icecrown citadel

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

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

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

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

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violet hold

So as you already know, we’ll be able to group with others players from other servers in your battlegroup to do dungeons using the the new dungeon system. Like Battlegrounds, you’ll be able to join solo or as a group making the a complete premade group absolutely possible. Using the LFG tool will be teleported inside the dungeon just like when you queue up for Battlegrounds. Leaving the instance will bring you back to your previous location and if you need to leave temporarily to repair and such, you can teleport back to the instance.

This feature is also include a smarter matchmaking system where less experienced players will be matched with at least one experienced player. This is great for the less experienced players but could end up badly for the more experienced guys! It will also take into account class types and match players with equal levels which can be a useful tool when doing dungeons while leveling up.

Players can queue up for specific normal or heroic dungeons but can also opt to make things interesting by doing random dungeons and getting rewarded for it. All bosses of level 80 heroics will drop Emblems of Triumph instead of Conquest. Doing your first random heroic quest will award 2 Emblems of Frost and doing more random heroics after your first using the LFG system will award 2 Emblems of Triumph each time. Doing the random normal dungeon quest will award 2 Emblems of Triumph.

Speaking of the random dungeon quests, they will be replacing the current normal and heroic dungeon daily quests. The two npc’s in Dalaran will instead give out weekly raid quests that will have players kill a specific target in a specific raid dungeon. These raid quests will involve a random target from any raid dungeon from Naxxramas to Icecrown Citadel. The LFG system will also include a Looking for Raid option that you can use by typing /lfr or using the raid info screen.

Running enough PuG’s using the LFG to run instances with random members will have their own rewards and running them enough times will net you a non-combat pet, the Perky Pug.

A few other cool features are coming out with this new Dungeon System. There will be a Vote to Kick feature that can be used to kick a pesky group member. You’ll need 4 votes to kick anybody though. There will also be the new disenchanting option I talked about a few days ago where a third option aside from Need and Greed can pop up when looting in groups. basically the disenchant option will have the same wight as a Greed roll and if someone wins using this, the player will receive enchanting materials instead. I just found out though from a post from CM Bornakk that this feature will only be available if there’s an enchanter in the group who has the appropriate skill level to disenchant the item. There’s also an update to the need before greed system wherein need rolls take into account if the player can equip that item, pure melee classes cannot roll on spell power gear and players will be limited to their dominant armor type. As always greed is an option if nobody can use the item and there’s also the disenchant option if you have an enchanter in the group.

You can view a thread in the forums where CM Zarhym answers a bunch of more specific questions concerning this new dungeon system here.

Post from: WOW Obsessed

patch 3.2.2 dowmloader

The retuning of Onyxia’s Lair for level 80 10/25 man raiding is the focus of this minor content patch. The loots drops resemble the original drops from the level 60 days including items that look like the tier 2 helms and even the Quel’serrar! There’s also a chance to get a non combat pet and even a flying mount that look like Onyxia herself. But I think the best part about this is that a classic encounter has been brought back to wreak havoc upon us again. It would be nice for people who haven’t done this encounter to see what it was really like and for people who have done it to relive the experience.

Aside from the Onyxia retuning, Patch 3.2.2 also brings a few class changes for everyone (except warlocks) which means some buffs and nerfs yet again. Arcane mages should love the changes they got in this patch! We also have changes like heirlooms also increasing XP gained in battlegrounds and also a change in the queuing system interface. You can check all patch notes for this minor content patch here. Hope the patch day server stability issues have settled down a bit in your server and good luck to you and your guild in killing Onyxia. Have fun!

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Gates of Uldum

Patch 3.3 will see the release of the Icecrown Citadel where we’ll see a 5 man dungeon and the raid dungeon. Since this is the lair of the Lich King and the scourge army, we should expect this place to be really epic. The raid dungeon has 12 planned encounters which include the frostwyrm to beat all frostwyrms, Sindragosa and of course the Lich King himself. The raid dungeon will also make use of the way point system that was made famous in Ulduar. The 5 man dungeon will have 8 bosses spread out through different wings, which I guess makes this place really big for a 5 man dungeon if you want to do all 8 guys but also gives players some flexibility by splitting it up into wings.

