5.1 is going to seriously bring the Lore. For now, Pandaria has been largely devoid of Alliance/Horde influence, with the exception of Jade Forest, Krasarang Wilds, and parts of Kun Lai. Even the parts in Krasarang are less part of the total Horde/Alliance forces and more independent expeditions spearheaded by non-flagship races of the factions. (I love that, for example, the Alliance and Horde shrines are guarded by Night Elves and Tauren, rather than the standard Humans and Orcs. Purple and Brown, rather than Blue and Red. Reminds me of how I really wish the main Horde force in Northrend had been the Forsaken.)
In 5.1, the main military forces will be landing (I believe on the shores of Krasarang) and a whole lot of stuff is going to go down. At the moment, we're only piecing things together from sound files and quest strings, but there are a couple big events that are at least potentially coming to the game. These are super spoileriffic, and so I'll avoid talking about the specifics save one, which relates to a question that has been on everyone's minds once Blizzard confirmed that yes, Garrosh's tenure as Warchief ain't going to last long (I also think that any previous ideas of him being forcibly retired but not killed are unlikely, given the depravity to which he is going to sink.) Namely: who gets to be Warchief when Garrosh gets taken down?
Now, there are a few possibilities:
Thrall: Thrall was the embodiment of the Horde's redemption, putting the days of demonic bloodlust behind them, and even reaching out to the non-Horde races to aid in the Third War and several other major world conflicts. Things were not by any means perfect under Thrall, and pockets of Alliance/Horde conflict certainly existed even then (the Forsaken war on humanity was pretty brutal even before they started employing Val'kyr to raise and brainwash the dead.) But Thrall is fairly beloved by all, and especially after the Cataclysm, he's respected by members of the Alliance as well. Thrall re-taking the seat of Warchief would be a "return to normalcy." The one issue is that Thrall proved that while he is a likable and honorable leader, his tendency to give people the benefit of the doubt has been disastrous. He trusted Sylvanas to both control her people and to use her deadly arsenal for defense. He trusted Garrosh to uphold his legacy of establishing the new, more thoughtful and diplomatic Horde, and that the younger Hellscream would flourish once he had a chance to prove himself. One of these led to the Wrathgate, the other led to the Horde's downward spiral into fascism. And that's not exaggeration: Garrosh runs a Horde where military status is equal to political status, and where dissent is crushed by force and intimidation.
Varok Saurfang: The most badass Orc alive, Saurfang is far older than Thrall and Garrosh. He's certainly a popular character, too. Saurfang remembers the early days of the Horde, and committed atrocities while under the influence of the blood of Mannoroth. Having lived through that, and the shock of guilt as the bloodlust wore off in the Alliance's internment camps, Saurfang has a great deal of perspective on what it means to be Horde. We also know that he promised to be there to take Garrosh down if he ever began steering the Horde in the direction of the Old Ways. Saurfang? That time is now. That said, there are two things that might limit his ability to lead: One is that he is quite old at this point. The other is that Northrend took a lot out of him. Saurfang's son, Draenosh, was memorably killed by Arthas at the Wrathgate (before Putress' betrayal.) The elder Saurfang saw his own son, with whom he had been reunited only recently, turned into a Death Knight of the Scourge, and then killed a second time by... well, us. If that doesn't take a lot out of a man, I don't know what does.
Vol'jin: Ah, and here we come to the radical, yet potentially awesome new Warchief. Vol'jin, as you should probably know, is a Troll, rather than an Orc. He became the leader of the Darkspear tribe when a Naga sea witch murdered his father, Sen'jin. He has been a loyal friend and ally of Thrall's from before they even reached Kalimdor, and was instrumental in the foundation of the Horde as we know it today. While there had been precedent for Trolls within the Horde before (most notably the Amani, who were ruled by Zul'jin, who the totally unrelated Darkspear player characters invoke in one of their /charge emotes, despite the fact that, at least for a time, Horde players could slaughter the guy on a regular basis,) nearly all the Trolls in the modern Horde are Darkspear.
Outside of the lore, we also know that Vol'jin is getting an updated model in 5.1, not to mention that the next tie-in novel is going to center on him.
Perhaps one of the most endearing aspects of Vol'jin as a potential leader is that, like Cairne, he saw through Garrosh's bullshit from the get-go. Unlike Cairne, however, Vol'jin never challenged Garrosh for the seat of Warchief.
(Sidenote, clearing up the story of how Cairne got killed: When Garrosh was named Warchief by Thrall, Cairne was none too happy. After getting a look at the policies Hellscream was going to put into place, Cairne challenged him to a traditional fight for the position of Warchief. While Thrall and Orgrim had had a non-lethal version of this fight, and Garrosh had actually challenged Thrall for the position in the lead-up to Wrath of the Lich King, Cairne demanded to do it the old-fashioned way, with a fight to the death - a pretty rash move by Cairne, which, given his personality, was probably a bluff to get Garrosh to see just how much he was pissing people off. Garrosh accepted, however, and the two prepared to fight. However, good old Magatha Grimtotem, who used to live on Elder Rise, but is now found as part of a quest chain in Thousand Needles, had Garrosh's blades poisoned, so that after getting only a scratch, Cairne was doomed to die. Garrosh was willing to kill Cairne through honorable combat, but Magatha's meddling robbed him of a chance to prove his strength, and of course didn't do much for Tauren-Orc relations. I imagine this is the main reason why Garrosh is willing to let the Tauren into Orgrimmar proper, despite the fact that Cairne was just as opposed to him as Vol'jin is.)
New troll players post-Cataclysm get their own Kiddie Pool area at the Echo Isles, where they learn that Vol'jin and Garrosh had a heated exchange and actually threatened to kill each other. The result is that Trolls are forced into the ghetto that the Valley of Spirits has become (though frankly, I think it's one of the coolest parts of Orgrimmar these days) and Vol'jin is in self-imposed exile on the Echo Isles (which admittedly is like a five minute drive from Orgrimmar.)
Anyway, coming back to 5.1: Apparently part of the Horde quest chain is that the Kor'kron (who are looking more and more like the SS) are hunting down Vol'jin. The troll leader is doing... something that they perceive as a betrayal of the Horde, but given who we're dealing with, is probably just Vol'jin trying to do something sane.
If anyone's well-positioned to lead a resistance against Garrosh, it's Vol'jin. We might love Thrall, but he can't escape the fact that this whole mess is partially his fault. Thrall would, certainly, cause a lot of divided loyalties among the Orcs, but the strength of Vol'jin as a leader is that he gets to finally say "You know what? The Horde is not just Orcs anymore. You brought us in to serve as your allies, but we aren't just going to be your lackeys. You want our strength? Then you have to start treating us with some respect."
I can't imagine that anyone (except the more assholish of Orcs) would raise any objection to that.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Monday, October 15, 2012
Mogu'shan Vaults: Act One
I finally got a fresh Mogu'shan Vaults run on LFR today, and was able to experience the first half of the LFR version of the raid.
Overall, I love the Mogu aesthetic, and Vaults fits that quite well. It looks like a fairly linear raid so far (though it might open up after Gara'jal,) which is fine by me, especially in a PUG group. We also get Lorewalker Cho to follow us around, giving a little insight into the history of the place. Again, something I'm totally fine with. I always wish we'd gotten a little more lore on some of the various raid bosses in previous raids.
