Project Lore

When I said that SolidSamm's guild "canceled raiding for the foreseeable future" I knew it wasn't going to last long.  For starters, the GM has been a big PvEer since EverQuest, and many of the officers and other members have been with him since then.  Two of the members outside of that group are formerly from a hardcore guild - where they met the current GM - who still take the game very seriously, but can no longer dedicate the same amount of time.  Thus, they never lost their itch to dominate content, just the time required to do so.  Lastly, the Heroic Wednesday event that I initiated has been quite a success in its short life, with numerous dungeons being run on the formerly inactive day.  The indications were obvious that the Warriors were ready to head back into Naxxramas, so we gathered up the troops and dominated Kel'Thuzad's stronghold in record time. Actually, that is a lie.  We failed.  Epically.  The Warriors of Faith wiped for hours, downing a single boss - Anub'Rekan - over the course of a night.  Yes, yes, it certainly sounds pathetic but the repair bills are forgiven because we attempted to move up to the big leagues, Heroic Naxxramas.  Hey, even Ghostcrawler said 25-man Naxx is "too easy to pug", we just wanted to test out his statements. Our little guild barely has enough raiding ready level 80s in its entirety to fill a full raid, so we had to flesh out the ranks with non-guilded friends and a handful of random players.  Where does the blame for the collection of graveyard runs go?  On everyone.  We allowed pugged players with terrible gear and little knowledge in the raid, we had our own members with inadequate gear, and we even failed to research the subtle differences in 10-man, 25-man and 40-man encounters.  I ended the night with something along the lines of a 110 gold repair bill. Am I upset, annoyed or angry at our failures?  Not at all, we tried something a bit different and difficulties are to be expected.  Heck, there is actually an upside to what didn't go down.  A few of the PUGs joined the guild and have already begun to gear their toons at last night's Heroic Wednesday run.  How those went?  Well, that is a story for another day.  I just hope that our morale stays high and these new members stick around for the long run.  After all, if tonight's second attempt at Heroic Naxxramas doesn't go a bit better, members may just disappear until Ulduar.  But I don't believe our core members expect instant gratification or to be carried through. As masochistic as this may sound, I absolutely love these times in a guild.  Despite the numerous setbacks we are sure to face, they help weed out the weak players or those who are just in it for the good times (read free loot).  They push players to the edge, getting them to eek out every bit of DPS, mana or threat-per-second their class can muster.  They breed competition, creativity, interesting discussions and strategies.  From these difficult times comes good, long-lasting members and friends.  And when there's finally that taste of success, it becomes that much sweeter.  It's the digital equivalent of being in the trenches - just without the trench foot, machine guns, mustard gas, shell shock and death.  See, just like it.

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The difficulty of World of Warcraft has been a hot topic since Wrath of the Lich King released last November.  The second expansion brought players three raids (four if you include Vault), raids that were conquered in only three days.  Most of us wanted to reserve judgment on the latest expansion until the "normal" players had a crack at the high end content.  I would wager that we can call it now, the raids are indeed incredibly easy.  My evidence?  The fact that completely random PUGs are able to tackle all the raids.  Back in The Burning Crusade I considered Karazhan a challenging PUG, constantly dreading the raid when it wasn't a full guild run. World of Warcraft's upcoming content patch hopes to change the issue of difficulty, if only a little bit.  Ghostcrawler stated on the boards that the encounters in Ulduar - there are fourteen of them - have been designed to be more difficult from the get go.  However, everyone is hung up on the announcement of the upcoming mana regeneration nerf.  If you missed that bit of news, Blizzard will be nerfing base mana regeneration by 40%, forcing users to conserve and use mana regenerating abilities properly.  Paladins will have a different set of buffs due to the way they regen, but the nerfs will effectively match other healers' pain. At first glance, the nerfs seemed to be an artificial way to make the game hardier.  Rather than designing some difficult encounters, Blizzard simply nerfed healers.  On the surface, this would only make WoW more difficult for the nurturers out there.  It is really so much more than that.  Ghostcrawler defended the move, giving a soon to be classic example of why healers needed to be nerfed. The decision came down to the fact that raiders could simply "stand in the fire" and be carried through the damage by healers that wouldn't run out of mana.  This is obviously a bad way to play the game, taking easily avoidable damage just because it can be outhealed .  Blizzard wanted to make this kind of boss burning strategy obsolete in Ulduar, hence the mana nerf.  Off the bat, I expect most raids to use the age old scapegoat of blaming the healers for the raid dieing.  Until players actually learn the encounters, get out of the AoE or avoid any damage that can be nullified by player abilities, Ulduar should be a step up in difficulty.  Which will make PUGing it more challenging. If the raid is managing to play the encounter correctly, but healers run OOM, then Ghostcrawler has two points for those players.  You either don't have the correct gear for Ulduar, or you are playing the encounter incorrectly.  Oh, and by no means is Mr. Street attacking the priestly classes, "if the idiots stand in the fire, guild kick them." So yea, Ulduar should be more difficult, due to design and a retooling of the various healing classes.  All that being said, Ulduar is no Sunwell, "it is not a huge leap up in difficulty from Naxx, but it is a step up."  Before you start complaining that Ulduar is two easy, be sure to have all 11 of hardmodes comepleted.

