Warcraft Chronicle Volume One was a really interesting book for any lore aficionados. While many of its revelations have since made it in-game, the book really laid down some firm information about the primary setting of the Warcraft games. We learned, for example, the fate of the Titans, why Sargeras went evil, what the Old Gods want, and what it is that really makes Azeroth so special.
Volume One focused entirely on the world of Azeroth and its pre-First War history. The opening of the Dark Portal is really the moment that the Warcraft calendar is built around, and thus Chronicle Volume One is all about "BDP," starting with the absolute beginning of Azeroth's history - when it was a planet whose powerful Titan World Soul was drawing too much of the Spirit element from the surface, thus leaving the indigenous elementals to war with each other without given the lack of that harmony-building essence. We go from that state all the way to the state of things prior to the First War.
Volume Two seems to be less linear. It appears to tell the stories of the First and Second Wars (the Third I'd bet they're saving for Volume Three) but it also leaves Azeroth to start examining the history of Draenor. (I'm hoping we'll see some stuff about Argus as well, but I don't know that we will.)
Draenor is of course the clear second-most important planet in the Warcraft games, as it is home to the Orcs, whose actions really define a great deal of the games' recent history.
In the sample pages previewed by IGN, we actually learn some interesting facts about Draenor.
Spoilers to follow.
Sunday, February 19, 2017
Sunday, February 12, 2017
The Grimtotem Conundrum
One of the engines that a game and story like World of Warcraft can use to perpetuate its conflict (and given that it functions in a comic-book-like world of infinite continuity, that's what you want) is the judicious use of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" with the addendum: "for now."
The Alliance and Horde do this all the time. While there's some seriously bad blood (and we really might have to consider leaving the Forsaken out) the general moral of Warcraft is that if people (specifically the mortal races, though to be fair we are kind of excluding non-playable ones) could just get over themselves and their grievances, they could all get along. Hell, the Orcs and the Humans, who have the most conflict-per-years-they've-known-the-other-existed, are actually pretty much the equivalents of one another for their own worlds (this is a weird tangent, but I think technically Draenor's elves are the Arrakoa and their dwarves are the ogres. Moving on!)
But while that's a theme we've seen over and over, I'm thinking about it on a more individual level.
Some mild 7.2 spoilers here.
In 7.2 we're all getting new class hall champions (and I think we'll also be able to have one more active as well.) While a lot are pretty straightforward (Thisalee Crow, for example) one that was pretty surprising is Magatha Grimtotem.
Now, Magatha's one of those characters who has been around since Vanilla but her story hasn't really gone anywhere since Cataclysm. The Tauren are almost entirely good people - one of the most benevolent playable races. But Magatha represents the exception to that rule.
Magatha was always a rival to Cairne back in the day, and even though she was allowed to live in Thunder Bluff, many of her tribe were openly hostile to Horde and Alliance alike even then.
When Garrosh became Warchief, Cairne challenged him to Mak'gora - a duel to the death to challenge him for the position. I don't think Cairne expected to win, but he was resolved to make Garrosh earn the position and, hopefully, teach Garrosh to respect the power that was handed to him.
But Magatha, who had always sought to undermine Cairne as the leader of the Tauren, had Garrosh's weapons poisoned. This did two things: it ensured that Cairne died (even though it was only a superficial wound) and it also robbed Garrosh of legitimacy. People were already concerned about this brash, inexperienced and bullheaded new Warchief who had come into a leadership position with a seriously simplistic and outdated understanding of the very system he was now supposed to run, and now doubts were cast on his ability to even live up to his claims of personal skill and strength. The Mak'gora, though brutal, was meant to be fair. Not only did the poison suggest that the new Warchief was a murderer with no respect for the traditions he claimed to represent, but it also raised the question of whether he even would have won had the fight been fair.
This was a master plan, and even though Magatha's machinations were discovered, it still left Garrosh with the Horde in an uproar and with Cairne, her old nemesis, dead.
After Cataclysm came out, Magatha was understandably no longer in Thunder Bluff - and would presumably be killed on sight if she returned. But players encounter her in Thousand Needles, where she guides you in dismantling the Twilight Cult's operations there, but in doing so, also has you grant her an artifact of incredible power.
Magatha is a master manipulator and also a very powerful shaman. And she's going to be working for us!
Incidentally, my Shaman is a Tauren who has an all-consuming hatred for the Old Gods, the Twilight's Hammer, and very very much Magatha Grimtotem, so this will be interesting.
