Karazhan contends for the top spot of "most beloved raid" in all of World of Warcraft with Ulduar. It's also a pretty special place for me, as it's the very first raid I ever tanked (we only got about halfway through on two separate runs and I didn't get a single gear drop, but it's still my first experience of raid tanking.)
It's also a really fantastically atmospheric location. I've often dreamed up "haunted house" style raids, but really, Karazhan already is that.
So it's pretty exciting to see that we will absolutely be heading back there in Legion's first (hopefully of many) content patch.
Here's what we know:
Karazhan as it exists today will be sticking around. Unlike previous revamps, this one is not going to displace the old dungeon (the same will be true, I believe, of the old Violet Hold in Northrend's Dalaran, though that was certainly not as beloved an instance.) This fact alone puts me essentially 100% behind the revamp - nothing should be lost in the process, and we'll be able to go to Karazhan 70 to farm the Fiery Warhorse and all the other stuff there.
We also know that this dungeon will have a massive nine bosses. If you don't count the servant quarter mini bosses, the Chess Event, or Nightbane, that's the same as the bosses in the original raid (the only reason not to count Nightbane is that you had to complete a separate quest chain after beating Malchezaar in order to summon him, making him a kind of proto-Algalon-style boss.)
Additionally, we know that the patch is going to add other things, including a small raid in Stormheim (presumably this will be a 1-3 boss instance in the vein of Throne of the Four Winds.)
Here's what we don't know:
It's possible that this will be a simple revamp like Zul'Aman. Other than cosmetically changing Zul'jin into some other troll, the Zul'Aman dungeon was essentially the same as the raid had been, but with a few mechanics switched out to allow for things like having only one tank.
At bare minimum, I could imagine Blizzard doing something like this as a way to ensure that we're getting new (or "new") content at a steady rate.
However, what I'm hoping for is more of a "sequel dungeon," the way that Blackwing Descent was a totally new raid that borrowed heavily on the theme of Blackwing Lair, or similarly how the Firelands was a kind of sequel to Molten Core. That doesn't mean that we have to have the same final boss (though Malchezaar coming back would certainly fit into this idea of demons being unkillable - though by the time we got to the top of the tower, was the Netherspace not part of the Twisting Nether enough to permanently kill him?)
We know that some classes and specs are going to enter a new area underneath Karazhan to get their artifacts, so I would hope that instead of simply going through the same area we've already seen, we get a totally new part of the tower, with brand new bosses.
The 7.1 PTR is going to go up very soon after Legion proper launches, so if Blizzard doesn't explicitly answer questions before then, we'll start being able to find them out for ourselves.
Still, even in the worst-case scenario, where we just wind up running the old raid in a dungeon form, I'll be eager to do so.
Thursday, August 18, 2016
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
Patch 7.1: Return to Karazhan
Legion doesn't even come out for thirteen days, but Blizzard is doing the smart thing (the Mists of Pandaria thing) and planning ahead. And so we know what the first major patch of the expansion will be.
And guys, I'm excited.
Return to Karazhan will introduce a new 5-player dungeon with nine - yes, nine - bosses. The old Karazhan is not going anywhere, though, so don't worry if you have things to farm there or, just, you know, like to hang out there.
With the new Mythic+ system, new dungeons don't need to have inherently better gear than old ones, so this should be added to the random rotation (though I might recommend Blizzard splits it in two, as nine bosses is quite a lot - it'd be the largest dungeon since Vanilla.)
But that's not all!
7.1 will be introducing a new raid in Stormheim that fits in between the Emerald Nightmare and Nighthold - it appears this raid will be a small one.
We'll also be getting some additional outdoor content in Suramar during the patch to develop the Nightborne story.
This planning ahead strategy is very promising. You'll recall that Mists of Pandaria had really great patch pacing (until Siege of Orgrimmar lasted forever,) and I think Blizzard is trying to do the same for Legion.
And guys, I'm excited.
Return to Karazhan will introduce a new 5-player dungeon with nine - yes, nine - bosses. The old Karazhan is not going anywhere, though, so don't worry if you have things to farm there or, just, you know, like to hang out there.
With the new Mythic+ system, new dungeons don't need to have inherently better gear than old ones, so this should be added to the random rotation (though I might recommend Blizzard splits it in two, as nine bosses is quite a lot - it'd be the largest dungeon since Vanilla.)
