Project Lore

I remember a time, pre-BC, when the Blackrock Mountains were the place to group and raid. I unfortunately also remember having to pug to get my Light Forge Spaulders. I wasn't much of a guild person back then, so I would have to do the obligatory "Lvl 60 Paladin LFG for UBRS, PST".  There were always 3 strikes a group would always face heading into UBRS. 1.) Does your group have someone who's keyed? 2.) Do you have the DPS for "The Beast"? 3.) Does your group have the understanding of how to fight the General, (ex. the kiting strategy)? I can remember countless times when groups would just fall apart after one attempt of the General or when someone finally got their shoulders off the Beast and they'd say they have to leave because of something in real life and just force quit. Here we are two expansions later and we have a lot of new players to the game. I know quite a few people who joined in the middle of Burning Crusade's lifespan and never spent one minute in the old world dungeons. So they were lucky to have avoided the Excedrin (yes, the headache medicine) popping moments. But I'm wondering why were pugs in those dungeons so bad? I bring this up because since Wrath of the Lich King was released I've had to pug a few Heroics and even Naxx on occasion. The thing I've noticed is how smoothly the runs seem to go. Last week I pugged a 25 man Naxx group. Funny thing is we downed 3 quarters in under 3 hours. People listened. People did their jobs and did them well. This was incredible. Usually the more people in a pug the more drama, crying and problems you have or at least you would have had been back in the day.  Two weeks ago I main tanked a 25 man Obsidian Sanctum without vent and we downed it with ease. Even a run in Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle went surprisingly well. So here are three different experiences with the same results. Have players grown up? Are people finally "learning to play their class" as the old complaint use to be thrown around?  Has Blizzard done anything special to the game mechanics to make it easier to communicate without voices? You could say vent servers have helped but people have been using them for years and still have bad experiences. I'm just really curious to see if I'm the only one who's noticing this nice change in pugs. If you are experiencing a change why do you think it's happened? While I still prefer to run with my guild I can say that I really don't mind the pugs as much as I use to in the pre-bc days.

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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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Anub'Rekhan dead before the raid even started.

The spending spree that I went on wasn't just to make me feel good, I wanted my DPS to perform in raids. Despite being Mutilate, which is the butt of all Rogue PvE DPS jokes, I wanted to be able to lay waste to Naxxramas as much as the next guy.  Some 2000+ gold later and I felt that I was more than prepared.  Believe it or not, I was actually correct for once! My new guild has been running Naxxramas, Obsidian Sanctum and tons of heroics for a few weeks before I joined.  Their combined ambitions caused my spending spree to keep me in the range of acceptable DPS, rather than the realm of "ponzor."  Of course, I didn't expect to dominate the charts with only a few heroics under my belt, but some of the DPSers emasculated me.  They made me feel that I should have spent far more gold.  Personal failures aside, it was good to be raiding again. Naxxramas has certainly changed since the 40-man days.  We are only doing the 10-man thus far, but there are far fewer trash mobs in the instance than before.  If you triple the mob count for some of the corridors then perhaps you'll be back in the realm of the old school Naxx.  Yesterday's raid started at 8:00 PM, by 7:50 PM we had already downed Anub'Rekhan.  Yea, we had a boss down before the raid started. As a side note, I dunno how likely it is that we hit the heroic side of Naxx.  Unless we begin recruiting I doubt we will see the 25-man edition without a good collection of PUGs.  That'll make it pretty difficult to upgrade my Mutilate build with the Omen of Ruin/Murder and Webbed Death.  But enough about the future, let us get back to the excursion. Things went fairly smoothly through the Spider Wing, although we did wipe to Maexxna.  She eventually dropped her Femur, which was offered to me, but I love my daggers.  Still it hurts to see Rogue loot getting DEed.  The Military Wing, well that was a different story.  We didn't hit a wall on the content or anything like that.  No, no.  You could say that the Military Wing was a different story on a personal level.  You see, my face was repeatedly smashed by the mobs with Whirlwind.  Being the only non-plate wearing melee DPSer in the raid meant that my deaths stuck out like a sore thumb...that had been cut off.  I heard quite a few quips about it. "Oh look, that gnome is dead again." "The rogue needs buffs, again." "That midget owes me a stack of Symbol of Kings." "Holy crap, I lived through one!" The jokes didn't stop until a pack of mobs decided to desecrate every part of my body.  On the second leg of the upper level towards Instructor Razuvious, a triple pack of whirlwinding mobs came at the raid.  Letting my bravado get the best of me, I charged in to DPS the skull with reckless abandon.  My head was found 30 feet away, separated from my torso which was remained connected to my legs by what was left of my intestines.  I was whirlwinded by three mobs at the same time.  Uncontrollable laughter was all that could be heard on Ventrilo.  At least my failures lightened the mood. After Razuvious dropped nothing of interest - actually no one did, we have tons of Abyss Crystals now - we continued on until reaching the Four Horsemen .  These bastards troubled my pre-TBC guild till no end, stopping us from proceeding to the Frost Wing.  It was relieving to see them go down, but it wasn't much of a fight in 10-man.  After clearing two wings in a few hours time we called Naxxramas for the evening and cleaned up Obsidian Sanctum before closing the raid.  My next challenge is to convince the GM to run the other two wings next Tuesday rather than Thursday so I can finish them, then the Frost Wing, and Malygos.  I am coming for you slowly but surely Bastosa! We still haven't managed to take down Sartharion with any of his buddies alive, but we did have a pretty productive and efficient night.  Only nine more badges to go before I can get a much needed trinket upgrade.  Now if we could just stop getting Hunter/Shaman loot...