Given that we are fighting the Burning Legion, this is a time for strange bedfellows. Already Death Knights have allied with the Lich King (on one hand, Bolvar's a very different sort of Lich King than Arthas, but on the other hand, he is still absolutely the Lich King.)
Given that the Legion was founded to defeat the Old Gods and the Void Lords, it makes sense that, among the people aiding us in the fight against the Legion are members of Twilight's Hammer.
Members plural.
Magatha Grimtotem did help us defeat Twilight's Hammer in Thousand Needles, but she's also a member herself. It's implied that she wishes to take over the cult. And with Cho'gall and Benedictus dead, she's probably in a decent position to do just that.
Milhouse Manastorm is already a class champion, but remember that he was also affiliated with Twilight's Hammer, working for them in Deepholme. One gets the sense that Milhouse is less ideological and more just maniacal. He did fight against a minion of the (other, non-Azerothian) Old Gods in the Arcatraz, but there isn't really anything he's done to suggest that he isn't still very much in the "let's blow up the world" camp.
I don't know that there are any other class champions who are members of Twilight's Hammer, but then, we didn't know that Benedictus was for a long time.
Given the theories about the Old Gods manipulating the Legion into invading in order to get us to use the Pillars of Creation to unwittingly set them free, it would actually make a huge amount of sense that our class orders are being infiltrated by people in Twilight's Hammer.
In the face of the Legion, though, we have to take any help that we can get. But I think we should keep our eyes open. Once the Legion is defeated, we're going to have to watch our backs.
Because someone might be getting ready to stick a dagger in it.
The Alliance and Horde do this all the time. While there's some seriously bad blood (and we really might have to consider leaving the Forsaken out) the general moral of Warcraft is that if people (specifically the mortal races, though to be fair we are kind of excluding non-playable ones) could just get over themselves and their grievances, they could all get along. Hell, the Orcs and the Humans, who have the most conflict-per-years-they've-known-the-other-existed, are actually pretty much the equivalents of one another for their own worlds (this is a weird tangent, but I think technically Draenor's elves are the Arrakoa and their dwarves are the ogres. Moving on!)
But while that's a theme we've seen over and over, I'm thinking about it on a more individual level.
Some mild 7.2 spoilers here.
In 7.2 we're all getting new class hall champions (and I think we'll also be able to have one more active as well.) While a lot are pretty straightforward (Thisalee Crow, for example) one that was pretty surprising is Magatha Grimtotem.
Now, Magatha's one of those characters who has been around since Vanilla but her story hasn't really gone anywhere since Cataclysm. The Tauren are almost entirely good people - one of the most benevolent playable races. But Magatha represents the exception to that rule.
Magatha was always a rival to Cairne back in the day, and even though she was allowed to live in Thunder Bluff, many of her tribe were openly hostile to Horde and Alliance alike even then.
When Garrosh became Warchief, Cairne challenged him to Mak'gora - a duel to the death to challenge him for the position. I don't think Cairne expected to win, but he was resolved to make Garrosh earn the position and, hopefully, teach Garrosh to respect the power that was handed to him.
But Magatha, who had always sought to undermine Cairne as the leader of the Tauren, had Garrosh's weapons poisoned. This did two things: it ensured that Cairne died (even though it was only a superficial wound) and it also robbed Garrosh of legitimacy. People were already concerned about this brash, inexperienced and bullheaded new Warchief who had come into a leadership position with a seriously simplistic and outdated understanding of the very system he was now supposed to run, and now doubts were cast on his ability to even live up to his claims of personal skill and strength. The Mak'gora, though brutal, was meant to be fair. Not only did the poison suggest that the new Warchief was a murderer with no respect for the traditions he claimed to represent, but it also raised the question of whether he even would have won had the fight been fair.
This was a master plan, and even though Magatha's machinations were discovered, it still left Garrosh with the Horde in an uproar and with Cairne, her old nemesis, dead.
After Cataclysm came out, Magatha was understandably no longer in Thunder Bluff - and would presumably be killed on sight if she returned. But players encounter her in Thousand Needles, where she guides you in dismantling the Twilight Cult's operations there, but in doing so, also has you grant her an artifact of incredible power.
Magatha is a master manipulator and also a very powerful shaman. And she's going to be working for us!
Incidentally, my Shaman is a Tauren who has an all-consuming hatred for the Old Gods, the Twilight's Hammer, and very very much Magatha Grimtotem, so this will be interesting.
