Anyway, it’s while leveling up that Draenei Shaman that I encountered the famous Alliance quest chain “The Missing Diplomat” and I realized that it did feel quite odd to be doing that quest since it’s outdated, made for before Wrath of the Lich King came out. Everyone familiar with that quest chain knows that the Missing Diplomat isn’t just a diplomat but King Varian Wrynn himself, who oddly enough happens to be standing just a few feet away from the original quest giver. of course back in the day when King Varian was really missing, this quest made sense.

In a similar fashion I can think of something that would feel just as strange when the Cataclysm expansion comes out and it involves Thrall and Garrosh Hellscream. Anyone who plays as Horde probably knows that Thrall is involved with a bunch of quests involving Ragefire Chasm, the search for the Mag’har and even the welcoming of the Death Knights into the Horde. We also know that Garrosh Hellscream will indeed be the new Warchief when Cataclysm comes. Anyone see the problem now?

Garrosh simply can’t take the place of Thrall for some of these things. As new Warchief, would it be Garrosh’s job to welcome the new Death Knights? Somehow I don’t think it’s up his alley considering it’s Thrall’s respect for Tirion Fordring that helped that through, something Garrosh doesn’t seem to have. If it’s still Thrall’s job then where can we find him, since Garrosh is the new Warchief. Even stranger would be the quest involving the finding of the Mag’har because this quest involves Thrall specifically and at this point in time Garrosh is still an impotent leader in Garadar.

I don’t claim that things are going to be inconsistent because the events I’m talking about involve a different period in the game. But i feel like those things I mentioned still need some kind of resolution because it really is going to feel strange to people doing them.

Post from: WOW Obsessed

icecrown citadel

The devs plan on doing the same kind of thing for Icecrown. There are four sections of the Icecrown raid: The Lower Spire, Plagueworks, Crimson Hall, and Frostwing Halls. Blizzard plans to release these sections one by one at designated dates that we still don’t know of because of the uncertainty of patch 3.3’s release. He just said that after they release the first section, the Lower Spire which includes the Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Icecrown Gunship Battle, and Deathbringer Saurfang encounters, content beyond that will be unavailable for weeks until they are finally unlocked one by one.

Daelo also mentions another form of gating content which shouldn’t be new to any raiders. He mentioned that the heroic versions will not be available for players until they have defeated the Lich King for that specific player cap. This means that the heroic 10 man cannot be attempted unless players have defeated the Lich King on 10 man normal mode. The same goes for the 25 man. Considering that the Lich King won’t be available for a while, it’s really going to be a while until we hear of any heroic modes being done. Speaking of the Lich King, he cannot be attempted until Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana’thel, and Sindragosa have been defeated for the week and those bosses must be defeated in heroic mode to attempt the heroic difficulty of the Lich King.

If you think that’s tough you haven’t seen anything yet. Icecrown Citadel is taking a page from Trial of the Crusader and twisting it around a bit. Remember those attempts you had in ToC? They’ll be back for Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana’thel, Sindragosa, and the Lich King but there won’t be any kind of rewards attached to them. Basically, you start out with 5 attempts when Professor Putricide is made available and this number grows as the bosses get unlocked (10 when the Blood Queen is out then 15 when Sindragosa and the Lich King are out). There will be 15 attempts to defeat all 4 bosses and when this runs out, the Ashen Verdict withdraws their support and you’re done for the week. Harsh!

The cool thing about this is that we actually get to see a dynamic system where we actually see the forces against the Lich King growing. As time passes by we’ll see more attempts for the last four bosses added to the game. We’ll also see Garrosh Hellscream and Varian Wrynn lend their support by providing a zone wide buff to players, which will increase the health points, damage done and healing done by players and this buff will increase in effectiveness over time.

Post from: WOW Obsessed

violet hold

Of course, as I was saying earlier the Dungeon Finder will make PuG’s easier to find because a lot of people probably won’t mind going on PuG’s just to get those random heroics done. Then there’s the Perky Pug non combat pet that Blizzard is giving out as a reward for players who have done enough PuG’s. Until now the specifics of “exactly enough PuG’s” was not known.

MMO Champion reveals an Achievement from the patch 3.3 PTR called Looking for Multitudes. This Achievement is the the one that gives the Perky Pug as a reward. Below is the exact tooltip of the Achievement:

Use the Dungeon tool to finish random heroic dungeons until you have grouped with 100 random players total.

If I’m right, this means that it won’t take too many random heroics to get this done. There are 5 players in the group so every run there’s at most 4 players who could count towards this Achievement. Assuming you do nothing but PuG’s then you just need 25 runs. if you insist on taking some friends or guildies then this will take a bit longer. But with the potential of limitless number of random heroics you can do using the Dungeon Finder, don’t be surprised to see players with the Perky Pug soon after the patch goes live!

