Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Blizzard, News items, Instances, Lore, NPCs, Wrath of the Lich King, Europe

Looks like patch 3.3 might be closer than we thought. Over on the European site, we have a massive info dump about Icecrown Citadel’s Frozen Halls, a new instance with normal and heroic versions offering iLevel 219 (on Normal) and 232 (on Heroic) gear. It sounds like the new 5 man we were told was coming. (Edited to add: the North American site has caught up to our European brethren.)

It seems that Horde and Alliance each get their own juicy lore goodness in addition to loots, as players will be able to accompany Sylvanas Windrunner or Jaina Proudmoore as they seek a path into the heart of Icecrown Citadel for their individual reasons. (It’s safe to say Sylvanas is probably looking to shoot Arthas a lot.) Once inside the Frozen Halls, players must confront the bosses of the Forge of Souls and the Pit of Saron before finally confronting Arthas himself. Sounds pretty bloody epic to me.

The text indicates that each section will have its own unique means of challenging the players before confronting the bosses. With names like Bronjahm the Godfather of Souls (is that a James Brown reference) and Scourgelord Tyrannus, I think it’s safe to assume we’re not going to be offered tea and crumpets, unless of course they’re evil tea and necromantic crumpets.

So there you have it. Go forth and feast your eyes on screenshots of this ‘massive, sprawling 5 player dungeon’ if I may paraphrase.

Since we know many of you can’t access WoW’s official website at work, the complete details from Blizzard are reproduced after the break.

Continue reading Blizzard releases details on Icecrown Citadel

Blizzard releases details on Icecrown Citadel originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Instances, Wrath of the Lich King

One of the best changes in patch 3.2.2 comes from Trial of the Champion, the Argent Tournament’s 5-man. If you’ve run the place more than once, you’re probably really sick of all of the fanfare that precedes the actiony bits of the instance. Do we really need to listen to an announcer rattle off everyone’s names every single time we step into the ring? As of Tuesday’s patch, no. We don’t. When you talk to Arelas Brightstar or Jaeren Sunsworn, you now have the option to tell him to stop yammering on and just get the show started already. To be more specific, the dialogue option is, “I am ready. However, I’d like to skip the pageantry.” I think we can all appreciate that.

Trial of the Champion polish also comes in the form of the first encounter working a little differently. How many of you said ‘forget this’ and started running out of the instance after you won the mounted phase, just to work around all of the odd little bugs? Most of you, probably. There’s good news on that front, too: You don’t need to run out anymore. The battle ends after you win the mounted portion. The NPCs reform over by the gate and you can start the next phase of the encounter at your leisure. I’m pretty happy about that, because I was getting a little tired of Mokra being a big pansy and not getting off of his mount after we won fair and square. Typical cowardly orc, you know?

Patch 3.2.2: Trial of the Champion improvements originally appeared on WoW.com on Sat, 26 Sep 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Horde, Undead, Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Blizzard, Lore, NPCs, Wrath of the Lich King

Earlier this year, we wondered just what would happen now that my favorite dreadlord, Varimathras, was vanquished in the Battle for the Undercity, and now Kisirani has provided us with a hint: someone whose name includes a “B.” When someone repeats the question on the forums, she posts a note delivered by a bronze whelp hinting that someone will be back in Varimathras’ place as of patch 3.3. The note is signed only with a “B,” and (as Kisirani probably intended), it’s anyone’s guess just who that is.

And if by “anyone,” you mean the denizens of the Blizzard forums, they all seem to think it’s Nathanos Blightcaller, a Forsaken who has been sitting in the Eastern Plaguelands since the game began. He’s recently been mentioned again in the game, as Varian Wrynn has sent Alliance players after him in Bolvar’s place, and so it makes sense that he may rejoin the Banshee Queen and take his place at her side. Balnazzar, Varimathras’ demon brother, is another guess, though he’s currently serving secretly with the Scarlet Crusade, so who knows how he’d come to that position. And of course, besides Bornakk, anytime you hear B you have to think of our friend Bolvar, whose fate we’ll probably learn in patch 3.3 no matter what. As for who it really is, we won’t know for sure until we see them in the Undercity.

Varimathras’ replacement: “B” originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Bugs, News items, PvP, Wrath of the Lich King, (Arena PvP) Blood Sport, Arena

Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all-things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple Rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com’s arena column.

Okay, I’m a bit of a music buff. I love Bob Dylan, one of the most influential American singer/songwriters of our time. Here’s some listening music while reading — you can probably guess what it is. I selected it primarily because the song title goes well with our discussion — and I love Dylan’s brilliant live performance in Budokan. It’s a bit much if you’re not a Dylan fan, I’ll freely admit.

Patch 3.2.2 has a myriad of PvP changes in it; I am stunned to see so little conversation on the interwebz about it. In fact, I’ve written so much about these changes that I was advised to split the article into parts. A lengthy article here on WoW.com is approximately 1000 words — this article was over 3,000. (No, not over 9,000.)

I’m going to split up this article into three parts.

1. Overall changes
2. Class changes
3. Bug fixes and Glyph Changes

Check out what’s a-changin’ after the break.