The first boss in there is the Stone Guard, which is a council-type fight with three of four potential stone quilen enemies with a shared health pool. The two major mechanics of the fight are petrification and overload. When any of the Quilen are near another, they gain energy. Upon hitting 100% energy, they do overload, which causes a bunch of raid damage. The benefit, however, is that it interrupts Petrification, which one Quilen will be casting at any given time. If they succeed in casting it, it will wipe the raid. On normal, I'm given to understand that you have to juggle the bosses, making sure they don't all overload at once, but that the Petrification-enabled one does. On LFR, the strategy appears to be to zerg it, tanking them all together and eating the damage (I bet this is part of the reason healers always seem to be in high demand for LFR.)
I tend to enjoy these types of fights. I loved Four Horsemen in Wrath's Naxxramas (not remotely the type to have done Naxx 40 back in the day) and Omnitron Council was probably my favorite fight in Blackwing Descent. I look forward to doing this on normal.
Oh, and I got the belt off these guys, so I like them more.
Next up is Feng the Accursed, which is one of those fights where I wasn't sure if I was doing things wrong or if the dps were just being thoughtless. We did beat him on the second go.
This is a deceptively complicated fight. There appears to be a tank-swap mechanic on each phase (which made me feel very squishy, though it might have been because the healers were distracted by dps dropping crap everywhere. Also I am just barely geared for the place.) There are also two essence crystals that give very different sort of abilities. One is Nullification Barrier, which lets you channel a little zone that prevents AoE damage. The cooldown is timed to be used with all of his AoE attacks, so this proved quite useful, at least for the people who were willing to get inside. The other is Shroud of Replication, which is either bugged or I was using it wrong. It allows you to duplicate one of his attacks to use against him, but for whatever reason, it always seemed to get the wrong attack. Perhaps you have to use it preemptively, like Dark Simulacrum. I don't know.
Anyway, the rest of the fight is a big "don't stand in the fire," "stack up," "move away if you have the debuff" kind of ordeal that changes as he grabs different weapons.
This was of course one of those fights where I probably will enjoy it when I don't have 25-man lag.
Note to Blizzard if by some odd chance they read this: If you guys want to make LFR the new way for casuals to progress, you've got to do something about the lag and graphics horror. If it takes making every other player's spells invisible, I'll take it. It's just barely playable, but I certainly can't be at my best with the amount of lag I get in these many-person instances. Love the new loot system (lots more goodwill between puggers that way) but dear god, let me turn my graphics back to Naxxramas-level or something.
Ok, moving on. We next get the Zandalari segment of the dungeon. (Actually, I kind of wish ICC had had a similar Scarlet Onslaught interlude.) Gara'jal is a relatively simple fight from a tank perspective, but a fun one. Essentially, he's going to be summoning dudes in to the spirit world to make life painful for you. At certain intervals, a five-man team of four dps and a healer will use totems to go in there and kill the spirits. For tanks, he'll eventually banish his current target, and the tank will have to kill a "Severer of Souls" to be released from the spirit world and not get insta-killed after 30 seconds or so. It's not too hard to dps him down. I love this because I was always annoyed that I didn't get to go inside Frostmourne during the Lich King fight (which I've only ever tanked.)
With Gara'jal the Spirit Binder dead, act one is complete.
One thing I really appreciate is that at least for this first tier, there's a clear progression between the raids. Tier 11 had the right number of bosses, but it was never clear if we were supposed to do BWD or BoT, and going a week without raiding one of those would make us a bit rusty on the fights (our guild does one raiding night a week.) In tier 14, the obvious first step is Mogu'shan Vaults, then Heart of Fear, then Terrace of Eternal Spring. Sure, one could argue that it's more like three mini-raid tiers, but assuming they keep up with the raids as the expansion goes on, I'm totally fine with that.
Ooh! Ooh! And I got the first little token for my Legendary quest! It's one of 20, but progress is progress.
Overall, I love the Mogu aesthetic, and Vaults fits that quite well. It looks like a fairly linear raid so far (though it might open up after Gara'jal,) which is fine by me, especially in a PUG group. We also get Lorewalker Cho to follow us around, giving a little insight into the history of the place. Again, something I'm totally fine with. I always wish we'd gotten a little more lore on some of the various raid bosses in previous raids.
The first boss in there is the Stone Guard, which is a council-type fight with three of four potential stone quilen enemies with a shared health pool. The two major mechanics of the fight are petrification and overload. When any of the Quilen are near another, they gain energy. Upon hitting 100% energy, they do overload, which causes a bunch of raid damage. The benefit, however, is that it interrupts Petrification, which one Quilen will be casting at any given time. If they succeed in casting it, it will wipe the raid. On normal, I'm given to understand that you have to juggle the bosses, making sure they don't all overload at once, but that the Petrification-enabled one does. On LFR, the strategy appears to be to zerg it, tanking them all together and eating the damage (I bet this is part of the reason healers always seem to be in high demand for LFR.)
I tend to enjoy these types of fights. I loved Four Horsemen in Wrath's Naxxramas (not remotely the type to have done Naxx 40 back in the day) and Omnitron Council was probably my favorite fight in Blackwing Descent. I look forward to doing this on normal.
Oh, and I got the belt off these guys, so I like them more.
Next up is Feng the Accursed, which is one of those fights where I wasn't sure if I was doing things wrong or if the dps were just being thoughtless. We did beat him on the second go.
This is a deceptively complicated fight. There appears to be a tank-swap mechanic on each phase (which made me feel very squishy, though it might have been because the healers were distracted by dps dropping crap everywhere. Also I am just barely geared for the place.) There are also two essence crystals that give very different sort of abilities. One is Nullification Barrier, which lets you channel a little zone that prevents AoE damage. The cooldown is timed to be used with all of his AoE attacks, so this proved quite useful, at least for the people who were willing to get inside. The other is Shroud of Replication, which is either bugged or I was using it wrong. It allows you to duplicate one of his attacks to use against him, but for whatever reason, it always seemed to get the wrong attack. Perhaps you have to use it preemptively, like Dark Simulacrum. I don't know.
Anyway, the rest of the fight is a big "don't stand in the fire," "stack up," "move away if you have the debuff" kind of ordeal that changes as he grabs different weapons.
This was of course one of those fights where I probably will enjoy it when I don't have 25-man lag.
Note to Blizzard if by some odd chance they read this: If you guys want to make LFR the new way for casuals to progress, you've got to do something about the lag and graphics horror. If it takes making every other player's spells invisible, I'll take it. It's just barely playable, but I certainly can't be at my best with the amount of lag I get in these many-person instances. Love the new loot system (lots more goodwill between puggers that way) but dear god, let me turn my graphics back to Naxxramas-level or something.
Ok, moving on. We next get the Zandalari segment of the dungeon. (Actually, I kind of wish ICC had had a similar Scarlet Onslaught interlude.) Gara'jal is a relatively simple fight from a tank perspective, but a fun one. Essentially, he's going to be summoning dudes in to the spirit world to make life painful for you. At certain intervals, a five-man team of four dps and a healer will use totems to go in there and kill the spirits. For tanks, he'll eventually banish his current target, and the tank will have to kill a "Severer of Souls" to be released from the spirit world and not get insta-killed after 30 seconds or so. It's not too hard to dps him down. I love this because I was always annoyed that I didn't get to go inside Frostmourne during the Lich King fight (which I've only ever tanked.)
