I recently hit exalted with the Order of the Cloud Serpent. My baby cloud serpent grew into the glorious Azure Cloud Serpent you see here! I was very excited to ride him, but honestly, it’s kind of an annoying mount. It’s huge, and while its movement looks fluid and pretty, it’s also distracting. This was the last true reputation grind for Mists of Pandaria (outside of two remaining friends) except for Huojin Pandaren.
I couldn’t have that! I decided to kill two birds with one stone. Because I wanted to run all the BC heroics that I never did, I threw on my Huojin tabard and got into those dungeons. It didn’t take long to hit exalted and earn Pandaren Ambassador.
For my trouble, I got this beautiful Pandaren Kite mount. It’s pretty nice! However, I still prefer my Disc of the Red Flying Cloud. It’s very small and can be used as both a land and flying mount. But the Pandaren Kite is very nice as well!
Now I just need to become best friends with Fish Fellreed and Nat Pagle.
Wow. I’m impressed with most patch trailers, but I loved this one. By talking about it, I’m spoiling it, so please watch the trailer before reading.
Okay?
Okay.
Taran Zhu’s back-and-forth with Hellscream was great. They seemed to take turns having the upper-hand. I liked when Taran Zhu brought up Grom Hellscream, although I’m not sure when he learned of Grom. I didn’t catch that he got impaled on Hellscream’s axe on my first watch. I also found it interesting that the trailer opened with butterflies and when the sha energies spread out from the heart of Y’shaarj, it corrupts a butterfly.
I’ve been wondering about something Hellscream said. Taran Zhu says “I have fought besides the tauren, trolls, and others. You are nothing like them.” Hellscream responds, “they are no longer part of my Horde!” Is Hellscream referring to those who are rebelling against him or to all tauren? Up to this point, it seemed like he was still accepting of tauren. He thought of them under orcs, but still felt they contributed. He seemed to consider them much higher than the other races of the horde. Hellscream tolerated the Blood Elves and goblins and largely ignored the pandaren and Forsaken. As far as I can tell, the Darkspear were no longer considered part of his Horde. By the release of patch 5.4, are we to assume that his Horde consists solely of orcs? It seems very plausible that he would have heard that Baine was working with the Darkspear Rebellion, so it wouldn’t be surprising.
The scene in which the navies arrive is also great. When was the last time we saw Horde (well, former Horde at this point) and Alliance forces so intermingled? I found the sails interesting. I see Horde sails, red with the black Horde symbol. The Forsaken are present with their purple sails. I assume both the blue and white sails belong to the Alliance, but I’m actually not positive. (Anyone who plays Alliance care to comment?) I wasn’t sure on black and red striped sails, but YouTube commenters pointed out that those ships belong to the Bloodsail Buccaneers. What are they doing attacking Orgrimmar too? Very interesting!
Blizzard does an amazing job with the story, and it’s in such an odd way as well. There’s really not that much story, and it’s usually not a huge deal in game. They’re excellent at creating background lore to hype people for playing. Escalation’s lore was also great in my opinion. There was a formal declaration of a Darkspear Rebellion led by my own racial leader – much deserved after Garrosh Hellscream declared martial law in the Echo Isles and rounded up the Darkspear in the Valley of Spirits. But in game, it just meant that I farmed Kor’kron in the Northern Barrens. That doesn’t change the fact that I was incredibly excited to be joining the Darkspear Rebellion just as I’m excited to come together with the other armies of Azeroth to bring judgement upon Hellscream.
This is a great comment on Blizzard Trademarks “The Dark Below.” I don’t agree that the Old Gods are different body parts of one creature, but there’s an interesting conversation here regardless.
This past weekend I decided to finish old content that I never ran. I started with Dire Maul. For whatever reason, I never completed Dire Maul. At some point I ran one wing but never the rest. It was actually an interesting instance. After completing it, I earned Classic Dungeonmaster, which was nice. I don’t know why I never got it earlier.
