Project Lore

The latest raid testing schedule kicks off with both Lord Marrowgar and the Icecrown Gunship Battle (both US and European servers) on Wednesday. As much as these two have been under the microscope so far, I'd anticipate that they're nearly ready for prime-time. And on top of that? Every encounter on the list this week will have their Heroic (read: Hard) Modes available to play around with, should your nascent raid group actually be up to the task! Now, this might make it sound like 3.3 is breathing down our necks and we're fit to see it really, really soon, but something worries me. Of all the fights tested so far, two stood out as being rather unfairly bugged: Deathbringer Saurfang and Professor Putricide. Now, Deathbringer is being done again Thursday, and from what I understood (and experienced first-hand), the only major problem with his fight was the bug that gave him a ridiculous dodge rate, which sounds like an easy fix. [caption id="attachment_8500" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Vailthria Dreamwalker will once again be tested this week. "][/caption] Professor Putricide, on the other hand, is nowhere to be found and considering the problem with him was that he couldn't be targeted after the first time you engaged him, very little actual testing was done. And getting the Abominations to work correctly during the encounter also seems to present an issue. So while Heroic Modes are a really, really good sign, I can see at least one encounter holding the patch's release back a little bit, unless they continue to plan on "gating" the instance, in which case the good doctor would likely be available further down the line. Regardless, here's the schedule as it looks now:

We are scheduling raid tests in Icecrown Citadel for November 18-20. The schedule is as follows: US Servers Wednesday, November 18 at 7PM EST / 4 PM PST – Lord Marrowgar, Icecrown Gunship Battle Thursday, November 19 at 7PM EST / 4 PM PST – Festergut, Deathbringer Saurfang Friday, November 20 at 7PM EST / 4 PM PST – Valithria Dreamwalker EU Servers Wednesday, November 18 at 19:30 CET – Lord Marrowgar, Icecrown Gunship Battle Thursday, November 19 at 19:30 CET – Rotface, Blood Princes Friday, November 20 at 19:30 CET – Lady Deathwhisper Heroic difficulties will be available for testing! The Icecrown Citadel raid test schedule will be very flexible, and can change at a moment's notice due to build status, bugs, and server issues. Remember that this is the test server, so things can, do, and will break from time to time. Check this forum for the latest Icecrown Citadel raid testing schedule information in the weeks to come.

Also, don't forget about PuG With The Blues! This is the third week in a row that Blizzard has hosted the event, in which testing the Dungeon system on the PTR allows you the chance of running an instance with a company employee! I was there last Wednesday, and even though I wasn't ever paired up with a Blue, there were some speaking up in the General Chat channel, so you can still interact with them. If you're interested and haven't previously downloaded any of the current patches on the PTR, I'd recommend starting now so that you'll be up-to-date by tomorrow.