Given that we are fighting the Burning Legion, this is a time for strange bedfellows. Already Death Knights have allied with the Lich King (on one hand, Bolvar's a very different sort of Lich King than Arthas, but on the other hand, he is still absolutely the Lich King.)
Given that the Legion was founded to defeat the Old Gods and the Void Lords, it makes sense that, among the people aiding us in the fight against the Legion are members of Twilight's Hammer.
Members plural.
Magatha Grimtotem did help us defeat Twilight's Hammer in Thousand Needles, but she's also a member herself. It's implied that she wishes to take over the cult. And with Cho'gall and Benedictus dead, she's probably in a decent position to do just that.
Milhouse Manastorm is already a class champion, but remember that he was also affiliated with Twilight's Hammer, working for them in Deepholme. One gets the sense that Milhouse is less ideological and more just maniacal. He did fight against a minion of the (other, non-Azerothian) Old Gods in the Arcatraz, but there isn't really anything he's done to suggest that he isn't still very much in the "let's blow up the world" camp.
I don't know that there are any other class champions who are members of Twilight's Hammer, but then, we didn't know that Benedictus was for a long time.
Given the theories about the Old Gods manipulating the Legion into invading in order to get us to use the Pillars of Creation to unwittingly set them free, it would actually make a huge amount of sense that our class orders are being infiltrated by people in Twilight's Hammer.
In the face of the Legion, though, we have to take any help that we can get. But I think we should keep our eyes open. Once the Legion is defeated, we're going to have to watch our backs.
Because someone might be getting ready to stick a dagger in it.
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
Royal Atheneum, Nighthold LFR Wing 2 Opens
I've now run the second wing of Nighthold in LFR, or at least part of it. Unfortunately I got in having read up on the wrong fights - of the three I read up on, the two that were still up when I got there were both ones I did not realize I'd be facing. So let's make this clear:
Royal Atheneum is Spellblade Auriel, Star Augur Etraeus, and High Botanist Tel'arn.
I'm not going to go into my usual guide mode, as I'm still kind of processing the fights (when I run it on other characters, I'll try to get that out there.)
This has the players emerge out from the sewers and take the fight to Elisande's main forces. I suspect that Etraeus and possibly Tel'arn are both optional fights when you do this on Normal or above. Notably, Star Augur Etraeus has the tier 19 gloves (something I got the LFR version of, which are 860 item level.)
While certainly not as mind-bending visually than the Emerald Nightmare, Nighthold really seems to be a continuation of the Suramar aesthetic, something that I think they've really pulled off well this expansion. In fact, when the raid was announced, I was pretty disappointed that the Emerald Nightmare wasn't even going to be the headliner of its own raid tier, but while I still think they could have done that (I'm glad there will be three raid tiers after Warlords' disappointing two, but I honestly think they could have held Emerald Nightmare back as tier 20 and then done Tomb of Sargeras as 21 and Argus as 22, matching Wrath with four raid tiers) I'm actually finding myself way more invested in the Nightfallen/Suramar storyline than I expected myself to be.
We're also in a pretty interesting position gear-wise, given that Nighthold LFR is now giving gear that's on par (or even exceeding, I think) Return to Karazhan gear and Emerald Nightmare Normal. I still haven't gotten very far in RtK (I think we may have gotten Attumen down once...?) but I'm hoping we can get a little farther before the far easier, queueable heroic modes come out.
I have to wonder what the plan is for mythic dungeons. Yes, I realize mythic plus allows them to scale sort of indefinitely, but I'd rather that mythic plus worked more like standard difficulties - without time limits so that if someone has to go to the bathroom or something they aren't penalizing the team. The point is that at this point, with LFR giving gear that's 15-20 item levels higher than mythic dungeons, dungeons are in danger of falling back into Mists/Warlords-era irrelevance.
Royal Atheneum is Spellblade Auriel, Star Augur Etraeus, and High Botanist Tel'arn.
I'm not going to go into my usual guide mode, as I'm still kind of processing the fights (when I run it on other characters, I'll try to get that out there.)
This has the players emerge out from the sewers and take the fight to Elisande's main forces. I suspect that Etraeus and possibly Tel'arn are both optional fights when you do this on Normal or above. Notably, Star Augur Etraeus has the tier 19 gloves (something I got the LFR version of, which are 860 item level.)