With Gara'jal the Spirit Binder dead, act one is complete.
One thing I really appreciate is that at least for this first tier, there's a clear progression between the raids. Tier 11 had the right number of bosses, but it was never clear if we were supposed to do BWD or BoT, and going a week without raiding one of those would make us a bit rusty on the fights (our guild does one raiding night a week.) In tier 14, the obvious first step is Mogu'shan Vaults, then Heart of Fear, then Terrace of Eternal Spring. Sure, one could argue that it's more like three mini-raid tiers, but assuming they keep up with the raids as the expansion goes on, I'm totally fine with that.
Ooh! Ooh! And I got the first little token for my Legendary quest! It's one of 20, but progress is progress.
The Golden Gate: Mixed Feelings on Mists' Reputations
Upon hitting level 90, you will find that a veritable christmas tree of quests lights up. At 90, the major reputations are unlocked, and you are encouraged to get to work on them.
Reputations are increased through daily quests almost exclusively (apart from the Lorewalkers,) so if you want access to the reputation rewards, you've got to get to work on those reps.
All Valor gear is now Rep gear, so in order to spend those Valor points, you must first attain certain reputation levels with various factions. For instance, I am one day away from hitting revered with the Klaxxi on my main, and thus opening up the Valor pants (though I will also need to get some more valor points, as I spent some on a cloak already.)
The point is: if you want access to Valor gear, you will need to attain certain reputation levels out in the world.
The Goal:
They want us getting out of the cities and doing stuff out in the world that is meaningful to our progression. This is a noble goal, and I do think that overall Pandaria seems like more of a living, breathing world than previous areas have been (though places like Icecrown I can forgive, as there's nothing living or breathing about it.)
The Problems:
If one is to accept that dailies should be the gateway to gearing up (other than through boss drops, which is of course what Blizzard has always thought should be the main way in which to gear up, despite the dangers of RNG,) then I have one major gripe: In order to even begin working on Shado-Pan or August Celestial reputation, you must first get all the way to Revered with Golden Lotus. There is no choice here, and so you not only create a burdensome barrier, you also bottleneck everyone in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, killing the same twelve mogu on the Golden Stair every day.
The Golden Lotus is also a bit frustrating because at each reputation level, you have more quests to do. By the time you hit honored, you go through three quest hubs to finish your dailies, which accounts for probably an hour of work every day. While more dailies means more reputation gains per day, thus making the grind from neutral to friendly and friendly to honored and honored to revered balanced out, you eventually wind up spending a huge amount of time on those dailies.
Currently, I feel disinclined to even worry about Shado-Pan or August Celestials because I'm already burned out on dailies (mind you, I like questing. My Death Knight, Oterro, is halfway through 89 at the moment, which will make my third level 90 toon. But dailies are, by their nature, repetitive on a daily basis.) Had I been able to start off with some kind of rotation, or focusing only on the factions that had gear I needed most, there might not have been such a problem.
While the Rogue is level 90, I dare not start the daily grind on him. It is too recent in memory and he's on a very high population server (in retrospect, transferring the Horde toons to an alphabetically early server was a terrible idea.) Perhaps when they implement the reputation boost for alts I'll be willing to wade in there again, but even still, that means at least a week's worth of dailies just to open up Shado-Pan and August Celestials. As someone who fully intends to have every class get to level 90 (and possibly duplicates for certain classes,) I'm not sure I'm going to be able to handle doing this grind on every single one of those characters.
Possible Solutions:
One of the new features in Mists that I love, despite the fact that they fit in a weird place in terms of character progression, is Scenarios. The quick and dirty version of the dungeon that works (and is most fun) with just three dps, Scenarios are actually one of the most original and coolest things they've brought to the game.
In fact, I wouldn't mind seeing more dungeons and raids that were more objective-based, and less "clear the trash to the next boss" kind of affairs.
Anyway, I'd love to see them implement some faction-based Scenarios. Now, I realize that this goes against the goal of getting people out into the world, but I think there needs to be an alternative to daily quests for gaining reputation.
Another, possibly radical solution would be to take the "alt boost" that they're planning for a future patch (hopefully 5.1) and run with it. Instead of just hitting revered on one character and then everyone gains rep at twice the rate, make it cumulative. If one toon hits revered, you'll get a 2x multiplier. If a second toon hits revered, make it a 3x multiplier. Three toons? 4x. I realize that eventually, if you're an altoholic like me, you'll be getting exalted in a day - or at least very quickly (at first I was going to suggest doing it exponentially, doubling the bonus for each toon, but then it occurred to me that on toon eight or so, you'd be hitting exalted after a single, 150 reputation quest.)
Perhaps the less radical solution would be to finally make reputations account-wide. I realize they don't really want to do this for immersion purposes - it would be weird to arrive in Dread Wastes to find that the Klaxxi already had the red carpet out and were offering you champagne and caviar (I assume this is what happens when you're exalted with a faction,) but there are plenty of ways for a character to have to work hard on getting an alt up (leveling, obviously, as well as professions and JP/VP, not to mention getting the right gear drops.) One would also have to make things like the Scryers/Aldor or Oracles/Frenzyheart exceptions, but it would probably make people feel better about playing their alts (and Blizzard does want us playing alts, right?)
Reflecting on Daily Quests:
The daily quest was introduced in Burning Crusade. One could do a (rather long) quest chain in Blade's Edge Mountains to start one's grind with O'grila, or one could do dailies with the Sha'tari Skyguard in order to attain a Nether Ray mount. This was further expanded with the Netherwing and eventually the Shattered Sun Offensive. While the rewards for the latter were quite nice (I remember the great Paladin tanking shield, back when we still needed spellpower on our gear, was a goal of mine,) another major motivator was gold. Back then, gold came from far fewer avenues, and daily quests were the only really reliable way to increase your net worth.
These were the days when the 5k gold price tag on epic flight was something you'd have to work for a long time to attain.
Anyway, the major daily hubs of the past two expansions, namely Argent Tournament and Molten Front (ok, and Tol Barad, but I never really pursued that one all that voraciously) had their own gating mechanisms, and the Golden Lotus feels more like their descendant than the BC grinds. In a way, the daily grind has become more sophisticated, but I do think it's best left as an optional thing. I was perfectly willing to do both on Jarsus (and I'm revered with Golden Lotus on him as well,) but other than getting just far enough to get the blacksmithing patterns for Ardten in Molten Front, I never pursued those dailies very much with the other characters.
And One Last Note on Reputations:
The way I see it, Reputations should be influenced by helping out the faction in any number of ways. What you do in the daily quests certainly helps, but I think that in general, any faction should have multiple avenues to advancement. WoW is a huge, enormous, gigantic game, with a very diverse playerbase with just as many diverse tastes (I for one, love Hour of Twilight-difficulty heroics, Wrath-difficulty 10-man raids, and leveling up alts. Oh, and engineering!) and I think that if reputations are going to be so core to the game, they should let people contribute how they wish.