Post from: WOW Obsessed

If you’ve been playing the past few hours, you’ve likely seen yourself or others get a Night Elf Mohawk mask like face. That’s the work of the Mohawk Grenade. To get some you need to find a Night Elf Mohawk located outside the starting areas like Northshire or Deathknell for example. once spoken to, the Night Elf Mohawk will give you some Mohawk Grenades. Once you run out you can go back and get more. According to the Mohawk Grenade FAQ, the US really gets this earlier so Korea and Europe will have to wait until November 24 to get this. There isn’t a date set for when this will end, only that you’ll be able to keep getting these grenades until the Night Elf Mohawk feels his work is done.

Now go out and pity some fools!

You can watch the new Mr. T advertisement below:

Post from: WOW Obsessed

It’s become a lot harder to run lower level dungeons especially if you want to run them the real way and not just get run through by a high level player. I still see quite a bit of players announcing that they want to run Shadowfang Keep or Scarlet Monastery or any of those classic dungeons. This proves that there are people who could really use the Dungeon Finder to run these places. By getting help from other servers, this should make it even easier.

I remember Blizzard saying something about low level players getting rewards for using the Dungeon Finder to run lower level dungeons. That’s where the Satchel of Helpful Goods comes in. The Satchel is your reward for doing a random dungeon at lower levels. According to CM Wryxian, the Satchel will have two groups of items. One group contains bracers, rings, necklaces and cloaks and the other group contains belts, boots, gloves and shoulder items. The Satchel will contain one item from each group and will also depend on your level range, which is a 10 level spread. I assume that these items will be rare (blue) quality, which is something Wryxian also assumed before he came back with the info above but didn’t seem to confirm again.

Post from: WOW Obsessed

Well it wasn’t really Blizzard but it’s someone high up enough to give this statement a bit more “oomph”. Blizzard’s VP for Game Design and WoW mastermind Rob Pardo recently had an interview with Warcry.com on his view about the 5 years of WoW. It was here that he talked more about how the game has been evolving from a more hardcore game to a more casual friendly game where more players can see the content they come up with. He explains that this was because a lot of designers including himself came from being hardcore gamers in other MMO’s like Everquest and it was this hardcore gamer in them that made them think that’s how things should be. But as we know they’re learned that it didn’t have to be that way to make the game fun.

Anyway, it was in that interview where Mr. Pardo said it outright that the Arena Tournament was a mistake. To clarify, he mentioned that when they thought it up before they never expected how much it problems it would cause in terms of balancing classes especially when taking both PvE and PvP into consideration. These his words:

We didn’t engineer the game and classes and balance around it, we just added it on, so it continues to be very difficult to balance. Is WoW a PvE cooperative game, or a competitive PvP game? There’s constant pressure on the class balance team, there’s pressure on the game itself, and a lot of times players who don’t PvP don’t understand why their classes are changing. I don’t think we ever foresaw how much tuning and tweaking we’d have to do to balance it in that direction. source

Mr. Pardo even said that if he could go back in time, either he would go back to before the game came out and changed the rules to make the Arena easier to implement or he would just scrap the idea. Of course they can’t scrap the Arena Tournament now so we just have to live with it, taking the good with the bad. Right now I’m just have this happy feeling that what I was thinking all this time ever since it came out was right all along.

Post from: WOW Obsessed

Perhaps the only Tank that can use one of these weapons is the Death Knight tank. They use two handers for tanking anyway so this isn’t that big a deal for them. The bigger issue is that every other tank doesn’t get to share with the fun. If you’re a tank, you’ll be doing the Quel’delar quest chain for your off spec and that’s just sad. CM Bornakk has this to say about the situation:

We don’t feel there is a need for it? We aimed to make sure that every class had something to gain from the Quel’Delar series, but that doesn’t mean every spec of every class. Could a tank use the one handed dps version of Quel’Delar? Yes, it may give them more threat. Is this ideal for surviving while tanking? No, but there are other items available for that. Source

I somehow feel what Bornakk is trying to say. If the Argent Tournament rewards don’t even include a proper healing mace for holy pallies and resto shammies then we probably shouldn’t expect better for the Quel’delar. Sure the seven weapons seem to be very accommodating. It’s just that having something this epic and leaving out a whole role doesn’t leave a good taste in my mouth. Even the Argent Tournament rewards, lacking a bit in coverage for specs, managed to get a tanking Axe out. So while Bornakk has a point, it still feels like a whole bunch of bull excrement to me.

