Project Lore

Earth, Wind, And Fire is arguably one of the toughest achievements in the game, requiring that you kill all three Vault of Archavon bosses within 60 seconds of each other, but the 10-player version has was completed by both Premonition (first) and Mediocrity (second) this week. Thankfully, the latter recorded the whole affair so we can see just how they pulled off this monumental feat!

I'll admit that when I first heard about the achievement, I thought it would entail engaging each boss at the same time, with the raid separated into several 2-3 man groups, but it turns out that they can be pulled out of their respective rooms without resetting. This ends up being key to Mediocrity's strategy, and it allows them to make the groups a little more even. They start with the newest Vault boss, Koralon the Flame Watcher, first, and while whittling down his health, drag him all the way over to the dungeons' namesake, Archavon the Stone Watcher. At this point, it's important, even when tanking two separate bosses at once, that both of the tanks stay near each other in order to reduce the effect of Koralon's Meteor Fists attack. Presumably, a second group is staying on Emalon the Storm Watcher this entire time, who would be much harder to lead around the instance with all of his adds in tow. Sadly, we don't get to see precisely how they handle the Overcharged minions, since this video is only filmed from one perspective. Besides, I really can't imagine having to deal with all three bosses' area of effect attacks at once! It looks like we'll still have to wait a little while before anybody nails it on 25-man, but I imagine that it couldn't be significantly harder since your numbers wouldn't be spread quite so thin. The real important thing here just seems to be getting the strategy down and knowing each boss well enough to automatically respond to their individual abilities. Tough or not, I'd love to see more achievements like this thrown into the game. It reminds me a lot of the live raid they did at BlizzCon this year, where they pit the aforementioned Premonition against several different raid bosses at once, arena style. How about you, readers?

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Blue Stew is a new daily column bringing you a delicious concoction of developer news, thoughts, and opinions straight from the boiling pot that is the official World of Warcraft forums. The highlights of each day include additional commentary by Project Lore staff. It's the beginning of September, and you know what that means! New content for all! OK, so that has less to do with the beginning of the month, and more to do with it being a Tuesday. But that doesn't mean we can't get excited about it, right? You can bet the forums are abuzz with people discussing Arena Season 7, Koralon: The Flame Watcher, and the release of the final boss in Trial of the Crusader, Anub'Arak (which brings with it the unlocking of Heroic mode).

• Oddly enough, the big issue of the day is none of these things. Instead, people are concerned with something Bornakk said yesterday in regards to heirloom items in Cataclysm: "Heirloom items specifically state that they go from levels 1 to 80 so we don't currently plan to make the currently available items auto-update to go to level 85 in the next expansion. As for the experience gain, nothing is set in stone yet, but I think it makes sense that we won't want players to get a 20% exp bonus when leveling to 85." Seems like some people will do just about anything to get ahead! Isn't a boost from 1-80 good enough for ya? After all, they were meant to lend you a hand through the painful process of leveling an alt for the umpteenth time. Bigger and broader changes are being made to the 1-60 game in Cataclysm, not to mention all of the new items and equipment that Blizzard would probably rather you use (considering they've spent so much time developing them already). Really, heirloom items should be less of a concern until the whole process becomes boring once again. Why not concentrate on enjoying the streamlined leveling experience and new zones instead of being the first on your server to hit the cap? Wryxian doesn't rule out the potential for "Tome of Cold Weather Flying" style upgrades when your first character hits 85.
• RAWK! The complaining doesn't end there. You'd think Carstalker would be happy after beating out his little sister for first place in the Domino Rally, but he's only interested in figuring out what he's going to do with all those badges he spent on heirloom gear (you know, the ones that Blizzard practically hands out for free these days?): "Sooooooo i just spent alot of badges for my shadowcraft parts giving me a total of 20% bonus to experience gained for my rogue which has been lvl 80 since a week after wotlk was released... can i have these badges back please? i feel kinda tricked, the chest heirloom got handed too us pretty recently ingame which made me think that heirlooms is going to be a + when cataclysm arrives..." Listen up, Carstalker, I'm not sure you're entitled to anything. Blizzard's not out to get you, mon frere! Outside of the experience bonus, do you really think it's worth running around in those old hand-me-downs like Azeroth's own Bag Lady? Surely, you'll be able to find better (and better looking) gear from quest rewards and leveling dungeons. Maybe it's just me, but I get really cheesed when it seems the only thing anybody ever worries about is the race to the finish. What do you think, readers, should the man get all those badges back or is he simply a victim of planning a little too far ahead for his own good?
• Kanye West impersonator, er... Kanye, insists that he doesn't like fish sticks. But he does enjoy things when they're hard. Case in point: raiding in World of Warcraft. Echoing a popular philosophy amongst the player base, he asks if Blizzard can make Icecrown Citadel just as challenging as Sunwell: "The concept of a hard version of every instance sounds okay at first, but then you realize how easy they make the regular version and it just seems pointless. This expansion needs more fights like Brut/Muru that are extreme cockblocks and make you feel awesome when they die. Hopefully some of the ToC hardmodes are like this, as well as plenty of Icecrown encounters. I will be beyond disappointed if 3 or 4 months into Icecrown these same 31 guilds have killed Arthas too. This may come off as me being an elitist #%%###* but who can honestly say they hope the final encounter of the game will be puggable eventually? There were only like 10 guilds to kill Illidan and even less to kill KJ at level 70 on my server." The reponse from Valnoth was as curt as his rant was verbose: "Heroic Modes are for progression. Please make use of them." I'm a rather big fan of difficult raids myself. To most people, they may feel like running a sheet of sandpaper over your genitals until they bleed, but oh man does the payoff make all the pain worth it. At the end of the day, though, I'm not going to let it bother me. While my guild's easily bested all comers in Trial of the Crusader so far, we still haven't made it past General Vezax in Ulduar. I'd say raid difficulty, overall, is more lop-sided than it used to be, but challenges remain for those who seek them.

Anyway, that's enough from me. All of the servers should certainly be up by now, so go forth, and enjoy the new offerings Blizzard has so beautifully laid out before us today. Whether you're a fan of PvE or PvP, there's something for everyone!

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