Recruitment is always interesting. It’s more than just filling a spot for a raid. It’s sort of like saying “we’re a group of friends who love to hang out. Do you want to hang out with us too? If so, let us know!” For the same reason, it’s very exciting. A new member is someone I’m going to talk to a lot, so it’s fun to get someone knew.
Last night we ran our raid with two new team members. Things went pretty smoothly on the first two bosses. We couldn’t kill the council, but we’ve only actually killed the council once (maybe twice), which is fine. Tonight’s are second and final raid night of the week. It’ll be nice to start right on council and hopefully blow past it to Tortos.
We’re done recruiting full raid team members for now, but we’re still accepting non-raiders. In fact, Mooglegem’s been put in charge of recruiting casuals or backup raiders. We’ll see how it goes!
When Rohan at Blessing of Kings posted about variable group sizes in WoW, I thought it was a great idea that would likely never be implemented. I was wrong.
Blizzard just announced Flexible Raids. Flexible Raids is a new raid difficulty for 10-25 players. Loot works like LFR, and you can participate cross-realm, but there is no matchmaking service. The difficulty scales with the number of people in the group, and item level of gear will be between LFR and normal mode. In addition, Flexible Raids are on their own lockout.
What does this mean?
You’re no longer obligated to run either 10-man or 25-man raids. Guilds now have the flexibility to run with however many people they want.
Except that’s not quite true.
Let’s say a 25-man guild doesn’t have enough people to raid on a particular raid night. Yes, they could run a Flexible Raid. However, would it be better to run the flex as a whole group or send 10 people into normal mode where they’ll get better gear? Maybe it has to do with how many people are available. If there’s between 20 and 25, maybe they should try to run two normal modes. I don’t know; I’m not in a 25-man guild.
What about 10-man guilds? There are two scenarios to consider. First, what if there aren’t enough people to raid? Well, if we’re under 10 people, the Flexible Raid isn’t going to help. If we have more than 10 people, why would we want to get worse gear? Wouldn’t we rather the 10 more regular raiders have a chance at better gear in normal mode?
I think this is going to become another obligation. Blizzard says I’m not obligated to run LFR, but I still need a lot of gear from it even though I’m in a 10-man guild. While I don’t always do LFR, I try to run it every week. If the flex raid is going to drop better gear, shouldn’t I be doing it too? I suppose this could bond a different set of people. If 10 core guild raiders were online and wanted to raid, we could raid normal. If I wanted to do LFR, I could just queue. The flex raid would give me a reason to make friends with a wider community. Right now, I don’t interact with WoW players outside of my guild very often. There have been guilds in the past that PUG’d me regularly, but currently I’m not in touch with anyone. With flex raids feeling required but lacking a matchmaking service, I could see reaching out to other bloggers, for example, to add Battletag friends. But I have to be honest. Most weeks I don’t valor cap or complete LFR. What makes me think I have time to schedule a flex raid?
This seems really odd to me. I’d be ecstatic if they had followed Rohan’s idea of 7 to 13 people. Blizzard’s implementation won’t really help my guild and will likely feel like a burden I can’t fulfill. It’s an interesting first iteration of the scaling feature regardless. Even if I don’t have time to schedule anything, maybe a guildie will occasionally ask me to join a flex raid, but I don’t see it happening lately. It’s hard to judge a feature without experiencing it, but it seems to me that Blizzard took an interesting idea and executed it poorly.
Poor Gamon. After getting in many bar fights, attempting to protect the city against Death Knights, being put under martial law by Thrall during the coup of the Undercity, and helping at the Molten Front, his bad luck continues. He appears to be under arrest by the Kor’kron! The Kor’kron say a variety of things to him: “Where do you think you’ll run to? The Kor’kron control this city.” “You don’t want to force the hand of the Warchief.” I enjoy seeing the changes with the Kor’kron and some minor development of Gamon. Will Gamon be there for the Siege of Orgrimmar. I certainly hope so!
Similarly, the Valley of Spirits isn’t seeing much business. While the shopkeepers and trainers appear to be okay, they claim that doing business is too dangerous, and there are Kor’kron that seem to be guarding them. First, Garrosh puts the goblins upriver from our section, and now imprison us! That Darkspear Rebellion better kick it up a notch!
The Darkspear Rebellion was very exciting. Yes, it was pretty short, but I like that. You can see all the content in the day, but you can grind some more if you’d like. You can watch me experience it in the video below. Of course, the video and this post contain huge spoilers. I’ve also cut a lot of the repetition from the video. Below I first explain the lore and story involved before giving my opinion and feedback. Click here to jump straight to my feedback.
After witnessing events elsewhere on Azeroth with Lorewalker Cho and his dream brew, I was sent to Sen’jin Village. Vol’jin is there planning a rebellion against the Warchief, Garrosh Hellscream. With him are Thrall and Chen Stormstout. You’re tasked with collecting some supplies from the new Kor’kron camps in the Northern Barrens.
After completing this task, I returned to talk with Vol’jin, Thrall, and Chen. The Warchief, or at least his Kor’kron, figured out what was happening and led an attack on Sen’jin Village. Unfortunately for them, we were able to defeat them. As they fled, Vol’jin suggested we let them run because they’d be executed by Hellscream for doing so.
Vol’jin’s next move was to plan on attack on Razor Hill, using it as a staging ground before laying siege to Orgrimmar. Thrall parted ways with the rest of the rebellion at this point, believing that some of his previous advisers, such as Eitrigg and Saurfang, must not support Hellscream. Vol’jin told him that he’d be killed upon setting foot in Orgrimmar, but Thrall felt he had to try anyways. He told Vol’jin to watch over Aggra and his boy if he’s killed. gem watches from her direhorn, propped up cutely on the stairs.
After taking Razor Hill, the rebellion sets up camp at a watchtower just north of the city. Baine Bloodhoof arrives, happy to see Vol’jin alive. He offers to join the rebellion. I was tasked with two new objectives – to steal many more supplies from the Kor’kron and to speak with the Old Seer currently climbing Mount Neverest in the footsteps of the last emperor.
First, I went to the Northern Barrens to collect materials from the Kor’kron and to kill the Kor’kron commanders. Once that was done, I headed to Kun’Lai Summit.
