the more stressful it becomes, and if you happen to be the unlucky one to take the first dirt nap you really feel that you let down your friends. I’m sure it is not a good feeling (fortunately I do not know this firsthand). All of this is why I say that going for the Undying is unlike anything else in the game. It's tough, it's emotional, and its unforgiving. Luck plays very little role as you must play well for the entire run. For all its stress, I think it is great. If you see someone with the title, you know you are looking at a strong player, and likely one that was not carried by his friends. I plan to continue work until I have earned this one, and a true “grats” to any of you that have already done it.

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It’s one of my favorite times of the year again, holiday time in Azeroth! This means one thing for me, tons of new achievements to do. I have just started them myself, but looking over the list it seems to me that this event is going to bring out some of the best and worst in WoW achievements. Many of them seem awesomely exciting, while even more of them seem mind numbingly boring.

Let me start with the good. The achievement to honor the elders in the opposing factions cities is great. It encourages world PvP, gives you a reason to go some places you rarely go, and gives you the impression of a really fun adventure. I am glad blizzard included this, and I am looking forward to charging into Orgrimmar. I think I may be even more excited to rack up my city defender by killing Horde trying to do the same.

Now the not so good… just about everything else. Sure seasonal bosses are cool, fireworks are cool, but I really don’t like feeling like I have to wander all over the old world finding random guys in random zones, and not even getting any gold for my time. I’ve wandered around these places plenty before, first to get explorer, then to trick or treat during Hallow’s End, now I’m back at it. In my eyes this is little more than a time sink.

I can’t say I’m particularly fond of having to run through a bunch of lowbie instances either. Sure doing some of the more current content is fun, but do I really need to go do ZF of Stratholme again (especially now that I’ve got my Baron Mount)?

My one piece of advice as you embark on this incredibly dull task would be to look at your other achievements and see if you can knock anything out at the same time. Are there  squirrels that need lovin’, pests that need controlin’, or zones that need explorin'? Now is the time to do them. If you have to do something boring you might as well kill two birds with one stone.

Just keep reminding yourself, this is all for the Violet Proto-Drake.

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I don’t think I am the only one growing a little impatient for the promised patch 3.0.8. I really don’t know why I am so anxious, but I am. It is only a minor patch, and I shudder to think how fidgety I will be before the release of Uldar.

Maybe its just me, but it seems like think thing has been up on the PTR forever. While we are only getting some polish and a few changes there are 3 things that have me really excited about this patch.

1. Paladin single target taunt. Finally, this is something I have wanted for as long as I have been a tank, and I can’t wait to see how this fits into my rotation.

2. New enchants. Specifically new tanking enchants (edit: tanking enchant... sigh). As someone who strives to collect all available enchants, this is a big double dip for me!

3. Gotta Go Nerfed. Maybe I am being lazy, but this is the only heroic achievements I have not done yet, and I want my red proto-drake! Sure I could put together an extreme group and spend half a day and grind this out, but somehow it just seems easier to walk through.

There is much more, but those things alone have had me running to my computer every Tuesday morning for the last 3 weeks hoping to see some signs of a patch release. Signs seem to say that this coming Tuesday is likely, but that’s what I said last week. If not this Tuesday it would have to be the one after, right? I can only hope.

How about you guys? Are you looking forward to 3.0.8? I know there are mixed feeling of excitement and dread on class rebalances, and somethings that are minor, but none the less cool (repairing scrap bots!). So what is your take on the pending (we can only hope) patch? If you are not sure, take a look and the patch notes here.

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