Next I moved into Burning Crusade raids. I completed Gruul’s Lair first, which was nice and short, then I did Serpentshrine Cavern. I really enjoyed Serpentshrine Cavern. Those two raids gave me Outland Raider. Why stop there? I ran Shattered Halls, The Mechanar, The Botanica, and The Arcatraz after that. I particularly liked Shattered Halls. The three Tempest Keep dungeons kind of blended together in my mind already, but they were fun too. I know running the same dungeons over and over can get old, but I think it says something about the quality that I can go back to do a dungeon from two expansions ago and have fun. No, I don’t want to run them over and over, but even being over-powered for them, they’re still entertaining. The layout, art assets, and bits of story all make for good entertainment. These dungeons allowed me to earn Outland Dungeonmaster.
With this, I’ve now seen all dungeons, scenarios, and raids in the game. Yes, I have some heroics to do, but it’s nice to have seen everything.
I decided to try solo’ing Ulduar. I wasn’t sure what to expect, because I don’t usually hear about healers solo’ing content. I wiped a few times on each boss, but it wasn’t actually that bad. I managed to down seven bosses, up to and including Auriaya. I couldn’t down Mimiron, and I didn’t try any other bosses yet.
Flame Leviathan should be easy in the future. The trick was placing extra demolishers into positions around the boss so I could switch when he destroys my vehicle. I had trouble with the adds overwhelming me on Razorscale on my first attempt, but one I made adds my priority, things went well. I struggled on Ignis the Furnace Master in my first pull as well, but that’s because I forgot how to deal with adds. The second pull was fine. Similarly, I wiped on the first pull of XT-002 Deconstructor but killed him on my second. I think I just needed a reminder on how each boss worked.
Next I did the Assembly of Iron. According to Wowpedia’s article, Fragment of Val’anyr, there’s a higher drop rate on the hard mode. I tried that, but it didn’t work for me. I also tried getting them all low before killing one, not realizing that they heal. Whoops! I got them down on my third attempt when I gave up on hard modes and actually understood how the fight worked.
Next up was Kologarn. There’s nothing special about him; he was very easy. Auriaya was next. Her cats killed me almost immediately on my first pull. On my second pull, I went right for the cats. It was dumb of me not to power through the first time. I killed them quickly and then took my time killed Auriaya.
I put in a few attempts on Mimiron but just couldn’t down him. I hit the enrage timer in the last phase. Maybe if I tried flasking and eating, but we’ll see. I didn’t try any of the other bosses yet either, but I did get three Fragments of Val’anyr, so I’m 10% of the way there!
We did it! Two weeks after first having killed the Twin Consorts, we attempted Lei Shen for the first time. After seventeen wipes, we managed to kill him! I’m very excited and extremely relieved. I still want to repeat it for the people who weren’t there, get more gear, and maybe push some heroic bosses for gear, but this was the big moment. Especially considering that there’s no way we’re going to finish heroic mode by the next patch, this was the big “end game” goal for us for this tier.
It’s also special for me. I’ve been raiding this tier with the guild, Carpe Flux Capacitor, since the beginning, and now it’s completed. During tier 14, we finished Mogu’shan Vaults, but we didn’t complete the other two raids. In tier 13, we raided Dragon Soul, but we stopped raiding long before the end. I did manage to complete the raid before Mists of Pandaria was released, but it wasn’t with the guild.
I was taking a break from WoW for much of tier 12. In my first time in the Firelands, I joined a PUG at the request of a guildie. They needed a healer for Ragnaros. I pointed out that not only had I never killed him, I had never entered the raid. They discussed it and let me join. I pulled him by accident before we were all ready. They didn’t kick me. We killed him, and I won loot. The next week, we finished Firelands as a guild. At the time, the guild hadn’t yet killed Ragnaros. When we killed the previous boss, my achievement suddenly popped for finishing the raid. While I completed the raid, I didn’t work for it all tier.
In tier 11 I was with a different guild, Playground Brigade, made of friends I knew from out of WoW just for that tier. We fell apart in the middle of the tier. We were 5/6 Blackwing Descent, 2/4 Bastion of Twilight, and 1/2 Throne of the Four Winds.
Tier 10 was my first current-tier raid. I had just hit level 80 and joined Carpe Flux Capacitor. I was an alternate, and my first boss was Deathbringer Saurfang. Maybe I wasn’t there from the absolute very beginning, but we pushed the entire tier, and yes, we finished the raid (as well as Ruby Sanctum).