I helped the Old Seer, Seer Hao Pham Roo, climb the mountain, during which he explained how when he was young he would have had trouble performing the climb. For example, he says, “My, you are strong! When I was young, I might have doubted that we could do this. But now, I have no doubts at all.” In fact, he mentions overcoming anger, violence, doubt, despair, hate, and fear.
Upon reaching the summit, he explains. “You see, when I was young… when I was young… when I was young… I was EMPEROR.” He transforms in the spirit of the last emperor, describing his remaining vice – his pride. He explains that his pride cloaked Pandaria in the mists. He thought they could solve their problems without outside help. Now he believes that old enemies must work together, and that proud races must admit that they need help. He then disappears.
Upon completing all the tasks of the Darkspear Rebellion, I became Darkspear Revolutionary Devee. (If I was a member of the Alliance, I would gained “Hordebreaker!”)
My opinion and reaction
I’m incredibly happy with the Battlefield Barrens event. The lore was fantastic, and experiencing it was a ton of fun. The only grind is collecting supplies for the weekly, but that really only took an hour or so. Of course, if I choose not to do it again, it wouldn’t even be that big of a deal. The conflict rose at a great pacing as well. First, we attacked the Kor’kron haphazardly. Next, they attacked Sen’jin Village, and we defended. Finally, we led a full assault with a marching army upon Razor Hill. Very cool!
All three leaders of the primary Western Horde were there – Vol’jin, Thrall, and Baine. They even mentioned that Lor’themar agreed with the rebellion but was still busy and that Sylvanas agreed but was too far away. It was nice to see Baine show up despite there still being tauren within Orgrimmar. The dialogue between Thrall and Vol’jin was also touching. I know I’m a sap for lore and story, but I really enjoyed it. I hope Blizzard wasn’t foreshadowing Thrall’s death, but in all honesty, I was expecting his death at the end of Cataclysm already. Many people love Thrall, and many people are sick of seeing him. Killing him could be a fitting solution. The people who are sick of him won’t need to see him anymore. The people who love him will have him go out at a high point in his life and can remember him as a great hero.
The quest with the Old Seer was simply amazing. I didn’t even realize he was talking about defeating the sha as we climbed until I went back to watch my own video. And when he transformed into the Emperor, I was at a loss of words. I know that sounds silly, but I have a low tolerance for “awesome,” and this was super awesome. A lot of people were expecting a final Sha of Pride, but it’s nice to see it confirmed. And it’s definitely true that Garrosh has been acting more prideful and much less honorable than previously. When did the mists part, anyways? Could the Sha of Pride have left Pandaria, parting the mists, near the end of Cataclysm – right around the time Garrosh Hellscream began planning the destruction of Theramore? It could explain his change of behavior!
This post is more a “journal” type entry, but I found it very interesting to hear about the effect severe latency and bandwidth limitations has on playing MMOs.
Patch 5.3 Escalation brought four new scenarios with it, two of which are required to progress into the Darkspear Rebellion quests. None of them involves the actual player characters; they’re stories told about others on Azeroth through Lorewalker Cho and his dream brew. This is a very cool way of telling stories about other characters while still allowing all players to see them.
Please note that this post will contain spoilers!
The first scenario, Blood in the Snow, is about the Alliance. The Zandalari have instigated the Frostmane trolls in Dun Morogh to lead an attack on Ironforge. When Varian asks the dwarves to send troops to help him fight off the trolls, the Bronzebeard and Wildhammer both refuse. The two clans are scared to turn their backs on the Dark Iron. Meanwhile Moira Thaurissan, Queen-Regent of the Dark Iron clan, shows that she’s willing to contribute to the Alliance and defend Ironforge by leading her troops into battle alongside Varian Wrynn. (Why does Varian have to lead the effort? Why aren’t the dwarves taking the initiative to defend their own city?)
Mechanically there was nothing special about Blood in the Snow. However, I really enjoyed it. In fact, I think it might have been my favorite scenario. Now, do consider that I only played each scenario once. It’s fairly likely that I won’t play any of them again for a long time. While some of the other scenarios had awesome things happen, it’s not every day that I get to see character progression of Alliance faction leaders. Moira’s a cool character, and it’s exciting to see her step up. I hope they three clans don’t unite any time soon. I’d like to see Moira turn into the more honorable one while the other two bicker.
The Dark Heart of Pandaria puts you in the shoes of goblin engineers excavating the Vale of Eternal Blossoms under orders of Garrosh Hellscream who hopes to find an ancient power. The goblins find a large chest, but when they open it, Norushen, a Titan construct of a Mogu yells, “Containment failure. Active defense matrix enabled.” A goblin is transformed by sha energy into the Echo of Y’Shaarj, and the other goblins defeat him.
Grizzle Gearslip, Malkorok, and Kor’kron enter the room, claiming this is exactly what they wanted to find. Malkorok pays Grizzle Gearslip, but Grizzle Gearslip replies that it wasn’t the full amount. Malkorok says that Grizzle Gearslip is only paid for the workers present, not the ones who died. He grabs him by the neck and proceeds with a racist tirade about the weakness of the lesser races before leaving.
This is another very fascinating scenario. Of course, we get some nice progression about the Old God Y’Shaarj. Not only did we discover this presence, but we find that Garrosh not only knew of it but also wanted it. I think everyone on Azeroth who isn’t part of Garrosh’s ideal Horde thinks harnessing the power of an Old God is a bad idea. Lastly, this scenario seems to act as a tipping point for the goblins. It’s obvious what the orcs think of the goblins as well.
I actually ran through Battle on the High Seas last, but as it was my least favorite scenario of the four, I didn’t want to end this post with it. Horde and Alliance ships meet in the ocean en route to Pandaria and open fire on each other. You’re tasked with boarding the other ships both by swinging over with ropes and by shooting yourself with a cannon. Besides killing enemy sailors, you also place explosives to destroy the ships.
I thought this scenario was rather boring although it did have its moments. Swinging from the ropes and using the cannons was fun, but the instructions weren’t always clear. The third person in my group at one point jumped overboard and swam to the other ship, not realizing we needed to do something on the previous ship before being able to swing to the next. We also got caught on an enemy ship when the explosives went off, killing us. It told us to get off the ship, but we weren’t sure exactly what we were supposed to do.