The following are the announced dungeons and raids that we’ll be able to see in the cataclysm expansion:

5 man dungeon

Abyssal Maw

It’s one of the two dungeons of the sunken city of Vashjir. One of the interesting things about this place is that the sunken city is well, underwater. Yes, we’ll have a whole underwater zone where we’ll be able to ride special underwater mounts (I forgot where I saw this info though). Anyway, back to the Abyssal maw, this dungeon will be non linear so I guess it’s a bit like Halls of Stone in that sense. In HoS, you can fight the first three bosses in any order before getting to the last boss.

Uldum 5 man dungeons

Uldum will finally be opened up as a zone for the expansion and there will be a couple of dungeons there. There will be moretitan stuff and more of our favorite dwarf explorer Brann Bonzebeard.

new Blackrock Spire 5 man dungeon

It seems like Blackrock Spire will be an entirely new place from what we currently have and we’ll be able to find out what the Twilight hammer is doing and more Beasts!

Raid dungeons

Blackwing Descent

It’s basically the new raid based on the classic raid Blackwing Lair and we’ll possibly see some of the old guys in there back.

Firelands

It’s an outdoors raid like CoT: Mount Hyjal that takes place in the elemental plane of fire. This is where players get to fight our old friend Ragnaros at full strength! He hopes to purge us by fire!

Cross Server LFG

This picture from WoW.com on one of the slides from Blizzcon shows that as early as patch 3.3 we’ll be able to run at least 5 man dungeons with players other servers. I’m guessing that we’ll make use of the same system that makes the cross server BG’s work and we’ll probably even use the same battlegroups. This feature is to make looking for players for PuG’s easier. Apparently there will be some sort of reward system for party leaders for successfully completing a run (to make running PuG’s more rewarding).

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Onyxia's Lair

As was announced, Blizzard is bringing back the Onyxia raid dungeon and retuning it for 10/25 man raiding instead of the original 40 man one. It has been made 100% clear that this will be a level 80 raid and therefore, being a permanent update, the level 60 version will no longer exist when patch 3.2.2 is released. They will be changing the encounter a bit to fit a 10/25 man setting but the same mechanics that made the encounter awesome will still be retained. Also the loot drops will be updated for level 80 but will keep the original designs. In fact CM Bornakk mentioned that the Quel’serrar will continue to exist in one form or another. This implies that Blizzard is going to make an item drop available that reuses the same design.

One odd thought came to my mind after getting the confirmation that this will indeed be a level 80 raid. If the level 60 version of Onyxia will no longer exist, the tier 2 set as it is now will no longer be a completable set for people who want to collect it after the patch. Sure you’ll be able to get the updated gear using the same model but it’s not the real tier 2 helm and it won’t be the full set.

Post from: WOW Obsessed

Onyxia's Lair

In honor of Blizzard’s 5 year anniversary, Blizzard decided to bring back one of the original and popular raiding dungeons. This will be a permanent update wherein there will be a 10 and 25 man version. There will also be updated versions of the gear that dropped in there, even using the same model art. There will also be a new item drop: drake sized 310% speed flying mount that looks like Onyxia herself called the Brood of Onyxia. Also for a short duration in November for the 5 year anniversary, players will be able to get a Onyxia Brood Whelpling pet just for logging in. This is much like the Baby Blizzard Bear they gave out last year.

The odd part about this announcement was that it didn’t seem too clear about certain things. For example, while it’s assumed that this will be a level 80 raid it also can only be assumed that the level 60 version, just like Naxx, will be gone. There were slight hints to saying so but it didn’t seem 100% clear. Maybe sometime we’ll get an announcement on what item level the gear drops from this place will be. This will possibly be on the level of Naxx or Obsidian Sanctum but we’ll have to wait for Blizzard’s word on this. At least we’ll be able to see that those tier 2 helm models in the game again!

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icecrown citadel

While discussing tanking niches, Ghostcrawler let loose that Icecrown Ctiadel will have at least 31 bosses and even went on to say that the Citadel is that big. 31 bosses!! That’s the most ever! Even if you say that the dungeon will be divided into wings like in Naxxramas (which most probably will be the case) that’s still a heck lot of bosses. It’s also almost certain that a lot of those bosses will be optional It’s now much clearer why the raid lock out extension feature was released. I mean if a guild plans to fight all at least 31 bosses in there it’s gonna take a while and would definitely spill over to the next week’s lockout.

