Listed below are recent fixes we have applied to the game. Keep in mind that some of these changes may not be active until after the realm has been restarted.
To review previous in-game fixes, please visit: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=21723843880&sid=1
02/17
- The drop rate of Frost Lotus, from herbs in Northrend, has been increased by 50%. (Source)
BEST.
NEWS.
EVER.
Filed under: News, Raiding | Tags: gating, gating removal, Icecrown Citadel
In case you missed it, the most pernicious part of Icecrown Citadel’s Gating vanished on Tuesday:
After each region’s maintenance this week, raids will no longer lose attempts on wipes in Normal mode for Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana’thel, Sindragosa, and the Lich King. There will still be limited attempts in Heroic mode.
We will continue to monitor developments in Icecrown Citadel in the future, especially since the Heroic difficulty has been unlocked by a significant number of raids. (Source)
I will admit, I was expecting this development at some point, but this felt too soon. Should I feel ashamed or something that Axiom was not among that “significant number of raids”? Or, you know, even among those that had unlocked the Lich King?
I can’t say that I am. I can’t really speak for Seri, or others in charge, but since we’ve focused our time on working on the non-attempt locked bosses I’m assuming that they were laboring under the same assumption that I was – namely that we’d at least have a few weeks before the counter was removed from normal mode.
For those of you feeling like Blizzard just poked your Bloodrage button – I can understand. The Lich King had only been unlock-able a week. You could be forgiven for thinking that Blizzard only put this “feature” into ICC to put the reigns on the top tier of raiding guilds. Which is to say it failed utterly since the Lich King was dead 24 hours after the potential to do so was made available.
The effect was really only to make it more difficult for the next tier of raiders to take down (or even take shots at!) the Lich King that first week. A kind of double kick in the no-no parts of raider pride. You cannot say now “Well, we’re not a top 100 raid guild – but at least we killed the Lich King when he required attempts to do so.” Either you killed him in the first week it was available – or you’re just a scrub.
Oh. Wait, there is that matter of the buff. So there is some hope left to distinguish yourself from the unwashed masses.
Better do it quick though – no telling when Blizzard will start implementing that one. Recent developments indicate it could be as soon as next week.
Filed under: Advice for Non Tanks, Analysis, News | Tags: Ghostcrawler, nerf, Shield Slam, Warbringer
Ghostcrawler
It should be noted that we have been warned about some potential in-coming nerfs to Protection Warriors. You may read certain choice responses here, here, and here (reply #385). In case you missed the information involved , allow me to get you up to date (from oldest to newest):
Well, ladies and gentlemen of all shapes sizes and colors – I finally have the opportunity that you all have been waiting for:
Axiom needs a new Tank to add to the roster.
There is no update today (duh!) because I am starting at a new job. Huzzah for employment.
New Employee Orientation is not conductive for blog composition.
See you all Wednesday!
I am certain that many of you have heard The Plan® for gated progression in the Icecrown Raid. It’s worth your time if you haven’t; if you plan to raid Icecrown Citadel, it is the future.
If you don’t have the time, I’ll try and put this in as few words as I can (Twitter practice, I suppose):
Icecrown Citadel will have two methods of slowing down our progression. The first is hard and fast: parts of the dungeon will only open after a certain number of weeks has passed. This is similar to ToC but I suspect will be much longer in the roll out. The second is soft and skill based: You only receive a limited number of attempts at certain key bosses. This number is small (5 times for each wing that has become unlocked, to a max of 15) and shared among the bosses they apply to.
Needless to say, this has produced a great deal of anger and alarm among raiders. I think a large amount of this is probably pre-mature and dependent on the difficulty of the fights in question (and the competency of the raid team). There is, almost certainly, going to be pain though. A lot of it. Particularly if you are in the business of leading raids.
Filed under: Gear, Lists, News, Raiding | Tags: Icecrown, Icecrown Citadel, Patch 3.3, spoiler, Tier 10, Trinket
This is no great surprise if you have been paying attention. But for those of you who haven’t, let me point you at some linkage:
- Here’s some maps: The Entryway, Frostwing Halls, The Plagueworks, The Crimson Halls, and The Frozen Throne. (No those aren’t entirely right… but there’s a lot of crossover.
- Here’s some pictures of the raid armor sets. Broken down by class:
- Here’s some spoiler-ific boss text.
- And a spoiler-ific Lich King related movie.
- Here’s a boss fight. And another. And another.
- Oh, and some jazz about tanking trinkets.
No loot yet to parse and list for you, but you know it’s coming.
Or more specifically, I’ve been on Twitter, but I’m no longer behind a firewall that keeps me from tweeting.
Filed under: Gear, Media, News, Roleplaying | Tags: Gear, Patch 3.3, Tier 10
Following up on Monday’s love-fest for Tier 10, here is the screen shots of our plate armor, now broken down by race and gender – courtesy of the ever digging MMO-Champion.
First, the ladies:
And now the gents:
Did you see it? DID YOU?
Check out the Tauren models. Blizzard finally put holes in the helmet for our horns. I thought that Tier 8 would be the last time I would turn my helm graphic on. Man, was I ever wrong.
Here’s hoping that this is the beginning of theme. Elves and Trolls need some loving too. Maybe dwarves. Let’s face it, helms chop off and through a lot of things people took time or spent gold to customize. It’s about time they gave us helms that actually let us show that off.