The biggest problem with the scenario is that it doesn’t progress the story. Yes, yes, I realize the Horde and Alliance are at war. I guess they just wanted some scenario, any scenario, to show that conflict. What we get here is some random sailors dying. Was there anyone important on either side? No. Did we learn anything new (like we do in all three of the other scenarios)? No! I’m sure Blizzard could have reinforced the Horde-Alliance conflict while actually using some characters that mattered.
Lastly we have the Secrets of Ragefire. Citizens in Durotar have been disappearing, and the Gob Squad believes it has something to do with Ragefire Chasm. You’re placed in the roles of the Gob Squad, who previously had adventures in Azshara and the Twilight Highlands, to learn what’s happening. The Gob Squad works to create a bomb to blow open a door. The Dark Shaman Xorenth tries to stop them, but the Gob Squad defeats them. They find a large number of proto-drake eggs as well as Kor’kron supply crates, making them think Garrosh plans an invasion, including orcs mounted on proto-drakes. They also find discarded Pandaria artifacts. These are likely discarded because they’re not the source of power of Y’shaarj for which Garrosh was searching. The Gob Squad creates another bomb to blow open the next door.
Yes, that’s the bomb in the upper-left of that picture. Why yes, that is a pool pony, and no, we don’t know why it’s needed. The bomb detonates early, hurting some members of the Gob Squad. Soon after, Overseer Elaglo enters, claiming “The true horde, the pure horde, cannot be stopped!” While Grit sets up a teleporter, the other goblins defend him and defeat the racist Overseer Elaglo before escaping through the teleporter.
This is another great scenario. It’s a ton of fun to explore an area that Horde players explored for the first time so long ago. In true goblin fashion, the Gob Squad is a bit silly but still manage to kick butt! The scenario shows the pride and arrogance of Garrosh Hellscream’s Horde. I love the line about the true Horde. I also like the usage of Dark Shaman. An expansion ago, I hadn’t heard of the idea of Dark Shaman. I believe the first I heard of them was in Tides of War. With the release of Mists of Pandaria, Ragefire Chasm was updated. Gone was the concept of warlocks; in its place were the Dark Shaman, and the Secrets of Ragefire brings the problem to a head. It’s time we do something about the Old God harnessing, shamanic arts-abusing, “true Horde” led by Garrosh Hellscream! Maybe it’s time for a rebellion, and maybe I’ll be posting about the Darkspear Rebellion next time!
After collecting my Secrets of the Empire and trillium bars, I finally got to proceed with the legendary quests. I headed to the Thunderforge for my solo scenario, which was actually a bit more challenging than usual. As a healer, I got through it, but Mooglegem struggled a bit as DPS. Afterward, Wrathion was nice enough to give us our legendary meta gems! The Courageous Primal Diamond is sure sweet; I hope I actually get to use it soon! I don’t want to put it in my helm when I’m likely to upgrade it soon.
There are two more quests in the 5.2 chain before completing chapter three. Why put the legendary reward in the middle of the chain? That seems very odd to me, but I guess it didn’t really matter because people will continue into chapter four regardless.
During the interaction to receive the reward, Anduin Wrynn sits on the wall. Mooglegem decided to sit with him and have a nice chat. He’s a great character. I wonder if the Alliance get to see much more of him than we Horde do.
If you haven’t done the scenario and are curious, you can see it here!
Rohan thinks we should bring back talent trees with talents every level for leveling purposes. However, he proposes that at max level, you have every talent, but the talents give the abilities that a class gets while leveling currently. This would make it simply a way of choosing what you get first while leveling. It’s a great idea!
Anne posits that the Ancients and Celestials are Azeroth’s natural response and balance to chaos and the Old Gods. This is a great article, so please read it!
Patch 5.3 hits today. Every time there’s a patch, I ask myself if I’m ready for it. So far this expansion, every patch has come a bit early in my opinion. Yes, I do feel a bit burnt out lately, but that’s because there’s too much to do, not because it’s boring.
How am I doing in patch 5.2? I’ve finished LFR of course and am 3/12 in Throne of Thunder. I’ve done all the activities on the Isle of Thunder although didn’t get all the achievements, I’ve killed the two world bosses, and I’ve explored the Isle of Giants. I’m exalted with the Sunreaver Onslaught and revered with the Shado-Pan Assault. I’ve finished collecting Secrets of the Empire and Trillium Bars for Wrathion and am working on his quests.
I suppose now is as good a time as any. There’s still more to do, but this isn’t a raid patch. Because I’m no longer doing much besides raiding, it seems like the perfect time for a non-raid patch. I just wish I was caught up with Wrathion! Patch 5.3, Escalation, should be exciting. I have no idea what’s going on with PVP, and I wish I did, so I can’t say much about the new BG. Scenarios have been pretty boring so far, so I’m not very excited for that either. However, I love where they’re going with the story and look forward to helping Vol’jin’s rebellion!
What’s this? A giant exclamation mark in the raid? Oh, a quest! Seriously, how did I not know there were raid quests in the Throne of Thunder. Admittedly we’re not very far in the raid. We’re only 3/12, so I suppose the randomly quest has always been further in the raid. Still it seems surprising to me that I wouldn’t have heard about this.
It was a nice change to have something a little different to do between the first two bosses. Maybe we wiped once, sure, but things always go wrong on trash. It wasn’t the only time we wiped on trash that night either.
Of course, all I received for completing it was 26 gold. Even so, I enjoyed the change of pace and look forward to running into more of these in the future.
The other day I hadn’t really intended on playing WoW much. I got online to do something really quick, and my friend and guildmate Zetzu announced that Oondasta was up, and that people were about to engage him. Within minutes, Devee and Mooglegem were standing on the beach of the Isle of Giants.
No one was attacking him. Minutes passed, and people were still arguing and trying to group up. I got distracted and ended up downstairs talking to my roommate. About twenty minutes later, I walked into my room. On Mooglegem’s screen, I see that Oondasta is almost dead. Mooglegem casts one spell, and the spell hits just before Oondasta dies. I didn’t even get to enter combat with Devee.
Of course, Mooglegem gets some loot. I forget what it was now, but after looking at the loot, she used a Mogu Rune of Fate.
Reins of the Cobalt Primordial Direhorn.
Too awesome! I think she looks good on it though, don’t you?
On Wednesday we defeated the Council of Elders for the first time! It was a really fun fight in my opinion. I love seeing the various troll tribes act as individuals even while acting as a group. Just as with Horridon, the Council of Elders showcases representatives of each troll tribe (especially if you consider the Darkspear representative in opposition).
