Project Lore

It was the Friday after patch day, and my buddies in our small guild were itching to try out some of the new 3.2 content. Considering there were five of us online, we thought the best place to start would be besting the Black Knight in the new 5-player dungeon, Trial of the Champion, in the Crusaders' Coliseum. Here's the lineup: Warrior tank, Paladin DPS, Warlock DPS, Shaman Healer - all level 80s, and my lonely level 79 Rogue. I'll be the first to admit that we weren't super-well prepared for this dungeon, even on normal mode. One of us had never jousted before, and I'm still getting used to the shield-break, charge and thrust rotation while mounted with a lance. So I was a little unsure of what we were getting ourselves into when the dungeon began and we had to mount up and face several waves of javelin-wielding champions. But the strategy was pretty straight-forward: focus on one at a time until they are dismounted, then trample them to prevent them from getting back up. Then it's on to the hand-to-hand combat. Once through this set, you go on to encounters with several more argent trash followed by a nice fight with either Eadric the Pure or Argent Confessor Paletress. It was Eadric for us. Not the smoothest of kills; he's a bit tricky right at first before the tank picks up aggro, and even after that has an annoying Vengeance buff causing him to crit often. But we kept on him and took him out. Well, took him down to 1 HP, anyway. Then he ran away, like the bitch he his, but not before throwing in his loot chest. Thanks. Finally, on to the main event: The Black Knight.  From what I can gather from the Project Lore forums, it appears that several of us here already have tried out this new dungeon, but if you haven't and dislike spoilers you may want to stop reading here! This guy doesn't like to stay dead - he comes at you in three phases. And that's where my relatively inexperienced group wiped several times before we got the hang of things. The Black Knight starts out as a forsaken, then a skeleton and finally a wraith. Probably the most trouble we experienced was in the second phase when he started summoning an exploding Army of Dead. We talked through a couple of possible strategies - kiting the Black Knight to avoid the trash Ghoul Explosion, or throw some nice AoEs to kill the ghouls before they explode all over you. Neither of those seemed to be working for us, so we instead just ignored the jerks and focused all of our attention on the main battle at hand. It worked. When we downed the Black Knight in that form and saw the ghouls channeling their explodey spell, we just ran away. From there, the boss enters wraith form, this time without any adds. He consistently casts Marked for Death on his enemies, which increases their magical damage two fold, and can make things sticky if you drag out the fight too long. Each DPSer pulled out all the stops at this point, and finally the Black Knight was downed... for good this time. The best part: My very first purple item (/dance), and a pretty darn good one at that, at least for a 5-man on normal difficulty. Now I just have to finish off my last half-level to 80 so I can equip this beauty - Uruka's Band of Zeal. Overall, I'd say the coliseum is about what I expected. Granted, I haven't checked out Trial of the Crusader yet (beyond watching Juggy and the TRS Guild take it on), but got a decent preview of that through the smaller battle. It's pretty short and to-the-point, which to some may be a disappointment. Others say they've felt underwhelmed by the small scale of the coliseum itself. And I can see that point. But as for me, I was happy with it, and plan to keep running it to get more loots! Hopefully next time, it'll go a bit smoother! Any of you who have tried out the Crusaders' Coliseum so far? What are your impressions of either instance?

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Normally when Blizzard starts releasing this much information on a patch in such a short time frame it means that the patch is on the horizon.  I'd be pretty shocked if Call of the Crusade came out so soon after Ulduar, but Blizzard has to battle with Summer somehow.  After all most guilds are still working on their first clear of the Titan and Old God happy fun zone.  Getting behind on our raiding won't stop us from absorbing all the new information though! As we already knew, the coliseum will be completed when Patch 3.2, an update that basically revolves around the Argent Crusade, is launched.  The additional details that Bornakk gave us yesterday are the interesting morsels.

• A new "epic 10- and 25-player raid dungeon with five encounters".  The new raid will also contain an interesting property, the raid will sport four difficulty levels, 10- and 25-man normal and 10- and 25-man heroic.  Did I read that right, we get one boss per week?  Or are my reading comprehension skills shot from lack of sleep?
• Crusader's Tribute - The tribute system is an attempt to reward the best players for their consistency.  The setup "will limit players on the number of attempts they get in the Coliseum each week."  The less attempts you need to clear, the more rewards you can reap.  Utterly fail and you get nothing.  Better be sure to have well-oiled, well-geared, alert and sober members in the runs.
• New 5-man dungeon with three encounters.  Each encounter will reward a Champion's Seal.
• New tier of armor and weapons.  The phat loot will be modeled with Alliance- and Horde-specific themes.

The added difficulties are nice, but I fear having to farm four different raids for gear.  Hopefully Blizzard realizes how annoying that will be, and distributes the gear accordingly.  At first I thought that the lockout mechanic was rather annoying, but if they do plan on releasing Call of the Crusade soon, then the small amount of content combined with the lockout period would allow players to keep Ulduar as their main target, and head over to the Coliseum for a quick fix of loot and change of scenery.  I would equate it to a lengthier Malygos, better loot, but not the focus. I like the Crusader's Tribute idea, but I am sure I will get annoyed with the mechanic once a healer disconnects on the pull.  But in theory, rewarding for skill and dedication is a good way to go.  All things considered, the Coliseum definitely follows the same design philosophy as Argent Tournament, solo gameplay.  Allow me to finish.  Although you need buddies to help you through the raids and dungeons, I'd wager that it'll all be over quickly which means it should be PUG friendly.  Also, I haven't read anything on the raid's difficulty. I can't help but wonder what is going to be the lore behind the area.  I mean are these encounters just to challenge our skills for the upcoming conflict with Arthas, or did some nefarious organization infiltrate the Coliseum and set up shop?  I'm sure many of you don't care about the storyline aspect, but I need more than just loot. Do you raid leaders already have A and B groups in mind for the Coliseum Tribute runs?  Think the new content will be ezmode, or another small step up in difficulty? Let's not forget the other, more Argent Tournament-based, Patch 3.2 details that Amatera detailed earlier this week, and Heartbourne's profession changes.

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