Continue reading Blood Sport - Patch 3.2.2, the times they are a-changin, Part I

Blood Sport - Patch 3.2.2, the times they are a-changin, Part I originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, Guilds, Humor, Raiding, The Burning Crusade, Guildwatch, Bosses, Wrath of the Lich King

This Guildwatch is running a bit late, and apologies for that — your narrator is slightly out of pocket lately, and clamboring as quickly as possible to get back in. But the guilds featured in today’s GW have no such problems — they are rolling through content like nobody’s business. From Yoggy (above) to all the modes of ToC, it’s a downstravaganza in Azeroth lately.

Drama and recruiting notices after the break as well. If you want to see your guild (or a sweet forum thread full of drama — please make sure it’s guild-related, no random ninja whining) right here next week, send us an email at guildwatch@wow.com. Hit the link below to read on.

Continue reading Guildwatch: Beware of tourists

Guildwatch: Beware of tourists originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Shaman, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, News items, Wrath of the Lich King

No, technically they didn’t just go ahead and let you race change your draenei shaman into a dwarf in patch 3.2.2. I guess Blizzard didn’t get my letter. It’s a shame, because I used glitter and star stickers and I drew a picture of a pink pony Frost Shocking a Rogue. Perhaps the graphic illustration on page 2 of the Rogue stun locking the pony to death wasn’t to their taste. Ah well.

Let’s assume that the next letter with the pony ankhing and hitting him in the back with a Flame Shock will be well received. For pony! What are the changes to Shamans in patch 3.2.2 to discuss? Let us look, cannot we? (Space Mutiny voice off.) For the changes follow us behind the jump please.

Continue reading Patch 3.2.2 changes for Shamans

Patch 3.2.2 changes for Shamans originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Warrior, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, News items, Wrath of the Lich King

Are you ready for big, exciting changes? Are you all set to be floored, destroyed, blown away even by all the tweaks and adjustments to the Warrior class in Patch 3.2.2? I hope you’re ready for a tectonic shift all told. Here we go! Please, brace yourselves, I can’t be responsible for your safety once you digest this critical new information.

As I said to a friend recently, you paid for the whole seat, so I suggest scooting back there. You’ve got lots of room. To any with heart conditions or delicate constitutions, I apologize if you just weren’t prepared for a mind altering paradigm shift like the one these patch notes provided. Such senses shattering power wasn’t meant for mortals.

Should I keep going or was that enough sarcasm? I honestly can’t tell. I know that these are both buffs, really I do. And the Critical Block change is nice: I mean, you’re going to take the talent anyway in your prot build, so having it be twice as likely to proc is pretty sweet. Of course, even if you stack all the block value you possibly can, block’s still a fairly weak tanking stat against bosses who hit for 27k.

Continue reading Patch 3.2.2 changes for Warriors

Patch 3.2.2 changes for Warriors originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Realm Status, News items, Wrath of the Lich King, Hardware

The long wait is finally over — World of Warcraft’s servers are finally back online in China after they went offline all the way back at the beginning of June, due to a switch between former host The9 and current host NetEase. It took a while for the government to approve the move (and some have even suggested that the delay wasn’t completely legit), but things are finally back to business as usual, according to a few sources out of China.

A few more interesting facts have arisen with this news as well: apparently NetEase has spent over a million yuan (about $146,000) per day to keep up and maintain the game and its servers during the past month of closed beta and free play. Of course, that includes customer support and all the other costs.

Even with that price, however, the company is still expected to grow. We haven’t heard any population numbers worldwide for WoW since this whole deal began, but you have to think that they lost at least a few players due to all of the problems. Of course, the release of Wrath over there may bring back some players, but even though they were planning to have it out before all of this happened, the switchover has delayed it even further. All they need is more government approval, but as the outage proved, that can sometimes be hard to get.

WoW back online in China originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Cheats, PvP, Wrath of the Lich King, Battlegrounds, Rumors

We’ve gotten a bunch of tips recently that claim some very e-famous PvPers are botting in BGs. If you aren’t familiar with the term “botting,” Dictionary.com provides us with the following definitions of bot:

1. Bot:
   -noun
   the larva of a botfly.
2. Bot:
   -noun (Australian Slang)
   a person who cadges; scrounger.
3. Bot:
   -noun
   a device or piece of software that can execute commands, reply to messages, or perform routine tasks, as online searches, either automatically or with minimal human intervention (often used in combination): intelligent infobots; shopping bots that help consumers find the best prices.

Continue reading High-Rated PvPers do the robot

High-Rated PvPers do the robot originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Priest, Shaman, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Raiding, Wrath of the Lich King, (Raid Healing) Raid Rx

Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related. It’s been a while since I looked at trinkets. What options are there available since then?

Yes, the linked article goes to the Priest column on trinkets. Not every healer’s going to use them. But truth be told, there aren’t that many new options for healers in the current game since Ulduar and Trial of the Crusader opened up. Let’s look at everything available since Malygos.

So what do we have to work with?

Continue reading Raid Rx: 14 patch 3.2 trinkets to check out

Raid Rx: 14 patch 3.2 trinkets to check out originally appeared on WoW.com on Sat, 19 Sep 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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