We had thirteen failed attempts before our successful kill; the video shows the last few seconds of each failure before the full success. Now it’s on to Tortos!
I think I’d look good riding on a Horridon. Sadly, the mount didn’t drop. It would pretty nice to have one day.
It only took us 13 wipes to down Horridon for the first time! That seems like a lot, but I guess it wasn’t so bad. I think it was only two nights. We put some attempts into the Council of Elders as well but didn’t get far. Maybe we’ll progress more next week!
Adam thinks gear should be removed. Most players would 100% reject this. I think it’s an interesting idea, but it wouldn’t fully work. While I don’t want to stress over pieces of gear (yet I do) and I just want to raid, obtaining gear feels satisfying.
I had very little time this week to play World of Warcraft. Of our two raid nights, one never got going, so we ran LFR instead. Someone in our guild still needed to go through LFR for the first time, so we ran the wing that he needed next before bed. The next raid night we got into Throne of Thunder, downed the first boss, and attempted the second. After spending three days from WoW, I returned Monday night with the goal of doing the final wing of Throne of Thunder for the first time.
When Mooglegem and I zoned into the raid, we had three stacks of Determination and were on Lei Shen. Might as well take advantage of the three stacks, kill him, and then re-queue, right? Well, we wiped two more times. In the others’ defense, there really are a lot of abilities, and you have to know when to run and when to stack. After we finally killed him, Mooglegem and I left and re-queued. We zoned back in to find ourselves about to pull Lei Shen. We pulled, wiped, and dropped group. Time to re-queue, and then we were back at Lei Shen again, although this time there was trash between me and the boss. People seemed to just run past the trash, hoping to reach the teleporter before dying. Fine! But this time, we decided to try dropping group.
Deserter.
Thanks, Blizzard. I wouldn’t say I’m a deserter though. I’d say I’m someone who needed to go to sleep.
We did, however, fight Nalak, The Storm Lord. I didn’t notice at first, but Darkdk was in my raid! Darkdk #1! For people not from Kil’jaeden, Darkdk is a… local celebrity? That’s what I’d call him. Some people might call him a trade troll. I suppose “Darkdk #1” is sort of his catchphrase, and according to my meters, he really was #1.
Every week, Blog Azeroth proposes a Shared Topic for World of Warcraft bloggers to discuss. I began participating late, so I’ve decided to go back and write to the old prompts. This topic was proposed by Fumbleknock.
Does WoW need another party role?
Nope. It might be interesting, but it wouldn’t be worth Blizzard’s effort when you consider the new balancing they’d have to do. Would the new role be optional? If so, how would you balance content? Dungeons would require either a tank, healer, and three DPS, or a tank, healer, two DPS, and one of the new role. How would that be done? And what about old content? Would that be rebalanced or just left as is? I would think they’d leave them, but then, how would you level as the new role? It would have to be able to do dungeons especially considering the Dungeon Finder.
Let’s overlook that and consider an idea for a new role anyways. It would need to be some sort of support class. What if there was a class that specialized in buffs. Its DPS would suck, but it would have more powerful buffs. If it was a bard, maybe it could have multiple songs with only one active at a time. One song would raise the DPS of all party/raid members a certain percent. Another could raise healing done, and a third could raise health or dodge or some other tank thing. (Can you tell that I’ve never tanked?) Perhaps it could have even stronger single-target buffs. For example, it could buff a target player’s DPS by 20% for a small amount of time at the cost of stopping the raid-wide songs. I’m not sure how it would level effectively though. I’m not sure what to do about scaling between 5-man, 10-man, and 25-man content, but I’m sure it could be done.
Alternatively, there could be a CC-specialized class. I suppose it would be like the controller role in Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. Many classes can already CC, but maybe a class that has many CCs but incredibly low DPS. It could CC multiple targets at a time and use a variety of knockbacks. I’m not sure how useful this would be, but it’s an idea.
To be clear, I don’t think introducing a whole new role into World of Warcraft would work. However, I do have a soft spot for bards, so I’d love to see one added. Admittedly that’s because Mooglegem loves to play bards in other games, and I’d like her to have that opportunity in WoW. I suppose there’s a chance we’ll see a bard in WoW, but I don’t think we’ll ever see a fourth role.
This is an extremely fascinating article. The idea is that opinions on how much effort gear is worth varies drastically. Balkoth found that 32.7% of responders think you’d be crazy to kill 200 mogu for a BiS heroic ring. Next, 50% think you’d be crazy not to kill 500 mogu for the ring. At 1000, 41% think you’d be crazy not to go for the ring. Lastly, 13% think 5000+ mogu is reasonable. Blizzard can’t make everyone happy.
Here’s an interesting change. You’ll now have to pick your role when queuing for a battleground. From now on, the difference between the two teams’ number of healers can be no more than one. I wonder if I can just queue as DPS and then heal.
The Isle of Thunder is now fully unlocked, and I recently defeated Shan Bu in the solo scenario, Fall of Shan Bu. It was a relatively simple scenario with a few plot development points of interest. The Horde and the Alliance almost clashed but focused on defeating the Mogu and Zandalari first. However, once Shan Bu was defeated, things escalated.
Regent-Lord Lor’themar Theron demanded that Lady Jaina Proudmoore free the Sunreavers. She responded that they were led an assault on an Alliance city from her own city. Lor’themar said that the Sunreavers didn’t know about that. What I particularly enjoyed was Aethas Sunreaver’s emote at this time. “Aethas Sunreaver shift uncomfortably.” No mention of this by the characters, and if you weren’t looking at the chat, you would have missed it.
After Taran Zhu told them to break the cycle and walk away, Lor’themar told his rangers to stand down. Soon after, Jaina told her followers to leave as well. I just want to point out that the Horde forces put their weapons down first, leaving them vulnerable. That’s because not everyone in the Horde are jerks!
The scenario ended with Nalak still waiting. We couldn’t just let her live, so Mooglegem and I hunted her down. Unfortunately, as she fell out of the sky, her open mouth landed around a terrified Mooglegem!
Last week Carpe Flux Capacitor managed to enter Throne of Thunder for the first time (besides LFR). It took us eight attempts, but we defeated Jin’rokh the Breaker before calling it. We considered pushing forward to see the next trash at least, but we got a late start and had to end early that night so decided to stop there.