Also, part of the goal of getting rid of head enchants and making shoulder enchants all scribe-produced was to make sure there were no "required" reputations. By making VP gear tied to reputations, haven't they just made them all "required?"
For all this griping, I should point out that I do really like the expansion. The farming mechanic with the Tillers is both fun and useful (and gives you something easier and less time-consuming than old-style farming to get the mats you need) and I love the work they've done in exposing us to the lore of the world. I can't wait to see this level of detail when we get to Argus (I can only assume we're eventually going to go to Argus, and I can tell you Oterro's going to be having one hell of a homecoming,) or any of the other environments we'll be exploring in future expansions.
We whine and gripe because we love, Blizzard.
Reputations are increased through daily quests almost exclusively (apart from the Lorewalkers,) so if you want access to the reputation rewards, you've got to get to work on those reps.
All Valor gear is now Rep gear, so in order to spend those Valor points, you must first attain certain reputation levels with various factions. For instance, I am one day away from hitting revered with the Klaxxi on my main, and thus opening up the Valor pants (though I will also need to get some more valor points, as I spent some on a cloak already.)
The point is: if you want access to Valor gear, you will need to attain certain reputation levels out in the world.
The Goal:
They want us getting out of the cities and doing stuff out in the world that is meaningful to our progression. This is a noble goal, and I do think that overall Pandaria seems like more of a living, breathing world than previous areas have been (though places like Icecrown I can forgive, as there's nothing living or breathing about it.)
The Problems:
If one is to accept that dailies should be the gateway to gearing up (other than through boss drops, which is of course what Blizzard has always thought should be the main way in which to gear up, despite the dangers of RNG,) then I have one major gripe: In order to even begin working on Shado-Pan or August Celestial reputation, you must first get all the way to Revered with Golden Lotus. There is no choice here, and so you not only create a burdensome barrier, you also bottleneck everyone in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, killing the same twelve mogu on the Golden Stair every day.
The Golden Lotus is also a bit frustrating because at each reputation level, you have more quests to do. By the time you hit honored, you go through three quest hubs to finish your dailies, which accounts for probably an hour of work every day. While more dailies means more reputation gains per day, thus making the grind from neutral to friendly and friendly to honored and honored to revered balanced out, you eventually wind up spending a huge amount of time on those dailies.
Currently, I feel disinclined to even worry about Shado-Pan or August Celestials because I'm already burned out on dailies (mind you, I like questing. My Death Knight, Oterro, is halfway through 89 at the moment, which will make my third level 90 toon. But dailies are, by their nature, repetitive on a daily basis.) Had I been able to start off with some kind of rotation, or focusing only on the factions that had gear I needed most, there might not have been such a problem.
While the Rogue is level 90, I dare not start the daily grind on him. It is too recent in memory and he's on a very high population server (in retrospect, transferring the Horde toons to an alphabetically early server was a terrible idea.) Perhaps when they implement the reputation boost for alts I'll be willing to wade in there again, but even still, that means at least a week's worth of dailies just to open up Shado-Pan and August Celestials. As someone who fully intends to have every class get to level 90 (and possibly duplicates for certain classes,) I'm not sure I'm going to be able to handle doing this grind on every single one of those characters.
Possible Solutions:
One of the new features in Mists that I love, despite the fact that they fit in a weird place in terms of character progression, is Scenarios. The quick and dirty version of the dungeon that works (and is most fun) with just three dps, Scenarios are actually one of the most original and coolest things they've brought to the game.
In fact, I wouldn't mind seeing more dungeons and raids that were more objective-based, and less "clear the trash to the next boss" kind of affairs.
Anyway, I'd love to see them implement some faction-based Scenarios. Now, I realize that this goes against the goal of getting people out into the world, but I think there needs to be an alternative to daily quests for gaining reputation.
Another, possibly radical solution would be to take the "alt boost" that they're planning for a future patch (hopefully 5.1) and run with it. Instead of just hitting revered on one character and then everyone gains rep at twice the rate, make it cumulative. If one toon hits revered, you'll get a 2x multiplier. If a second toon hits revered, make it a 3x multiplier. Three toons? 4x. I realize that eventually, if you're an altoholic like me, you'll be getting exalted in a day - or at least very quickly (at first I was going to suggest doing it exponentially, doubling the bonus for each toon, but then it occurred to me that on toon eight or so, you'd be hitting exalted after a single, 150 reputation quest.)
Perhaps the less radical solution would be to finally make reputations account-wide. I realize they don't really want to do this for immersion purposes - it would be weird to arrive in Dread Wastes to find that the Klaxxi already had the red carpet out and were offering you champagne and caviar (I assume this is what happens when you're exalted with a faction,) but there are plenty of ways for a character to have to work hard on getting an alt up (leveling, obviously, as well as professions and JP/VP, not to mention getting the right gear drops.) One would also have to make things like the Scryers/Aldor or Oracles/Frenzyheart exceptions, but it would probably make people feel better about playing their alts (and Blizzard does want us playing alts, right?)
Reflecting on Daily Quests:
The daily quest was introduced in Burning Crusade. One could do a (rather long) quest chain in Blade's Edge Mountains to start one's grind with O'grila, or one could do dailies with the Sha'tari Skyguard in order to attain a Nether Ray mount. This was further expanded with the Netherwing and eventually the Shattered Sun Offensive. While the rewards for the latter were quite nice (I remember the great Paladin tanking shield, back when we still needed spellpower on our gear, was a goal of mine,) another major motivator was gold. Back then, gold came from far fewer avenues, and daily quests were the only really reliable way to increase your net worth.
These were the days when the 5k gold price tag on epic flight was something you'd have to work for a long time to attain.
Anyway, the major daily hubs of the past two expansions, namely Argent Tournament and Molten Front (ok, and Tol Barad, but I never really pursued that one all that voraciously) had their own gating mechanisms, and the Golden Lotus feels more like their descendant than the BC grinds. In a way, the daily grind has become more sophisticated, but I do think it's best left as an optional thing. I was perfectly willing to do both on Jarsus (and I'm revered with Golden Lotus on him as well,) but other than getting just far enough to get the blacksmithing patterns for Ardten in Molten Front, I never pursued those dailies very much with the other characters.
And One Last Note on Reputations:
The way I see it, Reputations should be influenced by helping out the faction in any number of ways. What you do in the daily quests certainly helps, but I think that in general, any faction should have multiple avenues to advancement. WoW is a huge, enormous, gigantic game, with a very diverse playerbase with just as many diverse tastes (I for one, love Hour of Twilight-difficulty heroics, Wrath-difficulty 10-man raids, and leveling up alts. Oh, and engineering!) and I think that if reputations are going to be so core to the game, they should let people contribute how they wish.
Also, part of the goal of getting rid of head enchants and making shoulder enchants all scribe-produced was to make sure there were no "required" reputations. By making VP gear tied to reputations, haven't they just made them all "required?"
For all this griping, I should point out that I do really like the expansion. The farming mechanic with the Tillers is both fun and useful (and gives you something easier and less time-consuming than old-style farming to get the mats you need) and I love the work they've done in exposing us to the lore of the world. I can't wait to see this level of detail when we get to Argus (I can only assume we're eventually going to go to Argus, and I can tell you Oterro's going to be having one hell of a homecoming,) or any of the other environments we'll be exploring in future expansions.