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I first recall hearing about the Faceless Ones – in World of Warcraft - around the time of Ahn'Qiraj and its faction's leader, C'Thun. While I can not recall why they came up in this context exactly, I assume it was because of the link between Forgotten Ones leading the Faceless Ones. No, C'thun isn't a Forgotten One, he is an Old God, but he looks a lot like the Forgotten Ones from Warcraft 3. Anyways, today isn't a day to dive into their lore, mainly because the topic could take more than a day to cover! Instead, I want to talk about my first interaction with the Faceless Ones via WoW.

While grinding my way to level 80 I skipped over one instance for some time, Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom. I wasn't dodging Herald Volazj or anything like that.  In fact, I much wanted to meet the oddly proportioned end boss, but I could just never get a group going, PUG or otherwise. Finally, many levels over the suggested range and at a time when I logged in to “play for 30 minutes,” I got invited to a party for OK and couldn't refuse. The fact of the matter is that after killing members of the Lich King's Scourge, decimating any spider mob is on the top of my list. I hate spiders, but I love their fangs and femurs.

The following contains ***SPOILERS*** for boss encounters. You have been warned.

The instance is pretty standard fare, feeling much like the earlier Azjol-Nerub. After replacing the tank due to a few bad pulls early on, we breezed through the cobwebbed corridors and on to meet the Faceless Ones and their leader, Herald Volazj. The fight is tank-and-spank with a substantial twist at 66 and 33 percent. At those designated intervals, Volazj will cast a debuff across the whole party. The debuff is quite frankly best one since Vaelastraz in Blackwing Lair, and possibly the best ever.

For the lore nuts, this gives us another link to the use of insanity and C'Thun for the Lovecraft connection.  Although I may be stretching it there since the evil eye is not a Forgotten One.

The spell makes use of the phasing design, showing each party member a slightly different scene. Each player's view has the rest of their party turn on them, playing their previous roles only now you are the target. Before you can get back to the boss fight (or help the slower DPSers) you must dispatch the shades of your friends.

***SPOILER OVER***

The encounter's design saved the instance from being run of the mill.  Launching it ahead of the insanely short Azjol-Nerub and into the realm of fun instances, if only for the gimmick. If you haven't been there already, be sure to hit it up as soon as possible, it is another aspect in WoW that everyone should experience.

Personally, I think the guys are going to go nuts when they finally get to The Old Kingdom. Hopefully someone is new to the instance when they film it so we can see the raw reaction.

Past that, lets get some more Faceless Ones in WoW now that we have opened up the Nerubian empire. I do hear there are some in Icecrown's lands, hopefully they come with some solid lore to boot.

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I accomplished two different tasks at the same time this weekend. First and foremost, I put my new Mutilate build to the test in an actual raid setting. That is assuming one believes Karazhan, post Patch 3.0.2 nerf, can be called a raid.   I enjoyed the new build, and it performed nicely, managed to take second in overall DPS.  Thus, I will be sticking with it for the foreseeable future. Along with that accomplishment came the second achievement, tackling the Invasion boss, Tenris Mirkblood.

New content is always a good thing, such as the recently closed Hallow's End, but new bosses are even better. Headless Horseman is cool and all, but a tad last year. I managed to get a PUG together for Karazhan just a few days before Mirkblood and his sect of Lich King worshiping elves disappear. Seeing as it was a PUG, it wasn't all fun and games. I brought along my Refer-a-Friend partner, a Resto Druid that hit 70 just a few hours before, and even a Mage who hit 70 not even 20 minutes before zoning in. With all these undergeared players you'd think we would have wiped a lot. Thankfully, we didn't.  On the flip side we did get hit with crappy overall DPS, causing the raid to take nearly four hours.

Our first attempt at Tenris was a messy one. The tank didn't realize that opening the door would pull him, causing the fight to start with most of the players still getting mana, and myself still going over the strategy. Although we were completely unprepared we managed to bring him close to 50% before the off tank backed into some of the hall mobs we hadn't cleared. The second attempt was much worse, thanks to a Warrior who was leaving the raid, pulling

the half-blood prince to cause us to wipe a second time. The joy of PUGing.

Finally, attempt three we decided to do things right. We went with the common strategy of kiting Tenris around the ring, as myself and the green-geared Mage screamed at people to stop DPS on Blood Mirror. A few trips around the hallway and he was dead, with no deaths to Blood Mirror or the Sanguine Spirit's explosion. The use of Blood Mirror especially touched me because I loved Spirit Walkers in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, which have essentially the same ability. The Demonology Warlocks out there should be appreciative, and jealous of it, because Tenris' visual effect is much cooler. All in all, I enjoyed the encounter as a whole, its design, the lore and the link into the Scourge Invasion. Just wish I could wield the Arcanite Ripper...

Now if only Blizzard would confirm that Tenris is indeed a nod to Harry Potter.

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