Post from: WOW Obsessed

icecrown citadel

The Quel’delar is a blade much like the Quel’serrar and there are four of them. The preview mentioned that classes who can’t wield blades would still be able to finish the epic quest chain and get something in return. Oddly enough, as much as a tanking weapon would fit nicely here there doesn’t seem to be a single one. Some specs are arguably overlooked but can be filled in to some extend by one of the weapons. For example elemental shamans, balance druids, resto druid and holy priests could use the mp5 mace even if it might not be the most perfect group ofstats for them

The many Quel’delars (all swords)

Quel’Delar, Cunning of the Shadows One hand, Physical DPS
Quel’Delar, Lens of the Mind Main hand, spell
Quel’Delar, Might of the Faithful Two hand, Melee DPS (Strength)
Quel’Delar, Ferocity of the Scorned Two hand, Physical DPS (Agility)

Other weapons from the chain (all maces)

Cudgel of Furious Justice One hand, melee DPS
Hammer of Purified Flame Main hand spell mp5
Lightborn Spire Two hand Melee DPS

Emblem Of Frost Gear

As you know all the heroic dungeon bosses will be dropping Emblems of Triumph when the patch comes out. This is to give way to the new highest tier of Emblems, the emblem of Frost. You can get these from killing bosses in the Icecrown Citadel Raid, Weekly Raid quests and the first random heroic dungeon you do using the new LFG system.

All these items are item level 264 and will include gear for Waist, Hands and Chest for the various armor types and class specs. You’ll also be able to get various cloaks, relics and trinkets and even a throwing weapon. To see the full list of items you can see them from this list provided by MMO Champion.

Icecrown Citadel Loot

As you know, the Icecrown Citadel will have both a raid and a 5 man, similar to how Ulduar is really split into the raid dungeon itself and the 5 mans Halls of Lightning and Halls of Stone. The 5 man dungeon will be called the Frozen Halls and will be divided into 3 separate wings with their own individual lockout timers. The Icecrown raid will of course be the place where you will fight and defeatl the Lich King.

Frozen Halls

You can find the loot from Frozen Halls for both normal and heroic mode here. The loot from normal mode are item level 219 and the loot from heroic mode are item level 232. I’d have to say that generally speaking, the loot from Frozen Halls is pretty encompassing. I could be wrong but it seems like between both the normal and heroic mode, you could actually get gear for all your item slots except the relic slots.

Icecrown raid

Loot from both the 10 man and 25 man versions of the Icecrown raid can be found here. That link also has gear stats for some of the T10 class sets. One mildly surprising piece of info is that the raid dungeon is lifting a page from Karazhan in that you’ll be able to get rings that you can turn in and upgrade as you advance in rep with the Ashen Verdict just like the rings from the Violet Eye. Below are the rings at friendly rep.

Ashen Band of Courage Tank
Ashen Band of Vengeance Physical DPS
Ashen Band of Destruction Spell Hit
Ashen Band of Wisdom Spell mp5

Post from: WOW Obsessed

archmage lan'dalock

Before you get the wrong idea, I have to admit that the random dungeon system in place for the next patch is ultimately better than the set dungeon daily quest system we currently have. It’s better because as far as getting emblem rewards, we’re not limited to one heroic and one regular dungeon for the day. With the random dungeon system, players will be rewarded emblems of frost for the first heroic dungeon ran using the random feature and then emblems of triumph for succeeding ones. There’s even a chance to bypass the lockout if you manage get a heroic dungeon that you already ran using random dungeons.

As much as the random dungeon feature is ultimately better, there will be some aspects of the current dungeon daily quest system that I’ll miss. The first is a sense of certainty knowing that this is the daily so I know what to expect. There’s a sense of relief when you know that the daily for the day is an easy dungeon like H-Utgarde Keep and a sense of “ok I have to brace myself” if it’s a harder one (especially if I have to do it with PuG’s. The random dungeon feature gives players a sense of mystery and if you get a dungeon that you don’t particularly like running as much as the others (like Oculus) you could be in for a ride. Of course for players who don’t care what dungeon pops up, this really isn’t an issue.

There’s also something else that I’ll miss about the current system. There are some lucky times when the normal and heroic dungeon daily involves the same dungeon. I know of quite a number of times when this has happened and you get to finish both quests in one run. Now I admit that I don’t know how the LFG system works as far as queuing is concerned so we have to go by how I think it works. I assume that you can queue for both the normal and heroic dungeon in the LFG tool at the same time. What I don’t know is if you can queue the random dungeons for both difficulties at the same time. Assuming you can, what happens if by some luck you get the same dungeon for both difficulties? Let’s say you pop the random for both and both turn out to be Culling of Stratholme. If you accept to do H-CoS, will that prevent you from getting rewarded for the normal one? if it doesn’t then there’s no problem but if it does then that’s what I’ll miss about the current system. Running a heroic dungeon to get rewarded for both the heroic and normal difficulty quest is just awesome and if you can’t do it with the new system, that will be quite sad.

Will you miss something about the current dungeon daily quests system? If so, what about it will you miss?

Post from: WOW Obsessed

I would just like to remind everyone that Blizzard said that we have until November 11 before players will be required to merge their WoW account with a Battle.net account and not doing so will prevent them from being able to log in. It’s November 10 so we have one day until this goes down. For US players you can go here to convert your account and here for EU players. I would also like to remind everyone that existing accounts that merge after November 11 will still get the Mr. Chilly pet but hurry up since they’ll only be offering it for a certain amount of time.

Post from: WOW Obsessed