We whine and gripe because we love, Blizzard.
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Tank Queues for LFR! (Ok, that's not really what I'm going to write about.)
I got Jarsus geared up for LFR yesterday, specifically the first half of LFR Mogu'shan Vaults. It's a little odd to step into a raid with some green gear left, but I was given to understand that LFR is relatively easy (as it should be - if they made LFR too hard not a single boss would be downed given the number of quitters.)
The only group I got into was on Feng the Accursed, which never got off the ground, as there were about ten people in the raid at any given time (it didn't help that some idiot Paladin tank accidentally hit his auto-run key and caused a premature pull... and that paladin was totally not me...) Anyway, the queue times for a tank at least are over an hour long at this point, so I just don't know if I can run them (while I imagine that on weekdays this will become less of a problem, it still bodes ill for me. Let's hope we can get the guild raiding regularly again!)
Today I simultaneously got Dynamic Duo and Double Agent, leveling Darsino, the undead rogue, to 90. While Tarbhad, the tauren shaman, has been my Horde main since late BC (though he and Darsino jockeyed for that position a bit around patch 3.3,) the fact that they finally made Subtlety a viable PvE spec has me overjoyed. Finally, the abilities are cheap enough, the buffs last long enough, and we're just straight-up producing enough damage to work. It's glorious.
That said, I'm not sure it's the best soloing spec. The fact that Backstab does so much more damage than Hemorrhage and at less cost makes the zippy, stabby playstyle you'll get to love in dungeons go a bit slower while soloing. As far as I know, only Feral Druids share our plight, though I haven't ever spent a whole lot of time with a Cat spec. Only one rogue spec still "does it from behind," and while they've made Hemorrhage our Sinister Strike replacement, I wonder if it wouldn't be a better idea to just rename "Backstab" to "Stab," and let us use Hemorrhage as just a debuff we keep on the target every CP-cycle.
One thing that does make leveling a rogue less painful is the Glyph of Deadly Momentum, which lets your Slice and Dice (which is key to Subtlety's energy regen) and Recuperate refresh every time you kill a high-level-enough enemy. The buffs last long enough that if you don't have to go searching too far for your quest objectives, you can stay topped off and energized pretty constantly.
Subtlety is very cool, though I worry a bit about the reliance on Expose Weakness. Shadow Dance lets you keep applying it over the course of a fight, but combining that with Master of Subtlety (which you will truly need Vanish for if you want it during a long fight) makes the spec extremely bursty. I think they've taken it to a great place, but I wouldn't mind if Blizzard kept an eye on the spec to see if they could find a way to keep the flavor of the spec that gets to use openers a lot while allowing for a bit more sustained damage. That said, I'm regularly topping the meters, so I guess I shouldn't be complaining.
Ok, onto other subjects: Namely, 5.1.
The Darkmoon Faire! They haven't forgotten about it! Granted, there has only been one major patch between now and when they introduced Darkmoon Isle (which, I should note, is my favorite zone in the whole game. Seriously, a Tim Burton-esque carnival with bits of Alice in Wonderland (not the movie. God, what a disappointment! It should have been so good!) and a dash of Carnivale (the HBO show.)
Some of the pavilions that have been closed off will finally be open. There will be a carousel (that grants a modest XP buff) and a Master Pet Trainer, who fights with, and grants you an opportunity to attain, a Darkmoon Eye pet (which I NEED to get.)
There's also going to be some major, Major, MAJOR lore developments coming in the patch. They're so big that I don't think I should really even hint at them. Ok, here's the gist: the Garrosh is going to do something horrible, and Jaina is going to do something rash. One more hint: Blood Elves are actually going to get some new lore. Mind? Blown. (Please bring on the Worgen/Draenei lore! Seriously, Worgen didn't even get nearly anything in their own introductory expansion!)
Actually, if I may step into the editorial side of this blog, I was thinking: there's this huge conflict between the Alliance and the Horde, but it's mostly framed as Garrosh vs. Varian. We know Garrosh is going down at the end of the expansion, and while I doubt that there will be a lasting peace between the factions (because of game mechanics, if nothing else,) I imagine that the all-out furious war is going to die down a bit. However, there's another very big player in all of this: Sylvanas.
Sylvanas has arguably jumping off the deep end even more than Garrosh (though she was already pretty far out there to begin with.) I don't really know what she's going to be doing, but I imagine that in the power vacuum left behind by Garrosh, Sylvanas is going to take back what she has before the Wrath Gate, and then some. If nothing else, I want to see Abominations guarding the halls of the Undercity once again.
The only group I got into was on Feng the Accursed, which never got off the ground, as there were about ten people in the raid at any given time (it didn't help that some idiot Paladin tank accidentally hit his auto-run key and caused a premature pull... and that paladin was totally not me...) Anyway, the queue times for a tank at least are over an hour long at this point, so I just don't know if I can run them (while I imagine that on weekdays this will become less of a problem, it still bodes ill for me. Let's hope we can get the guild raiding regularly again!)
Today I simultaneously got Dynamic Duo and Double Agent, leveling Darsino, the undead rogue, to 90. While Tarbhad, the tauren shaman, has been my Horde main since late BC (though he and Darsino jockeyed for that position a bit around patch 3.3,) the fact that they finally made Subtlety a viable PvE spec has me overjoyed. Finally, the abilities are cheap enough, the buffs last long enough, and we're just straight-up producing enough damage to work. It's glorious.
That said, I'm not sure it's the best soloing spec. The fact that Backstab does so much more damage than Hemorrhage and at less cost makes the zippy, stabby playstyle you'll get to love in dungeons go a bit slower while soloing. As far as I know, only Feral Druids share our plight, though I haven't ever spent a whole lot of time with a Cat spec. Only one rogue spec still "does it from behind," and while they've made Hemorrhage our Sinister Strike replacement, I wonder if it wouldn't be a better idea to just rename "Backstab" to "Stab," and let us use Hemorrhage as just a debuff we keep on the target every CP-cycle.
One thing that does make leveling a rogue less painful is the Glyph of Deadly Momentum, which lets your Slice and Dice (which is key to Subtlety's energy regen) and Recuperate refresh every time you kill a high-level-enough enemy. The buffs last long enough that if you don't have to go searching too far for your quest objectives, you can stay topped off and energized pretty constantly.
Subtlety is very cool, though I worry a bit about the reliance on Expose Weakness. Shadow Dance lets you keep applying it over the course of a fight, but combining that with Master of Subtlety (which you will truly need Vanish for if you want it during a long fight) makes the spec extremely bursty. I think they've taken it to a great place, but I wouldn't mind if Blizzard kept an eye on the spec to see if they could find a way to keep the flavor of the spec that gets to use openers a lot while allowing for a bit more sustained damage. That said, I'm regularly topping the meters, so I guess I shouldn't be complaining.
Ok, onto other subjects: Namely, 5.1.
The Darkmoon Faire! They haven't forgotten about it! Granted, there has only been one major patch between now and when they introduced Darkmoon Isle (which, I should note, is my favorite zone in the whole game. Seriously, a Tim Burton-esque carnival with bits of Alice in Wonderland (not the movie. God, what a disappointment! It should have been so good!) and a dash of Carnivale (the HBO show.)