I mention all this because it means this is only the second raid tier for which I worked the entire tier with my guild and still completed. Carpe, thanks for being a great guild (and taking me back after my one-tier stint with another guild). Here’s hoping next tier goes smoothly well. Let’s take back Orgrimmar!
I finally completed the fourth chapter of Wrathion’s legendary quest line. I’m glad this one was short while still having a bit of challenge. The quest tasks you with receiving the blessings of the four Celestials. They give wisdom to Wrathion as well; Wrathion, in comparison to the Celestials, is actually pretty stupid, but he is just a child.
I completed Chi-Ji’s healer challenge. Unfortunately it took me a few tries, but I still got it, and now I have my nice, new cloak. I’m looking forward to putting it to use!
After collecting all those darn Titan Runestones, I’ve finally completed Wrathion’s Chapter III: Two Princes. Later this week, hopefully Monday night, I’ll complete Celestial Blessings and earn my delicious new cloak. I’m looking forward to it. The Wrathion questline has been one of the best in the game, and I love how it’s unlocking over the course of the patches. And boy, I love what happened when I turned in this quest. I won’t spoil it in case you haven’t done it!
By the end of tier 11, I was 5/6 BWD, 2/4 BoT, and 1/2 TotFW. I completed Bastion of Twilight later in the expansion, but I never completed Blackwing Descent or Throne of the Four Winds. I was recently in a strange PUG for BWD that I was sure would fail. The leader was advertising a 25-man, but 10 minutes later he gave up and decided to make it a 10-man. We started, and things went okay. One odd thing was that I was near the top of the DPS charts. (I’m a discipline priest.)
When we reached Nefarian, people started bickering. A few people dropped group after a wipe. I repeatedly interrupted the argument to ask “where do you guys want to stand at the start” and things of that nature. Eventually I got people to start talking about something I asked and to stop focusing on the argument. I just wanted to finish the raid. Luckily we made it through, and I finished Blackwing Descent for the first time.
Nefarian’s a rather fun fight. I like that after trying not to fall in the lava in vanilla, now you end up in lava during this fight. I imagine the fight was a little more interesting when you’re the correct level. Although, I’ll admit that Nefarian took a lot longer than any other fight in the raid. I didn’t win any gear, but at least I completed the raid (and earned a couple achievements on the way)!
Leveling is fine for some people. For other people, it becomes a huge barrier to playing with their friends. Balkoth examines some scenarios and discusses the leveling process.
I’ve been wondering lately how much LFR helps me. For a while there’s a decent amount of pieces that are upgrades, but how big of an advantage do I get over simply waiting until I get that upgrade from normal mode? The more important pieces are likely the tier pieces. Right now, if I obtain the LFR tier pants, I’d get a huge upgrade. That’s not simply because the legs are better than my current legs. In fact, I have normal mode legs right now, so they’d be lower iLVL. First, that would be my fourth piece, so I’d get my four-piece set bonus. More importantly is what else it would allow me to wear. What if I had a normal mode tier piece sitting in my bags that I wasn’t using because I didn’t have four-piece? Not only would obtaining a fourth piece let me wear that fourth piece, it would also allow me to wear the third piece.
Currently I’m running LFR if I have a chance at getting an upgrade, but I’m considering the idea of not running LFR anymore. I don’t mean this tier, but it’d be nice to run it once in a while next tier but stop doing it weekly. It would take some self convincing, but it would also give me more free time to do something I enjoy rather than trekking through a grind that I don’t enjoy. I’ll need to think more about it.
After getting three new bosses down the week before last, last week we defeated Iron Qon on Wednesday. We wiped thirteen times but got it on the fourteenth. I especially like the last minute or so of the video in which the guild decides to be mean!
One boss just wasn’t enough, so we defeated the Twin Consorts as well! It took us three attempts, but I swear, the first attempt didn’t count! We pulled by accident with people outside the fight.