But that's not all!
7.1 will be introducing a new raid in Stormheim that fits in between the Emerald Nightmare and Nighthold - it appears this raid will be a small one.
We'll also be getting some additional outdoor content in Suramar during the patch to develop the Nightborne story.
This planning ahead strategy is very promising. You'll recall that Mists of Pandaria had really great patch pacing (until Siege of Orgrimmar lasted forever,) and I think Blizzard is trying to do the same for Legion.
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
Artifacts Confirmed as Legion-Only
Artifact weapons are going to be a major feature in Legion. While I'm pretty excited about them, I also realize some of the inherent problems. Consider, for example, if you're a Fire Mage who really likes some Firelands staff model and always uses it for transmog. That person is either going to be out of luck when it comes to using a staff for probably the next two years (or even longer, if they make good on Legion being an extra-long expansion.)
Artifacts are going to be a pretty different way for the game to work, and while I'm really happy that I never have to worry about having a shield that's crappier than my sword or vice versa, as both will be boosted by the same relics, I'm also sure that we'll be ready to strap on new weapons when we move on from the Broken Isles.
That said, it'll be really weird to replace the Ashbringer or the Doomhammer with some quest green.
Personally, I hope that every appearance for your artifact weapon gets unlocked in the appearances tab - historically they've restricted legendaries from being used for transmog, but A: artifacts aren't legendaries and B: they're starting to get flexible on that, with the Mists of Pandaria Legendary cloaks now available for transmog.
In fact, I wouldn't be shocked if in 8.0 we start to see all legendary weapons now valid for transmog, but we're nowhere near that.
The other consequence of dumping artifacts after Legion is that a lot of the balance of the game is built around artifact weapons - my Enhancement Shaman, for example, takes forever to build up Maelstrom right now, but when he picks up the Doomhammer, he'll have the one-minute cooldown Doom Winds, which will help to generate a ton of Maelstrom on-demand.
Obviously every expansion comes with serious balance changes, and there's no reason to think that Blizzard wouldn't be able to balance 8.0 with the absence of artifacts.
I do wonder, though, how quickly we'll be rid of them, unless the game forces us to ditch them in some artificial way. The many artifact traits give some serious boosts to our damage. Someone who levels up through the Broken Isles after Legion ends will probably not have the most super-powered artifact - they'll probably not have all the traits filled out and will be using green or blue-quality relics, and so they'll probably be able to ditch the thing if they get a big item level boost on whatever the first quest in 8.0 is.
But for people who play through the Legion expansion and have fully-filled out artifact traits and epic relics from the final raid, I think Blizzard is going to need to seriously ramp up the item levels of the rewards in the next expansion to get people to let go of these things before they start raiding that expansion's first tier.
But all of this is a ways off, so for now let's just be excited about picking up our own artifacts in two weeks.
Artifacts are going to be a pretty different way for the game to work, and while I'm really happy that I never have to worry about having a shield that's crappier than my sword or vice versa, as both will be boosted by the same relics, I'm also sure that we'll be ready to strap on new weapons when we move on from the Broken Isles.
That said, it'll be really weird to replace the Ashbringer or the Doomhammer with some quest green.
Personally, I hope that every appearance for your artifact weapon gets unlocked in the appearances tab - historically they've restricted legendaries from being used for transmog, but A: artifacts aren't legendaries and B: they're starting to get flexible on that, with the Mists of Pandaria Legendary cloaks now available for transmog.
In fact, I wouldn't be shocked if in 8.0 we start to see all legendary weapons now valid for transmog, but we're nowhere near that.
The other consequence of dumping artifacts after Legion is that a lot of the balance of the game is built around artifact weapons - my Enhancement Shaman, for example, takes forever to build up Maelstrom right now, but when he picks up the Doomhammer, he'll have the one-minute cooldown Doom Winds, which will help to generate a ton of Maelstrom on-demand.
Obviously every expansion comes with serious balance changes, and there's no reason to think that Blizzard wouldn't be able to balance 8.0 with the absence of artifacts.