Some of the pavilions that have been closed off will finally be open. There will be a carousel (that grants a modest XP buff) and a Master Pet Trainer, who fights with, and grants you an opportunity to attain, a Darkmoon Eye pet (which I NEED to get.)
There's also going to be some major, Major, MAJOR lore developments coming in the patch. They're so big that I don't think I should really even hint at them. Ok, here's the gist: the Garrosh is going to do something horrible, and Jaina is going to do something rash. One more hint: Blood Elves are actually going to get some new lore. Mind? Blown. (Please bring on the Worgen/Draenei lore! Seriously, Worgen didn't even get nearly anything in their own introductory expansion!)
Actually, if I may step into the editorial side of this blog, I was thinking: there's this huge conflict between the Alliance and the Horde, but it's mostly framed as Garrosh vs. Varian. We know Garrosh is going down at the end of the expansion, and while I doubt that there will be a lasting peace between the factions (because of game mechanics, if nothing else,) I imagine that the all-out furious war is going to die down a bit. However, there's another very big player in all of this: Sylvanas.
Sylvanas has arguably jumping off the deep end even more than Garrosh (though she was already pretty far out there to begin with.) I don't really know what she's going to be doing, but I imagine that in the power vacuum left behind by Garrosh, Sylvanas is going to take back what she has before the Wrath Gate, and then some. If nothing else, I want to see Abominations guarding the halls of the Undercity once again.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
The Flames of the Burning Legion
Remember the Black Temple? Once the Temple of Karabor, this center of Draenei worship was defiled by the demon-blood-enraged Orcs in the earliest days of the Horde. When the Legion conquered Outland, Magtheridon the Pit Lord took the Black Temple as his seat of power. Later, Illidan Stormrage, now a half-demon thanks to the effects of the Skull of Gul'dan, conquered the Black Temple with the aid of Lady Vashj and Kael'thas Sunstrider, claiming lordship over Outland.
And then we showed up.
The Black Temple was meant to be the ultimate raid of the Burning Crusade, but it famously came out far too early (while most people were still working on tier 5: Tempest Keep and Serpentshrine Cavern,) and then remained the pinnacle of raiding for a very long time, until finally Sunwell Plateau was released in patch 2.4.
It was a very good raid, actually. Today, you'll probably only pass through Shadowmoon Valley for one level before heading off to Northrend, but the Black Temple was the "big ominous base for the big bad" like Icecrown Citadel was in Wrath (I guess Grommash Hold is that now...) I highly recommend running some old-school raids there for both the cool atmosphere and one of the best looking sets of raid tier armor they've made (special mention for the Druid and Paladin sets, though I know the Warrior, Priest, Rogue, and... well, they're all pretty good looking.)
But Burning Crusade effectively ended in late 2008, and BT has not been significant as an instance since then.
Until now.
It appears that on the 5.1 PTR, there's a new Scenario that takes you to the Black Temple. Specifically, I believe this Scenario is Warlock-only.
We've been teased before about the possibility of green fire (if you haven't checked out Shadowmoon Valley, take a look. The place is DEFINED by Fel Fire, altering various warlock abilities like Incinerate, Immolate, Rain of Fire and Soul Fire to have this look (though honestly, I think that given the changes to abilities, only Destruction's going to really change that much.) They had said they'd want warlocks to go through a quest chain to get this (not sure why it couldn't just be a minor glyph, but if we're getting all this I'm totally on board.)
Anyway, it apparently involves that Council of Six Daggers we heard about earlier, and harnessing some seriously powerful mojo. At Illidan's house.
The thing that excites me about this is the way that Scenarios allow Blizzard to use older parts of the world. Without going through the difficulty of building an entire dungeon or some such thing, they can instead take some pre-established area and have specific, controlled things occur within.
Expand on this, Blizzard. I would love to A: see some of the old class-specific quests, like the Paladin Charger chain, reimplemented, or the Battle of Undercity brought back in all its glory and B: Get a lot more content in the old world. We've heard about important events happening in major cities, like Moira's takeover of Ironforge, and we haven't been able to see them in-game. This is a great way to do this without the hassles of phasing.
And then we showed up.
The Black Temple was meant to be the ultimate raid of the Burning Crusade, but it famously came out far too early (while most people were still working on tier 5: Tempest Keep and Serpentshrine Cavern,) and then remained the pinnacle of raiding for a very long time, until finally Sunwell Plateau was released in patch 2.4.
It was a very good raid, actually. Today, you'll probably only pass through Shadowmoon Valley for one level before heading off to Northrend, but the Black Temple was the "big ominous base for the big bad" like Icecrown Citadel was in Wrath (I guess Grommash Hold is that now...) I highly recommend running some old-school raids there for both the cool atmosphere and one of the best looking sets of raid tier armor they've made (special mention for the Druid and Paladin sets, though I know the Warrior, Priest, Rogue, and... well, they're all pretty good looking.)
But Burning Crusade effectively ended in late 2008, and BT has not been significant as an instance since then.
Until now.
It appears that on the 5.1 PTR, there's a new Scenario that takes you to the Black Temple. Specifically, I believe this Scenario is Warlock-only.
We've been teased before about the possibility of green fire (if you haven't checked out Shadowmoon Valley, take a look. The place is DEFINED by Fel Fire, altering various warlock abilities like Incinerate, Immolate, Rain of Fire and Soul Fire to have this look (though honestly, I think that given the changes to abilities, only Destruction's going to really change that much.) They had said they'd want warlocks to go through a quest chain to get this (not sure why it couldn't just be a minor glyph, but if we're getting all this I'm totally on board.)
Anyway, it apparently involves that Council of Six Daggers we heard about earlier, and harnessing some seriously powerful mojo. At Illidan's house.
The thing that excites me about this is the way that Scenarios allow Blizzard to use older parts of the world. Without going through the difficulty of building an entire dungeon or some such thing, they can instead take some pre-established area and have specific, controlled things occur within.
Expand on this, Blizzard. I would love to A: see some of the old class-specific quests, like the Paladin Charger chain, reimplemented, or the Battle of Undercity brought back in all its glory and B: Get a lot more content in the old world. We've heard about important events happening in major cities, like Moira's takeover of Ironforge, and we haven't been able to see them in-game. This is a great way to do this without the hassles of phasing.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Pandaria Speculation Part Two
In part one, I talked a bit about various things that bore some speculation: mainly the nature of the Mists and the possible origins of the Mogu.
Now I'd like to talk about about the great cosmology. While each expansion has historically centered around a particular villain or new area, the overall story of the World of Warcraft has been evolving and developing over time. The existence of Wrathion in the Tavern in the Mists is, I think, one of the most tantalizing bits of lore-tease. Sure, we know that he's going to be the guy we're working with to craft our expansion-long Legendary weapons (which I have to say is a cool new take on the Legendary,) but his presence suggests some serious moving and shaking is going on. (Question: do Rogues who did the Fangs of the Father quest chain start with better rep with him? Shouldn't they?)