Just the other day I was thinking about how Icecrown is already pretty crowded with the Argent Crusade and The Knights of the Ebon Blade doing their business in their various quest hubs throughout the zone. Icecrown now also has the Argent Tournament and the Coliseum. The Alliance and the Horde also have their business to do in the zone. Then next patch will have the 5 man dungeon plus the at least 31 bosses in the Icecrown Citadel raid. I knew Icecrown was going to active with it being the Lich King’s area but I never thought it was going to this crowded!

UPDATE: Ghostcrawler came out to say that he was trying to be sarcastic when he wrote about the 31 bosses. Everyone just misunderstood and thought he was serious. Even then I won’t be surprised if the Icecrown Citadel had more bosses than usual.

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kologarm raid extension

According to Eyonix, players will be able to extend their lock out period for an additional amount of time equal to the original duration of the lock. This means that players will get an additional 24 hours for heroic 5 mans and 7 days for raids like Naxxramas or Ulduar. Also players will be able to extend their lock out period more than once (since he didn’t say a maximum, I’m guessing that this means there’s no limit). Eyonix also answered another issue players were wondering about. The option to extend the lockout is the player’s decision and not the party/raid leader. This means that raid leaders won’t be able to extend the lockout of your run even if you don’t want to. So I wasn’t 100% correct when I predicted that maybe players would normally have their lockout reset as normal then have to be saved all over again if they join an extended run. Close but since players have the decision to extend it themselves I was still wrong.

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Kologarn raid extension

As we all know, raids currently have a lockout period of one week where the raid timer resets every Tuesday. This means that every Tuesday, players can get fresh runs for their raids. But this also means that if you’ve been working on some raid progression during the week, it will reset every Tuesday whether you like it or not. At least that’s how it is and by patch 3.2 that will change. Imagine the frustration of a guild working to get to Yogg-Saron for a whole week and by the time you get to him, the raid is tired and sleepy and forced to call it a night but the next day the timer resets!

We still don’t know the details about this feature but all we know is that the option to extend the lockout period is there for us by patch 3.2. We still don’t know how this will affect the members of the raid when the lockout gets extended. Imagine the chaos if the raid leader wants to extend but others want a fresh run. imagine a PuG group leader extending the lockout and thus saving the other members for another week unnecessarily. If I had to guess, to prevent situations like this members of a raid will have their timers reset as usual and if they want to join an extended run they’ll have to get saved all over again.

We’ll just have to find out later on exactly how this works but it’s already safe to say that it’s nice that this option will be available to us in the next content patch.

Post from: WOW Obsessed

We managed to clear Karazhan with 6 people, though we didn’t do Nightbane since no one who could summon him was on at the time. It was a snap! it was so easy that we even did things we never did before like staying inside and clearing the way to Broken Stair after Opera instead of running out and taking the backdoor entrance. We even cleared the audience of the Opera event as seen in the picture below, something we never dared do back in the day.

karazhan opera audience cleared

We then decided to do what we could of Zul’aman. i was excited about this one since I didn’t see much of ZA back in the day. I only saw the Bear and Hawk bosses back then but this time we managed to clear the whole place so I finally got to see what Zul’jin was like. the nice thing about this run that I was quite stoked about was that we cleared most of the place with just 4 men – 1 pally tank, 1 dps DK and two resto druids.

zul'jin down

We all had fun that night since it’s nice to see how much easier the content is with a 10 level advantage. it was also fun for a lot of use since not a lot of us saw the whole of ZA before. It was also a night of a lot of nostalgia, of good raiding memories as well as bad.

Now is the perfect time to do things like this since a lot of you guys are probably quite bored of the current content. Now is the perfect time to revisit old content, especially ones you’ve never had a chance to see before. Once patch 3.1 comes out, a lot of us will be too busy exploring the new content like Ulduar. Go ahead and try it too!

Post from: WOW Obsessed