On 7/9 we downed Durumu for the first time. Yes, we wiped fifteen times first, but those wipes aren’t important! What’s important is the kill! I also finally figured out why my videos have stuck frames. I don’t know how to solve it, but it only happens when I trim a clip down to a few seconds. I usually put the last couple seconds of each wipe at the beginning of my kill videos, and I make them short enough, that entire clip will be a single frame. I’ll figure it out.
Primordius went down the following night. It was after only five wipes, so that’s an improvement over Durumu.
Why settle for two bosses when we could complete an entire wing? After killing Primordius, we continued to Dark Animus. After seven wipes, we killed it on the eighth attempt!
You’ll have to wait until next week to learn how we did this week. (Uh, because I haven’t done the videos yet.)
Anyways, we discussed pay-to-win, farming charms, and more. As people probably don’t go back to check comments, I just wanted to post to let people know that they might want to check the comments here. It’s a good read.
(Plus, I’ve been busy due to San Diego Comic-Con and don’t have anything else ready to post!)
Bashiok recently posted confirming that an in game store coming. This makes me really nervous about the future of WoW. An in game store that sells the same things that are currently for sale on the Web is fine. These things are all cosmetic. However, an experience buff begins to cross the line, and Lesser Charms greatly crosses the line.
I know other people might feel differently, but to me, the experience buff isn’t much of a problem. I wouldn’t purchase it. You normally hit the level cap long before you finish all the zones of the expansion, and I like to quest through them. There’s no reason for me to pay for it. However, I hate having to grind for Lesser Charms. If I could purchase Lesser Charms for real money, I could bypass a part of the game I don’t enjoy. I’d also be paying a monthly subscription to be able to grind for them (among other things, of course) as well as a second fee to skip that part for which I already paid. This encourages Blizzard to design the game in such a way that gameplay is boring and unenjoyable. That’s crazy!
All of these types of in-app purchases are similarly strange. Consider a normal price-model for an offline game. The game is fun and enjoyable, and you want to play it. To play it, you must purchase it. This makes sense. Consider a game that uses a DLC model for everything. The game is free, but each additional level (or levels) has a fee attached. Again, the game is fun, you want to play more levels, so you purchase them. This makes sense. In those two scenarios, you’re paying more money to play the game more because you enjoy it. Now consider the Lesser Charms. If you purchase Lesser Charms, you’re paying money to skip a part of the game. Instead of creating something enjoyable that people want and charging them for it, they’ve created something that people don’t want and then are charging to skip it. Despicable.
The thing that will rope people into this is that they’re not simply paying to skip the part they don’t like. They’re paying to skip to the part they do like. Raiders who don’t want to grind could look at this as a way for getting to the content they do like easier. (I know, they can raid without Lesser Charms. But I’ll consider the “content they do like” as “raiding with as many charms as possible.”)
I enjoy seeing dailies, but I don’t enjoy grinding them endlessly. No, I don’t want to get rid of them, but sure, they seem like a grind, and I’d be happy to avoid some of it. If I pay for Lesser Charms, however, I’m encouraging Blizzard to continue with this idiotic and immoral game design. Yes, it’d be tempting to occasionally offset my dailies by purchasing Lesser Charms, but then Blizzard would be content to continue. If, contrary to purchasing Lesser Charms, no one purchased any and people stopped grinding dailies, I’m sure Blizzard would change their design. People might pull away from dailies, but it feels like too much of an obligation for many raiders, so I don’t expect that to happen.
Bashiok said that they’ll “be testing the in-game store with some new kinds of items [they’re] looking into introducing (in Asian regions, at the outset) based on player feedback…” Maybe they’ll see that player feedback is negative and no go forward with this. Some people are saying that this will only be for Asian regions. That would calm me a little because it wouldn’t be hurting the game I play, but I still think it’s a terrible game design choice. Regardless, all we can do now is wait and see (and give negative feedback).
To anyone reading this, I highly recommend you avoid purchasing such buffs or enhancements in World of Warcraft or any other game!
When I saw a transmog contest being advertised in trade chat, I decided I had to go check it out. It was free to enter, and there weren’t any particular rules, so I figured I had nothing to lose by competing as well.
We all lined up in front of Orgrimmar. There were some people who crowded around just wondering what was happening or deliberately trying to interfere with us, but honestly, there weren’t many.