For the first time, I decided to include short clips of the end of each attempt leading up to the successful attempt in the video. I thought it’d be kind of funny.
Sadly, Jin’rokh didn’t give me any loot, the jerk. It was a fun fight though. I’m looking forward to Horridon next!
In the Throne of Thunder LFR this week, I noticed something odd. My Divine Star shoots directly behind me rather than in front of me. I wasn’t the only one with problems either. Mooglegem’s Frozen Orb behaved the same way, and I saw it happen to other mages as well. I have no idea what’s causing it, but it only seems to happen in Throne of Thunder.
This sounds really fun. I wish I could have been there. Player run events are very fascinating to me. I love that we have the ability to create our own stories in the game.
The Horde has finished stage 4 and infiltrated Stormsea Landing! This was a fun scenario in which we used smoke bombs to clear sentries and then knocked out targets sneakily before attacking more directly. It went okay for me, although I didn’t understand how to knock out the enemies at first. When Mooglegem did it, her extra action button refused to display, which caused some problems.
We obtained a few Isle of Thunder achievements this weekend too. First, we earned Speed Metal for defeating Metal Lord Mono-Han with 10 stacks of Power Surge. We also earned These Mogu Have Gotta Go-gu for defeating the summoned mogu in the Court of Bones. After defeating all of the bosses summonable by ritual stones, we earned It Was Worth Every Ritual Stone.
Lastly, we earned Platform Hero. You can see me earn in the video above.
I met Versidia from Bronzebeard in a Throne of Thunder LFR run recently. I liked her transmog so grabbed a picture. She looks like she could be a high priestess of the Farraki! I complimented her transmog, and she replied that it took her five months to get the robe.
I’ve been hoping to fight Oondasta but have always missed it for some reason. This weekend I noticed he was up. [Thank you, Balkoth, for pointing out that Oondasta is a male!] I played Xbox for an hour or two with the game open, continually checking to see if there was a group forming, but there wasn’t. The next day I finally saw people getting together to fight Oondasta. Seeing her approach the edge of the hill to come to the beach to fight us was a joyous occasion!
While we were waiting to pull, someone decided to organize the raid by class. Once people noticed it was happening, others tried to rearrange it just to stop the organizer. There was a little raid frame war, which was surprisingly fun actually.
We had a few wipes, but eventually we killed her! Thank you for the Girdle of Dimorphodontics, Oondasta!
I hit exalted with the Sunreaver Onslaught recently. I haven’t been dailies everyday, yet now I’m exalted multiple stages of the Isle of Thunder still ahead. Of course, many people are already exalted. It’s nice to see a reputation grind that isn’t quite so… grindy. I’ll still be doing the dailies when we unlock new stages, but I’ll probably go back to doing Shado-Pan and August Celestials dailies too. I’ve been impressed with the Isle of Thunder and patch 5.2 in general!
Allison wonders why healers aren’t queuing for raid finder. She thinks it might have to do with healing being harder in LFR than normal raids because people will assume the healers can compensate. This seems like a crazy idea. I can be half asleep spamming random button and still top the carts in LFR, and it’s not like I’m heroic raid geared or anything.
Warning: This post contains some spoilers for patch 5.3.
I’m super excited about what we’ll be doing in 5.3! The Darkspear will be rebelling against Garrosh Hellscream. Horde heroes will be helping the Darkspear against an assault by the Kor’kron and advancing on Orgrimmar. Meanwhile Alliance heroes will be performing espionage against Hellscream on the outskirts of Orgrimmar. We’ll also be disrupting Kor’kron supply lines in the Northern Barrens and killing Kor’kron leaders.
While I like Blizzard to take their time with patches, I’m eager to see the plot unfold. I love all the plot development we’re seeing this expansion, and I suspect the Darkspear’s rebellion will be particularly entertaining. I’m sure I have a bit of a soft spot for the Darkspear because I play a troll.
With Vol’jin declaring war against Garrosh Hellscream, does this point towards Vol’jin as future Warchief? Blizzard has stated before that it’ll be unexpected, but they’ve also said things that don’t always turn out true. While I want Vol’jin to become the Warchief, I could get behind Lor’themar Theron as well. He was an empty character to me until 5.1, but I’ve really come to enjoy his character. If the Horde was a democracy, however, I’d be voting for Vol’jin!
Because I didn’t have to work on Good Friday, I decided to spend some time in Zul’drak. This was the last Northrend zone that I hadn’t finished. It started off rather boringly, but when I was about 40% of the way through the quests, I stopped being able to find new quests. Of course, that usually means there’s a quest item I missed. I checked my inventory, and there it was. The Unliving Choker started a chain in which I was disguised as Scourge and worked for Drakuru. This was really interesting. It was a nice break from stereotypical quests. Many of the quests tasked me with getting NPCs to do things. It was a little bit like playing an RTS if you only controlled one unit.
By finishing Zul’Drak, I also finished Northrend. Now that I’ve finished Outland, Northrend, the Cataclysm zones, and Pandaria, it just leaves Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. This means, for me, the questing grind is over. I don’t plan on grinding out Kalimdor or Eastern Kingdoms because Mooglegem needs them too. I’m not going to bother with those zones on Devee; we’re going to do them on new characters. Whether or not we ever get around to it is still a question worth considering, but it’s nice to have Northrend done!
Every week, Blog Azeroth proposes a Shared Topic for World of Warcraft bloggers to discuss. This week’s topic was proposed by Cymre of Bubbles of Mischief.
What is your absolute favourite profession in WoW? Why do you love it above all others and what is one feature you would add to the profession if you could?
It’s been a while since I’ve responded to a current Blog Azeroth Shared Topic. This is a tough one. I have enchanting, mining, first aid, fishing, cooking, and archaeology all maxed on Devee. Previously I’ve had skinning maxed, and I’ve leveled inscription and herbalism a bit. I’ve had a blacksmith at very low levels.
I started thinking about what professions are fun, about what I enjoy. I’m glad to have enchanting. If I could only have one, it would be enchanting. That’s not about fun; it’s about utility. My other professions don’t do anything. Tailoring could fit a priest, and jewelcrafting could be useful, but why would I take those when Mooglegem already has those professions? That leaves enchanting.