I do wonder, though, how quickly we'll be rid of them, unless the game forces us to ditch them in some artificial way. The many artifact traits give some serious boosts to our damage. Someone who levels up through the Broken Isles after Legion ends will probably not have the most super-powered artifact - they'll probably not have all the traits filled out and will be using green or blue-quality relics, and so they'll probably be able to ditch the thing if they get a big item level boost on whatever the first quest in 8.0 is.
But for people who play through the Legion expansion and have fully-filled out artifact traits and epic relics from the final raid, I think Blizzard is going to need to seriously ramp up the item levels of the rewards in the next expansion to get people to let go of these things before they start raiding that expansion's first tier.
But all of this is a ways off, so for now let's just be excited about picking up our own artifacts in two weeks.
A Spec Less Traveled
The very first time I specced my Death Knight, I went Unholy. It did not last.
Back in Wrath, all three DK specs could both tank and DPS - you'd have to use a different talent layout, of course, which led me to spec my DK as Blood/Blood for much of the expansion after the introduction of dual-specs.
I loved playing Blood DPS, though in Wrath I went a little tank-crazy and actually played all four of the then-available tanking classes as tanks.
Still, Blood really fit the fantasy of the Death Knight as I conceived it - a big, imposing runeweapon slashing at foes and following up with bursts of shadow damage.
When Blood was made exclusively a tanking spec, I still stuck with it because my Death Knight was still a mainspec tank. But for soloing I went with Frost, largely because Frost was built around these massive Obliterate crits.
The thing is, while I wasn't drawn to the pet management of Unholy or the awkward focus on disease spreading, I did enjoy the fact that Blood and Frost still did raise ghouls to fight for them - it's just that they were fire-and-forget guardians that the spec wasn't really built around.
Now, however, a lot of the things that made me mainspec Frost for the past two expansions have gone away. You can't use a two-handed weapon. You don't have any dead-raising abilities (except for your battle rez.) Obliterate does still crit big, but you're never going to see those massive numbers anymore because it's divided between your two weapons.
Meanwhile, Unholy has lost a lot of the things I didn't like so much. Dark Transformation has been simplified into an easily-managed 1-minute cooldown (that's a bit more impressive-looking than Pillar of Frost.) And disease spreading is way simpler with the redesigned Outbreak.
Instead of managing diseases like some kind of melee affliction warlock (ok, it was never that bad,) instead you now get the Festering Wound mechanic, which is pretty unlike anything I've seen other specs deal with.
And you can replace your ghoul with an abomination, which is pretty awesome (though holy crap do they need to update the abomination models - not redesign, just a warlock-demon-style update.)
The fact that Frost gets swords made from the shards of Frostmourne is making me seriously question this decision, but I think that ultimately, Unholy might fit me better these days (unless I wind up going back to Blood.)
Back in Wrath, all three DK specs could both tank and DPS - you'd have to use a different talent layout, of course, which led me to spec my DK as Blood/Blood for much of the expansion after the introduction of dual-specs.
I loved playing Blood DPS, though in Wrath I went a little tank-crazy and actually played all four of the then-available tanking classes as tanks.
Still, Blood really fit the fantasy of the Death Knight as I conceived it - a big, imposing runeweapon slashing at foes and following up with bursts of shadow damage.
When Blood was made exclusively a tanking spec, I still stuck with it because my Death Knight was still a mainspec tank. But for soloing I went with Frost, largely because Frost was built around these massive Obliterate crits.
The thing is, while I wasn't drawn to the pet management of Unholy or the awkward focus on disease spreading, I did enjoy the fact that Blood and Frost still did raise ghouls to fight for them - it's just that they were fire-and-forget guardians that the spec wasn't really built around.
Now, however, a lot of the things that made me mainspec Frost for the past two expansions have gone away. You can't use a two-handed weapon. You don't have any dead-raising abilities (except for your battle rez.) Obliterate does still crit big, but you're never going to see those massive numbers anymore because it's divided between your two weapons.
Meanwhile, Unholy has lost a lot of the things I didn't like so much. Dark Transformation has been simplified into an easily-managed 1-minute cooldown (that's a bit more impressive-looking than Pillar of Frost.) And disease spreading is way simpler with the redesigned Outbreak.
Instead of managing diseases like some kind of melee affliction warlock (ok, it was never that bad,) instead you now get the Festering Wound mechanic, which is pretty unlike anything I've seen other specs deal with.