Gorehouse, whoops, I meant… Thrall… kept demanding respect as the former Warchief. He kept at it and was pretty entertaining.
The winner was Psykick! I’ve opened an inspection window on him in this screenshot. It was fun to do an different type of activity that evening in WoW.
What were the mogu doing for all the years since their fall? Why were we told they could no longer use magic? How was Lei Shen the son of a mogu if they couldn’t reproduce?
This weekend I hit exalted with The August Celestials! That’s also the last reputation that needed farming, so there’s another thing I won’t need to do. I still need to gain reputation with the Order of the Cloud Serpent, however.
The August Celestials also marked the 40th reputation with which I reached exalted! Hooray!
We’ve had some good raid weeks the past two weeks! On Tuesday we cleared to Megaera and put in some good attempts. On Wednesday, we managed to kill Megaera for the first time!
Okay, yes, we had 22 wipes before we killed her on our 23rd attempt, but we still did it! It had been 15 days since our last kill; I think two weeks is fine!
Luckily for us, the progression didn’t end there. We killed Ji-Kun on our second attempt! Here you can see almost all of us. Justin took the portal by accident.
Here’s all of us, I think. It’s hard to get everyone in the shot when we’re flying. Three-dimensions are too hard for my feeble mind.
And here’s our kill video! I can’t believe it was only two attempts. It was a good week!
I got to use the Orb of Control tonight! I don’t understand why I made Horridon bash the gate though. He’s so cute. I would have made him come hang out with me. We’d be good buddies.
While waiting for our 10th raider, we had some time to kill. Nate challenged me to a pet battle. I’d done some pet battling, but I’d never dueled another player. I was high level, so it was unfair but still fun. Here Musterbear (named after the stuffed Mr. Bear) defeated Nate’s Sunreaver Micro-Sentry.
In fact, Musterbear defeated Nate’s entire team. Yay, Musterbear!
Next up, Mushkin and Zetzu battled. That’s Zetzu’s Cinder Kitten, Nova! He kicked butt, but only because Mushkin didn’t use his A-team. I’m glad he likes his Cinder Kitten; Moogle got it for him for our Secret Santa last year.
We asked Fiirnok to fill in for Meto because Meto’s Internet was having problems. I hadn’t raided with Fiirnok since Wrath because he only recently rejoined. Fiirnok loves cats, and Moogle had the idea for everyone to bring out cats. She also had the idea of feeding them pet biscuits. I have a bunch as well, so after asking everyone to summon their cats, we enlarged them! You can see Fiirnok on the left in this picture near the water. I hope he liked the first ever Fiirnok Cat Party!
The official site has been updating, including lore on the current and last patch. I love that they divide the story into chapters with short summaries, and it’s great to see Blizzard keeping it up to date.
My friend Shaun is moving to another country soon. I’ve talked about him before, and there’s a reddit thread about him here. He acquired every achievement shortly before Mists of Pandaria’s launch. I’ve known him since middle school, and like I said, he’s moving to another country next month. To prepare for this, he’s been giving away practically everything he owns. I took some of his weights and a pull-up bar, but that’s not really applicable to this blog. He had Collector’s Editions of all the World of Warcraft expansions, and I accepted The Burning Crusade Collector’s Edition because it was the only one I didn’t have!
Of course, the key’s been used, but that’s not really why I took it. It’s also missing the WoW CCG cards. However, it has the mousepad, art book, and behind-the-scenes DVD. I’m looking forward to preusing them more. In fact, I don’t think I finished looking at the Mists of Pandaria art book! (I like to be surprised in game.)
Thank you for the gift, Shaun / Scyber / Scybear / Yuber. Enjoy your new country!
On Wednesday Carpe Flux Capacitor killed Tortos for the first time! It was only our second time reaching him, and it took us 28 attempts across those two nights. It was a hectic fight at time (as they all on first kills) but definitely fun. Hopefully next week we get him down faster!
If you have the fastest clear time for a Challenge Mode, you’ll be given a title specific to that Challenge Mode. As soon as you lose the fastest time, you’ll lose the title.
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.
earthwormgem
Peter (Devee)
Kor'kron 501st 