The prompt didn’t mention the most useful profession, however. My favorite could be archaeology, because it gives me some neat items. Yes, that’s probably my favorite profession to currently use. But my favorite ever is fishing.
Many people find fishing boring, but I think it was really fun. There’s something I like about unrequired grinds. Required grinds are the worst aspect of the game, but unrequired grinds can be fun. Searching for pools in Terrokar Forest for Mr. Pinchy so I could obtain a Magical Crawdad was fun. Even more fun was fishing in Northrend for a Sea Turtle.
The best part of fishing was the dangerous missions into enemy territory. First, there was The Fishing Diplomat. “Fish something up in Orgrimmar and Stormwind.” As it can be anything, this is fairly simple. Old Crafty and Old Ironjaw are a lot more fun. Old Crafty tasks you with fishing up Old Crafty, a very rare fish, in Orgrimmar. Similarly, Old Ironjaw tasks you with fishing up Old Ironjaw, a very rare fish, in Ironforge. With account-wide achievements, these seem pretty stupid now. They can both be easy and safe. When I obtained Old Ironjaw, I was forced to travel to Ironforge, run left when I entered to get to the pool, run to the back of the pool, and quietly fish, hoping no one would come kill me. It was a big deal because it was a hassle to get in there. I couldn’t just do it for 10 minutes, go do some dailies, and come back to fish more. Usually, once I was there I’d stay there for a weekend fishing.
On my last fishing trip, I met Arysa and Yalaina. These two Alliance members hung out with me and fooled around. There were a lot of emotes, but they never killed me.
In this screenshot, Yalaina has used her engineering hat to mind control me so they could heal me and protect me when another person came to attack. Very nice people! If I remember correctly, this was the day I finally caught Old Ironjaw.
Scarab Lord, Champiuon of the Naaru, Hand of A’dal, Argent Defender, Celestial Defender, Champion of Ulduar, Conqueror of Ulduar, Conqueror of Naxxramas, Death’s Demise, Grand Crusader, The Immortal, The Undying, The Magic Seeker, and Obsidian Slayer. And none of me.
Heroic scenarios, loot specialization, bonus rolls with progressively better bonuses, removal of most resilience, gear scaling in PVP, and new BGs and scenarios.
Last week we broke through the walls of the Thunder King at the end of Isle of Thunder’s Stage 2 in the scenario Tear Down This Wall!
This week, we continued our assault. At the end of Stage 3, we mounted an aerial assault in the solo scenario To the Skies! We now control of the Thunder Forges!
I love the use of these scenarios to progress the story. However, I believe that they should be repeatable some how in case we want to see the story again. The stages are unlocking at the perfect pace. I still have time between stages, but they’re unlocking fast enough that they make me want to do dailies another couple times to see what’s changed.
Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft seems like it might be a cash grab at the casual market, but I’m optimistic that it’s going to be fun. I enjoy collectible card games, and I enjoy Warcraft, so what could go wrong? It seems a little odd to me that there will now be two Warcraft card games, but they seem pretty different.
Hearthstone makes me think of the card games inside the Final Fantasy series, Triple Triad in Final Fantasy VIII and Tetra Master from Final Fantasy IX. They weren’t required to completely their games’ story, they were very simple, and they were very fun. I keep thinking of them when I think of Hearthstone, although honestly, that’s probably not a very apt comparison. Triple Triad and Tetra Master existed within other games. Now if Blizzard put Hearthstone into World of Warcraft as an addon, that would be pretty amazing.
You can see some gameplay above courtesy of MMO-Champion. It appears to be similar to many other collectible card games such as Magic: The Gathering. The big differences I see are that there’s only one energy source, your total amount of energy increases automatically without the need for playing lands, and effects are resolved immediately. These seem like good changes to streamline playing. The energy system, I’d say, is better. Resolving effects immediately takes out some of the complexity and strategy that Magic: The Gathering has. This is probably good for Blizzard given that it’s a free-to-play game that’s going to be marketed to a wide variety of people. It’s probably not so good for gamers who appreciate a complex game, but I think the game still looks very enjoyable.
I’ll need to wait to try it to really form an opinion, but right now, I’m looking forward to it. It’s been a while since Blizzard has a created a relatively simple game. Their usual games are high quality (besides some problems with D3), so hopefully they keep it up with Hearthstone.
Every week, Blog Azeroth proposes a Shared Topic for World of Warcraft bloggers to discuss. I began participating late, so I’ve decided to go back and write to the old prompts. This topic was proposed by Siha.
What do you enjoy about the class you play the most?
It’s hard to say exactly because the priest is the only class with which I’ve ever reached max level. I’ve never made it close to max level with another. There are number of reasons I like playing a priest though. Most of them are more specifically about playing a healer.
I like always having a healer with me. Someone in a battleground once said something along the lines “finally, I get a healer in my battleground.” I started to reply “What are you talking about? I always have at least one healer in my battlegrounds” before I caught myself. Of course I do. I’m a healer.
I don’t know what other healers are like, but I can level just fine in discipline. I manage to deal decent enough damage to quest and can obviously keep myself healed. DPS seems very stressful to me as well, which gives me more of a reason to be a healer. Plus my queue times are always low. Most importantly, I can heal Mooglegem. My original reason for rolling this priest was to level with Mooglegem until she reached the same level as my shaman. When she did, I didn’t want to switch back to the shaman.
Before playing my priest, I tried warrior, hunter, and shaman. I had tried a couple other classes as well but never reached 10. I’m not sure why I picked priest, but I think it was because I wasn’t expecting to like it or stick with it. I just wanted to support Mooglegem. As I mentioned, I think I still do want to primarily support her.
We’ve established that I like healing. Why, specifically, do I like being a priest? I like the lore. I enjoy the idea of sometimes using the Holy Light as a holy priest and sometimes dominating others’ minds as a discipline priest. I love all the emergency buttons I have in discipline. I love using Leap of Faith to successfully pull someone out of something bad. I love using Void Shift to swap health with someone who’s low and then using Desperate Prayer to heal myself. I love being able to contribute to DPS at the same time through the use of Atonement. I love throwing a Power Word: Barrier on the ground or a Pain Suppression on the tank. I love seeing Anduin grow into a powerful priest and thinking “he’s like me.”