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MMO-Champion has posted a handful of new changes that are coming, and they believe that they are coming this week. That would mean that during tomorrow morning's weekly maintenance period, we'll all have to download Patch 3.0.9. There are a few tweaks, including a bunch of changes to Arcane Mages. They're also nerfing cast time increasing debuffs and increasing rogue damage. Check out all of the changes below. Druid

• Ferocious Bite: This ability now only uses up to 30 energy in addition to its base cost.

Hunter

• Kindred Spirits (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet damage at max rank.
• Serpent's Swiftness (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet attack speed at max rank.

Pets

• Lava Breath now reduces the target's casting speed by 25%, down from 50%.
• Poison Spit now reduces the target's casting speed by 25%, down from 50%.

Mage

• Arcane Power now increases damage and mana cost by 10%, cooldown reduced to 1 minute. (Note: The spell is actually different in game and increases damage and mana costs by 20% with a 2 minutes cooldown. However it would probably be better to wait until servers are online to confirm that.)
• Arcane Power and Presence of Mind now share a category cooldown. Arcane Power causes a 15 second cooldown. Presence of Mind, once consumed, causes a 1.5 second cooldown.
• Arcane Flows now reduces the cooldown of Presence of Mind, Arcane Power and Invisibility by 15/30%.
• Presence of Mind: The cooldown has been reduced to 2 minutes, (down from 3.)
• Slow (Arcane): now increases cast time by 30%, down from 60%.
• Glyph of Arcane Missiles -- Increases the critical strike damage bonus of Arcane Missiles by 25%. (Old - Increases the range of Arcane Missiles by 5 yards.)
• Glyph of Mana Gem -- Increases the mana recieved from using a mana gem by 40%. (Up from 10%)
• Glyph of Arcane Blast -- Increases the damage from your Arcane Blast buff by 3%. (Down from 5%)

Paladin

• The duration on all Seals has been increased to 30 minutes and can no longer dispelled.
• Divine Plea: The amount healed by your spells is reduced by 50% (up from 20%) but the effect can no longer be dispelled.
• Sanctified Seals: This talent no longer affects dispel resistance, but continues to affect crit chance.
• Glyph of Holy Light -- Your Holy Light grants 10% of its heal amount to up to 5 friendly targets within 8 yards of the initial target. (Down from 20 yards, Tooltip text fix, was already hotfixed to 8 yards in game)
• Glyph of Seal of Righteousness -- Increases the damage done by Seal of Righteousness by 10%. (Old - Reduces the cost of your Judgement spells by 10% while Seal of Righteousness is active.)

Priest

• Inner Fire duration has been increased to 30 minutes and can no longer dispelled.

Rogue

• Hunger for Blood (Assassination): Now increases damage 5% per stack, (up from 3%.)
• Mind Numbing Poison now reduces cast time by 30%, down from 60%.
• Mutilate damage will now do 20% increased damage against poisoned targets, down from 50%.
• Slice and Dice: This ability now increases melee attack speed by 40%, up from 30%.

Shaman

• Glyph of Windfury Weapon -- Increases the chance per swing for Windfury Weapon to trigger by 2%. (Down from 5%)

Warlock

• Curse of Tongues: Now increases the casting time of all spells by 25% (Rank 1) and 30% (Rank 2), down from 50% and 60%.

The Obsidian Sanctum

• Changed the color of the fissure in the Obsidian Sanctum to be more visually distinct.

User Interface

• The "GM wishes to speak with you" alert/button, at the top of the screen, has been changed so that addons do not obscure it.
• A clickable chat message has been added that duplicates the GM alert/button.
• When a GM wishes to speak with you the Help Request minibar button will glow.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where players using nVidia 3D glasses were unable to see spell cooldowns.
• Fixed a software mouse cursor bug that was causing the mouse curser to disappear from view when over certain UI elements.
• Fixed a player movement error in which other players were appearing to move erratically when traveling beside them.

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