And you can replace your ghoul with an abomination, which is pretty awesome (though holy crap do they need to update the abomination models - not redesign, just a warlock-demon-style update.)
The fact that Frost gets swords made from the shards of Frostmourne is making me seriously question this decision, but I think that ultimately, Unholy might fit me better these days (unless I wind up going back to Blood.)
Alarak, Zarya, and New Map, Skins and Mounts Coming to Heroes of the Storm
I've been very focused on the pre-Legion events in World of Warcraft, but this bit of news hit me via YouTube.
There is an upcoming event in Heroes of the Storm called "Machines of War." Much like the Eternal Conflict event focused on Diablo, this one will focus on Starcraft, including two new Starcraft-themed maps called Braxis Holdout and Warhead Junciton.
Braxis Holdout will have your team capturing beacons to fill your side's holding cells with Zerg. Once either holding cell is full, the zerg are unleashed to attack the other side, preferring hero targets.
Warhead Junction will have nukes spawn that you can pick up and launch at your opponents' fortifications, though if you die before you send it off, your enemies can take the nuke and use it against you.
Heroes is getting two new heroes, Alarak from Starcraft and Zarya from Overwatch.
Alarak is an Assassin. He's melee, but has lots of ranged abilities to pull his targets to him.
The thing that has me most excited about Alarak is that his first alternate skin is "Herald of N'zoth," turning him into a N'raqi from the Warcraft universe (basically their equivalent of Mindflayers/Ilithids, and more commonly referred to as Faceless Ones.)
Zarya is a ranged warrior, with lots of shielding abilities as well as the ability to trap enemies and bombard them with grenades.
There are also new skins for Rexxar ("Raider Rexxar," a sort of Terran armor look,) Kerrigan ("Queen of Ghosts," which gives her more of a Terran tech look,) and the Butcher ("Butcherlisk," making him look like an Ultralisk.) There's also a ghost-themed motorcycle.
Anyway, I've been saying for a long time that we needed some sci-fi themed Heroes maps, so I'm pretty happy about this upcoming event.
There is an upcoming event in Heroes of the Storm called "Machines of War." Much like the Eternal Conflict event focused on Diablo, this one will focus on Starcraft, including two new Starcraft-themed maps called Braxis Holdout and Warhead Junciton.
Braxis Holdout will have your team capturing beacons to fill your side's holding cells with Zerg. Once either holding cell is full, the zerg are unleashed to attack the other side, preferring hero targets.
Warhead Junction will have nukes spawn that you can pick up and launch at your opponents' fortifications, though if you die before you send it off, your enemies can take the nuke and use it against you.
Heroes is getting two new heroes, Alarak from Starcraft and Zarya from Overwatch.
Alarak is an Assassin. He's melee, but has lots of ranged abilities to pull his targets to him.
The thing that has me most excited about Alarak is that his first alternate skin is "Herald of N'zoth," turning him into a N'raqi from the Warcraft universe (basically their equivalent of Mindflayers/Ilithids, and more commonly referred to as Faceless Ones.)
Zarya is a ranged warrior, with lots of shielding abilities as well as the ability to trap enemies and bombard them with grenades.
There are also new skins for Rexxar ("Raider Rexxar," a sort of Terran armor look,) Kerrigan ("Queen of Ghosts," which gives her more of a Terran tech look,) and the Butcher ("Butcherlisk," making him look like an Ultralisk.) There's also a ghost-themed motorcycle.
Anyway, I've been saying for a long time that we needed some sci-fi themed Heroes maps, so I'm pretty happy about this upcoming event.
Monday, August 15, 2016
Anduin Wrynn and the Fate of the Alliance
I'm trying not to be too spoileriffic in the titles, but very soon the new status quo is just going to have to be common knowledge. I figure we can hold off on this stuff until launch day, but not much longer than that.
So there you go: spoiler alert.
So there you go: spoiler alert.
The Case for Windrunner '16
There's huge upheaval after the battle at the Broken Shore within both factions. The event has been out for a week now, and we've had a full weekend. At some point we're going to have to declare all this stuff no longer spoilers, but simply the state of the game. But in case you didn't get to play this past weekend or week, I'm going to give it one more spoiler cut just in case.
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