We might be a little late, but we recently completed tier 14. In the screenshot above, we’re standing next to the body of Grand Empress Shek’zeer, our last t14 boss.
Previously we had finished Mogu’shan Vaults, gone 4/6 in Heart of Fear, and entered Terrace of Endless Spring a grand total of zero times. We started off our new adventure with Terrace of Endless Spring, skipping the end of Heart of Fear. Protectors of the Endless were pretty easy, and I didn’t even take any video or screenshots.
Tsulong was a fun fight, but maybe I’m biased being a healer. I’m glad to see Blizzard incorporate healing in odd ways. Hopefully these types of fights become a little more common than Valithria Dreamwak and Tsulong.
You can watch our kill above.
Lei Shi is my least favorite boss of this tier. She’s so annoying! Does Blizzard want certain bosses to have terribly annoying voices? I don’t understand.
And here’s her kill video.
Here we killed what’s supposed to be the final raid boss of the tier, the Sha of Fear. It was a fairly simple fight, but I still enjoyed it. As an aside, it’s one of the more enjoyable LFR fights as well because there’s something to do.
We actually posed in this one, but the body had already despawned. Oh well. I don’t have a video because I forgot to delete a large number of old videos, and my HDD filled. Whoops.
We moved on to Amber-Shaper Un’sok. This was a surprisingly difficult fight. I think the main problem is that everyone can’t practice at the same time. You might get the hang of being in the construct, but then you might not get put in it next time.
Once again, our kill video is here.
You can see our kill video for Grand Empress Shek’zeer here, and our kill shot is at the top of this post. This was a fun fight. This was going to be our final attempt whether successful or not. In fact, we had already called the raid but decided to give it one more try. I won the pants on a bonus roll, which I’ll only use once I break this tier set, and I won the mace, Kri’tak, Imperial Scepter of the Swarm, off the boss herself. Good bye, tier 14!
In this articles, Rohan compares dungeons and scenarios. He considers loot rewards and design time among other aspects. He makes some great commentary.
Draztal basically explains that the game is completely different now. His post is worth reading. However, I do want to point out that Holisky repeatedly says the read the whole article even though it’s long. It’s not long, but this tells you something about our attention spans.
I’ve had an Ominous Seed sitting in my bad for a while now. I wasn’t sure of it’s purpose, but I was always busy with something else. When I finally got around to looking it up on wowhead, I was surprised to find out that it grows into the Terrible Turnip!
The Terrible Turnip is a terrific pet for those interested in pet battles. It has an ability that can’t kill enemies. That means that the Terrible Turnip is actually the Perfect Turnip to use when trying to catch low-level pets! This makes me want to work on my pets more.
Earlier this week, the Horde completed phase one of the Isle of Thunder. I enjoyed what I saw of phase one, but the Horde needed a base on the island itself! When I showed up for my dailies that day, there was a single quest instead of dailies. This quest queued me for a solo scenario that tasked me with flying to the island, locating a Zanadalari outpost protected by a magic barrier, slaying the Zandalari inside, and taking down the barrier. It was a great of telling a story! You can watch me go through it in the video above.
With the Zandalari threat removed, Lor’themar was able to set up an outpost in the northwest section of the Isle of Thunder called the Dawnseeker Promontory. My favorite part? Well, my good friend Uda the Beast!
Uda the Beast was the Sunreaver innkeeper in Dalaran. I spent a lot of time with her during the War in Northrend because I loved her two wolves! I helped her evacuate with many other Sunreavers during the purging of Dalaran, and luckily she escaped with her wolves! Now she’s the innkeeper in Dawnseeker Promontory on the Isle of Thunder! You can see Mooglegem and me spending some quality time with her and her lovely wolves!
I just installed this, so I can’t yet say how useful it is. Apparently it tracks weekly things on the Isle of Thunder per character so you can know on what to focus.
After checking out the Isle of Thunder, I decided to pay the Isle of Giants a visit. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I knew that a bunch of dinosaurs sounded like fun. The Isle of Giants is an island off the northern coast of Pandaria. Unlike almost everything else in World of Warcraft, there are no quests or hints telling you visit the island. You can’t fly on the island, but you can fly to it, and there’s a flight path on the island. What else is on the island? Dinosaurs, of course.
The dinosaurs are all large. The hatchlings look to be normal size, and the adults are huge. To take an adult dinosaur, you’ll likely need a group. I can solo the hatchlings, but I wouldn’t want to take on a group. I spent most of my time there with Mooglegem, which made it easier.
There are Zandalari on the island who have a chance to drop new raptor pets. They don’t drop them every time, but they do drop them regularly. If you spend the evening farming the Isle of Giants, you’ll probably end up with all four. In addition to pets, enemies drop Giant Dinosaur Bones. Zandalari drop one each, and dinosaurs drop multiple. The bigger the dinosaur, the more bones they drop.
You can turn the bones in to Ku’ma on the island for some neat rewards. For 10, he’ll give you a Mote of Harmony, and for 100, he’ll give you a Spirit of Harmony. You’re probably wondering why I said “neat rewards” but then talked about boring motes and spirits. There’s more. If you turn in 999 Giant Dinosaur Bones, you can get the Spectral Porcupette pet. It’s adorable, and I want it. Unfortunately, I won’t be saving for it; I’ll be saving 9999 Giant Dinosaur Bones so I can purchase the Reins of the Bone-White Primal Raptor. I want it!
Normally I’m against grinds, but I love the Isle of Giants. Consider Valor Point capping, my most hated grind. It has quests, story, and varying situations. That all sounds good, but it’s also needed. If I’m not Valor capping, I’m letting my raid team down. There are weeks during which I don’t quite cap, but I get close. Valor Points are tied directly to rewards that help me excel in raiding. In addition, a weekly cap gives me a set goal I have to make lest I don’t reach my full potential. If there was no cap, I wouldn’t feel the need to cap it. Yes, some people would get thousands in a week. I would probably say “I can always get more next week” and do less overall. Back to the Isle of Giants. No required PVE reward is tied to the grind, so it’s a grind I can do whenever I want. There’s no feeling of obligation. There’s just slaying enemies on a lost island filled with dinosaurs – a fun fantasy trope that fits well in World of Warcraft. I love it, and I hope Blizzard puts more content like the Isle of Giants into the game.
