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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Feeling a bit down on your luck lately? Run into one too many ganks, Ulduar wipes or failed PuG runs? Perhaps it's time for you to take a break from the grind and get to know your toon's chivalrous side through the Argent Tournament. Now I know some people in our Project Lore forums have expressed skepticism about how popular the Argent Tournament will be in the long run. Others also seem enthusiastic about the idea. I, for one, love being able to kick back for some casual game play in the tourney. I've always thought that WoW has taken a new look at Azeroth as a different kind of take on medieval times. But the Argent Tournament is a bit less subtle, which I find refreshing. We don't have to dig deep to find plenty of pop-culture references that provide framework for how we visualize medieval times. You know, the romanticized, Hollywood version with valiant good guys who wield legendary weapons to defeat a corrupt and overbearing government and win over the hot (and virgin) woman. Right away for the tournament, you start quests investigating a mysterious black knight who is said to be able to defeat anyone who is unfortunate enough to meet him (I won't ruin it for anyone who hasn't started, but it's a fun quest line!) Then you'll progress into proving your jousting worth and venturing around the world to either gather various items, kill random bad guys or rescue helpless maidens (I don't think it matters whether your toon is male or female!) It all leads to more jousting until reaching Champion status and working toward buying some tournament rewards. If you want to speed through the new addition, or if you want a closer look at what you'll be getting yourself into, definitely take a look at iTZKooPA's guide to the Argent Tournament. As for me, I am thoroughly enjoying taking my time through these quests (on my husband's main, haha, I'm still leveling!). It makes me want to join a RP server and see what kind of fun plot lines are being worked into the already awesome tournament goodness. I definitely call the Argent Tournament a win for WoW. So what does everyone else make of the new Argent Tournament addition? Is it holding your interest, or something that you'll be over within a week or two? I'm hoping that the coliseum area continues getting built up so that it maintains a fresh feel.

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