The Legion and the Water:
Something big is coming. Wrathion, despite claiming to stand by your faction when he gives you his spiel, agrees with most of the sane people in Azeroth in that the Alliance and the Horde need to stop fighting each other. However, it's not just because war is bad. There's something big coming, and it looks like it's coming with a whole load of green fire.
It's been four real-world years since we faced a serious threat from the Burning Legion, with Kil'Jaeden's attempt to enter Azeroth through the Sunwell. However, it's clear that while they were pushed out the door, they're still banging on it from the other side. One of the pivotal events in Wrath of the Lich King was the Wrathgate Incident, and the subsequent Battle of Undercity. If you only play Alliance, you may not have known exactly what was going on - it looked pretty much like Forsaken acting as Forsaken (though the Forsaken refugees in Orgrimmar during the quest where you talk to Thrall suggest otherwise - it's really too bad that these quests cannot be played anymore.) However, from the Horde side of things, you discover that Putress was working on behalf of Varimathras, and that this was all part of a coup to remove Sylvanas and Undercity's Horde presence.
Varimathras was a Dreadlord who had been beaten into submission during the three-way civil war in the Plaguelands between the Scourge, the Burning Legion, and the Forsaken. In exchange for his life, Varmathras offered to join Sylvanas. The Wrathgate was his sudden but inevitable betrayal. Not only did he kickstart the war between the Alliance and Horde (remember that through Vanilla and BC, the two factions were really in more of a Cold War, even joining up to fight off, say, the Qiraji or... the Burning Legion,) but he appeared to be attempting to summon something in Sylvanas' throne room. There is a "dark voice" who Varimathras refers to as his master. If it had been Kil'Jaeden, we'd probably just hear it as Kil'jaeden. So, I'm pretty sure we encountered at least the voice of Sargeras.
In the previous article, I suggested that Pandaria is special because it's a bad place - a contaminated environment filled with dead Old God essence, which is the Sha. However, there's another thing that appears to make it special: the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Once the seat of the somehow Titan-affiliated Mogu, the Vale has powerful waters that require close protection. Even the overflow that drains down into Valley of the Four Winds is potent, allowing the Pandaren to grow ridiculously huge, nutritious crops.
The Well of Eternity is suggested to have been what drew the Legion and Sargeras to want to conquer Azeroth in the first place, but it was destroyed in the War of the Ancients. In the Third War, they turned their attention to the World Tree, which was planted on top of a new Well of Eternity created by Illidan. But the World Tree's essence was detonated, and while the power of it is still great, it's clearly lost some (otherwise the Night Elves would still be immortal.) Next, the Legion invades Quel'danas, attempting to use the Sunwell to get in - the Sunwell was originally created in a very similar manner to the second well underneath the World Tree, using vials of water from the original well saved by Illidan before the Sundering.
Notice a pattern?
The Burning Legion is obsessed with the magical waters in Azeroth. And now, thanks to the Cataclysm and the parting of the Mists, we've just uncovered the most potent source of magical water on the whole planet. And it's remained nearly untouched for ages.
Four Gods wait on the Windowsill:
With Y'shaarj, we now have four Old Gods named: C'thun, Yogg-Saron, N'zoth, and Y'shaarj. We have only heard N'zoth referred to (though some speculate that the Madness of Deathwing was really N'zoth taking over Neltharion's body once and for all to serve as his avatar.) Y'shaarj appears to be the one the Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron referred to as the Black Goat with Seven Eyes (or whatever it's called.) Around Pandaria, we encouter the Shas of Doubt, Despair, Hatred, Anger, Violence (though this one might be a lesser Sha and aspect of Anger or Hatred,) and of course, Fear. If we count all of those, we get six.
What might be the seventh?
Ok, this is less speculation than musing.
Garrosh's Eventual Fall:
Because 5.1 (or whenever the main armies arrive) is not for a bit, we actually haven't been seeing a whole lot of Horde or Alliance forces in Pandaria. Apart from Jade Forest (which, after the initial battles, is just you and a tiny crack squad) and a bit in Kun Lai (involving the same squad members,) and the times you meet up with Anduin, everything else you interact with is native to the continent (ok, also Chen and Li Li.) So we haven't really seen much of what will eventually lead to Garrosh's fall.
Actually, there is also the interesting issue of what exactly we're going to be dealing with in subsequent patches. The major raids of 5.0 have us killing the Mantid Empress (seems to handle the Mantid as an issue,) the Sha of Fear (the last one we know of that is not killable through quests or in 5-mans) and going into Mogu'shan Vaults, giving us our Mogu-themed raid.
Now, I don't know that the resurrected Thunder King is down for the count after Vaults - after all, I don't think you even fight him there - but it does leave you to wonder what the raids will be between now and the Battle of Orgrimmar.
The Zandalari sure seem to have made their presence known, at least in Kun-Lai. One of the bosses in Mogu'shan Vaults even is a Zandalari troll. And what is with that island to the northwest of Townlong? Might we take the fight to the Zandalari and find out what drummed them up into this frenzy and turned them from being the peaceful scholars they once were? (And who we actually helped to take down the Gurubashi and Drakkari the first time?)
I don't know how many raid tiers or major patches we can expect with Mists. After all, 5.1 is not going to be a new raid tier (or even new dungeons,) but then again, one of the revolutionary concepts in Mists is that they're putting in a whole lot of effort to get us out into the world, rather than just queueing for instances in the cities.
Now I'd like to talk about about the great cosmology. While each expansion has historically centered around a particular villain or new area, the overall story of the World of Warcraft has been evolving and developing over time. The existence of Wrathion in the Tavern in the Mists is, I think, one of the most tantalizing bits of lore-tease. Sure, we know that he's going to be the guy we're working with to craft our expansion-long Legendary weapons (which I have to say is a cool new take on the Legendary,) but his presence suggests some serious moving and shaking is going on. (Question: do Rogues who did the Fangs of the Father quest chain start with better rep with him? Shouldn't they?)
The Legion and the Water:
Something big is coming. Wrathion, despite claiming to stand by your faction when he gives you his spiel, agrees with most of the sane people in Azeroth in that the Alliance and the Horde need to stop fighting each other. However, it's not just because war is bad. There's something big coming, and it looks like it's coming with a whole load of green fire.
It's been four real-world years since we faced a serious threat from the Burning Legion, with Kil'Jaeden's attempt to enter Azeroth through the Sunwell. However, it's clear that while they were pushed out the door, they're still banging on it from the other side. One of the pivotal events in Wrath of the Lich King was the Wrathgate Incident, and the subsequent Battle of Undercity. If you only play Alliance, you may not have known exactly what was going on - it looked pretty much like Forsaken acting as Forsaken (though the Forsaken refugees in Orgrimmar during the quest where you talk to Thrall suggest otherwise - it's really too bad that these quests cannot be played anymore.) However, from the Horde side of things, you discover that Putress was working on behalf of Varimathras, and that this was all part of a coup to remove Sylvanas and Undercity's Horde presence.