I managed to find a Key to the Palace of Lei Shen recently, which allowed me to access the Troves of the Thunder King. I like Blizzard’s use of the scenario mechanic here. Going forward, I think it’ll be a cool system.
The idea behind the Troves of the Thunder King is a good one. You have a limited amount of time to open as many chests as possible. It’s a simple enough concept. You’ll see in my video that I had a bit of a problem. Since 5.2, when I receive currency my game locks up for a few seconds. This wouldn’t be a huge problem, but the Troves of the Thunder King is timed. I lost a significant amount of time due to this bug. I need to do some troubleshooting to learn what’s causing this.
Despite that problem, I’d consider my plundering successfully. I got a decent handful of Elder Charms of Good Fortune, which were what I was really after. I plan on running Terrace of Endless Spring LFR repeatedly using my charms on Lei Shi and Sha of Fear so I can finish my tier set. I might need to do the same on Will of the Emperor in Mogu’shan Vaults LFR for my trinket. Additionally, it’d be nice to be able to use a charm on every 5.0 raid boss kill that has poor I need. I’ll be happy when I don’t need to worry about any of this old gear!
Devee here! There’s a lot happening lately, mon, and I wish I could be more places at once. (Yes, I’m a troll who can speak correctly!) First, Nana Mudclaw asked Farmer Yoon to take over her spot in the Tiller’s Union. Not having time for both, Farmer Yoon gifted his farm to me! As I had just harvested enough pink turnips to make Jogu the Drunk his Mad Brewer’s Breakfast, I wondered what to plant next. However, I began to receive work orders! I wonder why organizations never did this before I owned the farm? Regardless, I accepted work orders from the Shado-pan and the August Celestials because I’m still trying to prove myself to them.
Having proved myself valorous, dominating in Krasarang Wilds, and victorious in the Silvershard Mines and Temple of Kotmogu to Wrathion the previous week, I followed his next direction by slaying High Marshal Twinbraid in Lion’s Landing. With the help of my fellow champions of Carpe Flux Capacitor, I managed to slay him. Meeting with Wrathion again, he reminded Mooglegem and me that he had previously asked us what the soul of the Horde was. He wondered if it was an instrument of vengeance, showing us Garrosh, a refuge for those who need shelter, showing us Thrall, or an alliance of convenience, showing us Sylvanas. Well, it appears he has his answer. He told Mooglegem and me that it was us! Maybe he meant all heroes, but I’d like to believe he meant us specifically. You can see Mooglegem above with visions of the Horde leaders (exclusing Ji Firepaw, Master of Houjin). Some other Horde hero decided to get in the picture with Mooglegem, but oh well. He then gave each of us what we’re calling an Eye of the Black Prince, which allows us to fashion an additional gem to our sha-touched weapons or Armaments of the Thunder King, whatever those are.
We went upstairs to talk with Wrathion and his guest, Prince Anduin Wrynn of Stormwind. I was excited to see Sunwalker Dezco as well. Wrathion seems to be putting together quite the exclusive group, as I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Prince Anduin and Sunwalker Dezco before and am quite fond of them. I’m happy to learn that Prince Anduin is recovering after the tragedy at the hands of Warchief Hellscream. Wrathion feels he might be too soft to lead the Alliance, but I disagree. Prince Anduin would do what needs to be done.
Of course, almost every time I meet with Wrathion, he seems to have a task for us. He wants Mooglegem and me to travel to the Isle of Thunder and prove ourselves by fighting the mogu, Zandalari, saurok, and Alliance there. I found it very disrespectful that Wrathion would ask me to slay Alliance in the company of Prince Anduin, but Prince Anduin held his tongue. Wrathion also asked us to collect tablets with the history of the mogu from the Throne of Thunder.
We then spoke with Lorewalker Cho who told us a story called A Little Patience. Apparently it happened when war first broke in Krasarang Wilds. The Lorewalker told the story from the perspective of the Alliance, and it seemed so real that it felt like we were experiencing it. Varian and Tyrande disagreed about how to fight the Horde occupying the Temple of the Red Crane. Tyrande wanted to assault it directly, but Varian wanted to think more strategically and set traps, avoiding a direct fight. He sent heroes to help set up camps filled with traps. With that complete. he taunted the Horde forces, causing them to rush to fight. Most died in the traps. This allowed the heroes to kill the Kor’kron bodyguards and fight Commander Scargash, leader of the Horde forces at the Temple of the Red Crane. The Commander fell, and Varian proved to Tyrande that a little patience can indeed be valuable. It was interesting to hear things from the Alliance perspective, but I also found it odd that as a hero of the Horde, I didn’t know about our occupation of the Temple of the Red Crane. Sometimes I think that true Horde heroes have seen too much and that our Warchief likes to use lesser soldiers for tasks that heroes would question.
Mooglegem and I learned that the Shado-pan are leading an attack as the Shado-pan Assault on the mogu forces on the Isle of Thunder. Lor’themar is also on the Isle of Thunder leading the Sunreaver Onslaught. He informed me that Jaina Proudmoore and her forces, the Kirin Tor Offensive, are also on the island. Lor’themar said that Mooglegem and I “have served the Horde nobly across many campaigns,” and that he feels he “can take [us] into confidence.” I believe I can take you, readers, into confidence as well. Please don’t repeat this. He said, “Our Warchief’s campaign across Kalimdor and Pandaria is pulling the Horde apart at the seams. We are here to fight the Thunder King. Justice demands it, and Hellscream is too preoccupied at Domination Point to pay attention here. Bun, in defeating him, we must seek out the source of his great power. We must claim it for ourselves, as leverage against our ‘Warchief.’ In the event of an uprising, we must be prepared.” He took a break from his speech here to shoot down an approaching flying dinosaur of some sort. It was an impressive show of archery skills considering he has only one eye.
We ventured to the island itself and found three bases of sorts. There are a multitude of dangerous enemies here – the mogu, the Zandalari, the saurok, and the Alliance. The Alliance seems to be the most dangerous of the four. It’s too bad we can’t work together. There’s much more work to be done. I want to continue securing the Isle of Thunder, assault the Throne of Thunder, and explore the mysterious Isle of Giants. There’s only so much two heroes like Mooglegem and me can do, but I look forward to a future in which we can eliminate the threats to our life and happiness. I just worry that one of those threats is our own Warchief.
earthwormgem
Peter (Devee)
Kor'kron 501st 