Project Lore

Each time a new Vault of Archavon boss is added, it seems that a PUG's chances of actually completing a full run decrease more and more.

VoA, when you're in a situation like mine in that your faction rarely holds Wintergrasp, can be a tough raid to pre-plan. Once you hold Wintergrasp, your regular 10- or 25-man groups likely aren't entirely on, and other guildies may already be saved to the raid. But those two Emblems of Frost for each kill of Toravon are precious loot that you don't want to pass up; usually, the situation calls for a PUG.

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Protip is short video series with various tips and guides. Leave a comment to let me know what you want to see in future segments. Follow @Heartbourne or subscribe in iTunes for notifications of new videos!

Protip is short video series with various tips and guides. Leave a comment to let me know what you want to see in future segments. Follow @Heartbourne or subscribe in iTunes for notifications of new videos!

I venture into the Vault of Archavon with 24 other players to try out Toravon the Ice Watcher. Tier 10 get?

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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A new season of PvP is upon us! Along with all the great new armor for arena players, there is a lot of gear you can get without ever stepping foot into the arena. The entire Deadly Gladiator set is available for honor only, and many pieces can be attained in the Vault of Archavon. The chart below should be a handy reference for what pieces you can pick up. Its sorted first by rating required, with the first dozen or so not requiring any rating. This means you can get them from just doing battlegrounds. The "honor required" and "arena required" columns are non-exclusive; that is, a piece with an entry in both columns means that you must pay both the honor and arena points cost. For some pieces, you have a choice as to whether to use just honor or honor and arena points. Those options are listed in the "option two" columns. The VoA column shows the pieces that drop in the Vault of Archavon, with E25 standing for 25-man Emalon, K10 standing for Koralon 10-man, and K25 standing for Koralon 25-man.

Item	Rating Required	Honor Required	Arena Required	VoA	Option Two: Honor	Option Two: Arena
Deadly Gladiator's Idol/Libram/etc	0	15300	0
Deadly Gladiator's Gloves	0	31600	0		7200	200
Furious Gladiator's Wrists	0	31600	0	E25/K10
Deadly Gladiator's Shoulders	0	31600	0		9600	275
Furious Gladiator's Necklace	0	38000	0	E25/K10
Furious Gladiator's Rings	0	38000	0	E25/K10
Furious Gladiator's Cloak	0	38000	0	E25/K10
Deadly Gladiator's Legs	0	49600	0		12000	350
Deadly Gladiator's Tunic	0	49600	0		12000	350
Deadly Gladiator's Helm	0	49600	0		12000	350
Furious Gladiator's Belt	0	49600	0	E25/K10
Furious Gladiator's Boots	0	49600	0	E25/K10
Furious Gladiator's PvP Trinket	0	49600	0
Furious Gladiator's Idol/Libram/etc	700	6400	350
Furious Gladiator's Gloves	800	7200	400	E25/K10
Furious Gladiator's Legs	900	12000	700	E25/K10
Furious Gladiator's Tunic	1000	12000	700
Furious Gladiator's Helm	1100	12000	700
Relentless Gladiator's Wrists	1200	39400	0	K25
Relentless Gladiator's Belt	1250	62000	0	K25
Relentless Gladiator's Boots	1300	62000	0	K25
Furious Gladiator's Shoulders	1350	9600	550
Relentless Gladiator's Gloves	1400	0	1300	K25
Relentless Gladiator's Neck	1450	47400	0	K25
Relentless Gladiator's Rings	1500	47400	0	K25
Relentless Gladiator's Legs	1550	0	2150	K25
Relentless Gladiator's Tunic	1600	0	2150
Relentless Gladiator's Battlemaster Trinket	1650	62000	0
Relentless Gladiator's Cloak	1750	47400	0	K25
Relentless Gladiator's Weapons/OH/Wands (Tier 1)	1800	15000+	1100+
Relentless Gladiator's Helm	1900	0	2150
Relentless Gladiator's Shoulders	2000	0	1750
Relentless Gladiator's Weapons/OH/Wands (Tier 2)	2200	0	1245+
Relentless Gladiator's Tabard	2350	0	500

What are you going for this season?

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Anub'arak is not pleased

In what may or may not be a grand coincidence, there are going to be major PvE and PvP occurrences after this weeks server resets on Tuesday. The final boss of Trial of the Crusader (ToC), Anub'arak, will be available to fight, allowing players to unlock the Heroic difficulty setting for the raid. In addition, the seventh season of the Arena will be starting, handing out Frost Wyrms and titles to the most skilled combatants and bringing in a new tier of PvP gear. The events were likely made to coincide to avoid what happened with previous seasons, where it was easier to gear up in raids than it was to in PvP and players played in PvE gear. For those unaware, Trial of the Crusader comes in 10 man and 25 man versions. Each week since patch 3.2 launched, a new encounter has been added, and Anub'arak will be the fifth. If at least one player in the raid has completed either the 10 or 25 player versions, their raid can enter the Trial of the Grand Crusader by setting the raid difficulty to heroic. It is unknown if the bosses are any different at this point in this mode, but I imagine that they must be much harder than their regular versions. The raid will have 50 attempts to clear the instance, that is, if the raid wipes more than 50 times, they are locked out of the instance. If the raid can complete the instance without wiping too many times, they will get a chest with loot that is better the less that they wiped. Its a new take on the Undying style of achievement. In addition, because Season 7 is starting, Koralon the Flame Watcher will be spawned in the Vault of Archavon to drop some Season 7 loot. The loot table is not yet confirmed. In addition, the achievement Earth, Wind, and Fire will now be obtainable. I've been thinking about different strategies for this, and I'm still not sure on how it could be possible, especially on 10 man. We will have more details on this on Tuesday. We may see a minor patch on Tuesday in case some of these things were not implemented in the very early patch 3.2, and we may even see patch 3.2.2 live on Tuesday.

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Patch 3.2 is finally available on the PTR, which means that players will be able to find out all sorts of fun information about what changes lay ahead for us. Most of the changes are covered in the patch notes, but MMO-Champion found a bunch of new achievements to go along with the new patch. I, as an achievement whore, am very excited about these new (pointless) goals. Browsing through the list of achievements, they come out in a few different categories, covering the 10- and 25-player versions of the Crusader's Colloseum along with their heroic modes, Isle of Conquest (the brand new battleground), Koralon (the new Vault boss), and Pilgrim's Bounty and Pirate Day/Day of the dead. Wait, Pilgrim's Bounty? Pirate Day? Day of the Dead? New world events! Since Pirate Day and Day of the Dead only have one achievement listed for each of them, I'd assume they'll occur for only one day and have minimal impact on the world for their duration. But Pilgrim's Bounty raises my excitement level! There are a number of fun looking achievements to go along with the new holiday that I'll assume will take place over Thanksgiving week. For those of you unaware, Thanksgiving takes place on the fourth Thursday of every November in the United States. Of course, Blizzard could always adopt the Canadian version, which takes place on the second Monday of October each year. The only question I have is whether or not we'll have to participate in this new world event to get our Violet Proto Drakes from the Long Strange Trip achievement. If it's anything like the new and improved Noblegarden, then we will. I'm OK with that, but I'm sure some of the other players hoping to get that 310% mount might get upset. In addition to those new holiday achievements, there are a few new Feats of Strength, which hint at some more free pets for logging in. A Jade Tiger sounds like fun! What are your thoughts on these new achievements? Anything in particular draw your interest? What about the new world event? Can't wait or sick of holidays?

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