Varimathras was a Dreadlord who had been beaten into submission during the three-way civil war in the Plaguelands between the Scourge, the Burning Legion, and the Forsaken. In exchange for his life, Varmathras offered to join Sylvanas. The Wrathgate was his sudden but inevitable betrayal. Not only did he kickstart the war between the Alliance and Horde (remember that through Vanilla and BC, the two factions were really in more of a Cold War, even joining up to fight off, say, the Qiraji or... the Burning Legion,) but he appeared to be attempting to summon something in Sylvanas' throne room. There is a "dark voice" who Varimathras refers to as his master. If it had been Kil'Jaeden, we'd probably just hear it as Kil'jaeden. So, I'm pretty sure we encountered at least the voice of Sargeras.
In the previous article, I suggested that Pandaria is special because it's a bad place - a contaminated environment filled with dead Old God essence, which is the Sha. However, there's another thing that appears to make it special: the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Once the seat of the somehow Titan-affiliated Mogu, the Vale has powerful waters that require close protection. Even the overflow that drains down into Valley of the Four Winds is potent, allowing the Pandaren to grow ridiculously huge, nutritious crops.
The Well of Eternity is suggested to have been what drew the Legion and Sargeras to want to conquer Azeroth in the first place, but it was destroyed in the War of the Ancients. In the Third War, they turned their attention to the World Tree, which was planted on top of a new Well of Eternity created by Illidan. But the World Tree's essence was detonated, and while the power of it is still great, it's clearly lost some (otherwise the Night Elves would still be immortal.) Next, the Legion invades Quel'danas, attempting to use the Sunwell to get in - the Sunwell was originally created in a very similar manner to the second well underneath the World Tree, using vials of water from the original well saved by Illidan before the Sundering.
Notice a pattern?
The Burning Legion is obsessed with the magical waters in Azeroth. And now, thanks to the Cataclysm and the parting of the Mists, we've just uncovered the most potent source of magical water on the whole planet. And it's remained nearly untouched for ages.
Four Gods wait on the Windowsill:
With Y'shaarj, we now have four Old Gods named: C'thun, Yogg-Saron, N'zoth, and Y'shaarj. We have only heard N'zoth referred to (though some speculate that the Madness of Deathwing was really N'zoth taking over Neltharion's body once and for all to serve as his avatar.) Y'shaarj appears to be the one the Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron referred to as the Black Goat with Seven Eyes (or whatever it's called.) Around Pandaria, we encouter the Shas of Doubt, Despair, Hatred, Anger, Violence (though this one might be a lesser Sha and aspect of Anger or Hatred,) and of course, Fear. If we count all of those, we get six.
What might be the seventh?
Ok, this is less speculation than musing.
Garrosh's Eventual Fall:
Because 5.1 (or whenever the main armies arrive) is not for a bit, we actually haven't been seeing a whole lot of Horde or Alliance forces in Pandaria. Apart from Jade Forest (which, after the initial battles, is just you and a tiny crack squad) and a bit in Kun Lai (involving the same squad members,) and the times you meet up with Anduin, everything else you interact with is native to the continent (ok, also Chen and Li Li.) So we haven't really seen much of what will eventually lead to Garrosh's fall.
Actually, there is also the interesting issue of what exactly we're going to be dealing with in subsequent patches. The major raids of 5.0 have us killing the Mantid Empress (seems to handle the Mantid as an issue,) the Sha of Fear (the last one we know of that is not killable through quests or in 5-mans) and going into Mogu'shan Vaults, giving us our Mogu-themed raid.
Now, I don't know that the resurrected Thunder King is down for the count after Vaults - after all, I don't think you even fight him there - but it does leave you to wonder what the raids will be between now and the Battle of Orgrimmar.
The Zandalari sure seem to have made their presence known, at least in Kun-Lai. One of the bosses in Mogu'shan Vaults even is a Zandalari troll. And what is with that island to the northwest of Townlong? Might we take the fight to the Zandalari and find out what drummed them up into this frenzy and turned them from being the peaceful scholars they once were? (And who we actually helped to take down the Gurubashi and Drakkari the first time?)
I don't know how many raid tiers or major patches we can expect with Mists. After all, 5.1 is not going to be a new raid tier (or even new dungeons,) but then again, one of the revolutionary concepts in Mists is that they're putting in a whole lot of effort to get us out into the world, rather than just queueing for instances in the cities.
True to the Title of the Blog...
Jarsus, the tankadin, is sitting at 90 with a decent compliment of heroic gear (still about four points shy of LFR, which opened up today,) and I am trying to run him through all the dailies to maximize rep gains (Golden Lotus is the only one that makes this feel like a burden. Tillers and Order of the Cloud Serpent feel very quick and easy, and while the Klaxxi does require a bit of time to get through them, at least it's only one phase. Golden Lotus gets longer and longer as you gain more rep. Granted, more quests means more rep per day, but I'd prefer fewer quests with greater rep rewards.)
However, I am also attempting to get my alts leveled up. At this point, Darsino, the undead rogue, is 89 and just about to go into Dread Wastes. Oterro the draenei death knight, is 87, and just about ready to head into Kun Lai. Ardten, the worgen warrior, just finished Jade Forest (which goes very quickly with rest experience) and is ready for Valley of the Four Winds at 86. Tarbhad, the tauren shaman, is just off the boat.
To level these guys up (and the others to follow - I WILL get the every class at 90 achievement,) I will need some kind of rotation. The goal: never do the same zone twice in a row, while maximizing rest experience to do it quickly.
So, the set-up requires me to get Oterro through Kun Lai and Ardten through Valley of the Four Winds. Then I will take Tarbhad through Jade Forest, and I'll have a toon at every level (several at 85.) From there, we can basically go from highest-level to lowest. Whoever's at 89 goes to 90, 88 to 89, 87 to 88, 86 to 87, 85 to 86.
The result in zones is Dread Wastes, Townlong, Kun Lai, Valley/Krasarang, Jade Forest, repeat. Never doing the same zone twice in a row.
Now, I'm not sure how strict I will hold to this. I expect that once my "central five" are at 90, I'll just be taking whoever I want through the whole continent (the warlock and the mage are prime contenders.)
Anyway, yes. I am insane.
However, I am also attempting to get my alts leveled up. At this point, Darsino, the undead rogue, is 89 and just about to go into Dread Wastes. Oterro the draenei death knight, is 87, and just about ready to head into Kun Lai. Ardten, the worgen warrior, just finished Jade Forest (which goes very quickly with rest experience) and is ready for Valley of the Four Winds at 86. Tarbhad, the tauren shaman, is just off the boat.
To level these guys up (and the others to follow - I WILL get the every class at 90 achievement,) I will need some kind of rotation. The goal: never do the same zone twice in a row, while maximizing rest experience to do it quickly.
So, the set-up requires me to get Oterro through Kun Lai and Ardten through Valley of the Four Winds. Then I will take Tarbhad through Jade Forest, and I'll have a toon at every level (several at 85.) From there, we can basically go from highest-level to lowest. Whoever's at 89 goes to 90, 88 to 89, 87 to 88, 86 to 87, 85 to 86.
The result in zones is Dread Wastes, Townlong, Kun Lai, Valley/Krasarang, Jade Forest, repeat. Never doing the same zone twice in a row.
Now, I'm not sure how strict I will hold to this. I expect that once my "central five" are at 90, I'll just be taking whoever I want through the whole continent (the warlock and the mage are prime contenders.)
Anyway, yes. I am insane.
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