While certainly not as mind-bending visually than the Emerald Nightmare, Nighthold really seems to be a continuation of the Suramar aesthetic, something that I think they've really pulled off well this expansion. In fact, when the raid was announced, I was pretty disappointed that the Emerald Nightmare wasn't even going to be the headliner of its own raid tier, but while I still think they could have done that (I'm glad there will be three raid tiers after Warlords' disappointing two, but I honestly think they could have held Emerald Nightmare back as tier 20 and then done Tomb of Sargeras as 21 and Argus as 22, matching Wrath with four raid tiers) I'm actually finding myself way more invested in the Nightfallen/Suramar storyline than I expected myself to be.
We're also in a pretty interesting position gear-wise, given that Nighthold LFR is now giving gear that's on par (or even exceeding, I think) Return to Karazhan gear and Emerald Nightmare Normal. I still haven't gotten very far in RtK (I think we may have gotten Attumen down once...?) but I'm hoping we can get a little farther before the far easier, queueable heroic modes come out.
I have to wonder what the plan is for mythic dungeons. Yes, I realize mythic plus allows them to scale sort of indefinitely, but I'd rather that mythic plus worked more like standard difficulties - without time limits so that if someone has to go to the bathroom or something they aren't penalizing the team. The point is that at this point, with LFR giving gear that's 15-20 item levels higher than mythic dungeons, dungeons are in danger of falling back into Mists/Warlords-era irrelevance.
Monday, February 6, 2017
The Fractious Legion
The Burning Legion is terrifying.
Let's break it down. First and foremost, we have beings of chaos who are tied to the Twisting Nether. The Nether is a realm of unending disparity, a borderland between the Light and the Void, with limitless potential that tears itself apart. It might be shocking to realize that the source of Fel magic contains both Void (which we all think of as pretty pure evil) and Light (which we think of as pure good) but I think that the nature of Fel magic and demons is not one that is necessarily consciously evil - it's consciously destructive. Allowing things to remain Void would not sate the Fel's desire for rapid, unpredictable change.
Which means that demons, in the Warcraft universe, are more than anything interested in tearing things down, and never being satisfied with what has been built up in its place.
Keep that in mind.
Demons don't really exist within our universe. Even when we fight them, even when they kill our people, it isn't really "them" there. They have bodies, but their demonic souls are at the very most temporarily housed in those bodies, and it's more likely the souls never leave the Twisting Nether at all, their demonic bodies are controlled remotely. This is why you can kill a demon over and over again at they will keep coming.
Demons are mostly, or possibly all, corrupted versions of races that once were humanoids, beasts, or possibly elementals. We've seen Eredar and Night Elves who have become demons (Man'ari Eredar and Satyrs, respectively,) and we've seen other races approach total demonic corruption, such as Orcs and Blood Elves.
In the Paladin class hall campaign, players encounter and wind up recruiting Lothraxion, an officer of the Army of the Light who appears to be a holy Nathrezim (aka Dreadlord.) Lothraxion has the cloven hooves and wings of the Nathrezim, but he does not have horns and he radiates a pure holy light.
We know next to nothing about Lothraxion. Some have speculated that he was once a demon but has now been redeemed. I have a different take: The Army of the Light is said to be formed by the survivors of worlds that the Legion conquered or destroyed, who have banded together to fight back. Given that the Legion appears to recruit from its conquered worlds, I suspect that if we were to encounter the main force of the Army of the Light, we would actually find many familiar races - races that we would normally consider demonic. For all we know, the good guys on Argus are composed of Eredruin, Mo'arg, Shivarra, Anihilans, and other creatures who would appear demonic at first, but turn out to be anything but - much as the Draenei first appeared to those who first encountered them on Azeroth.
In fact, the very founder of the Burning Legion was once a different sort of entity. Sargeras was a Titan - a being of Order. The Titans had spent eons fighting the demons before the Legion was created, and it never seemed to be that much of a challenge for them. It took the corruption of Sargeras in order to bring the demons together enough to vanquish the other Titans, and in fact, Sargeras was so unimpressed even in victory that he sought out the Eredar to serve as officers for his demonic army.
Sargeras' stated purpose for the Legion is to purge the universe of anything that could be corrupted by the Void. While it seems pretty hypocritical to fight void corruption with fel corruption, in his eyes, the goal is not to leave behind a corrupted universe but rather to leave behind no universe at all. He wants everything to burn so that the Void Lords have nothing but ashes to corrupt. It's the kind of grand, uncompromising vision that you'd expect a Titan to have, but there are a couple problems with it:
First is that even Sargeras seems to be straying from this vision. In the lore for the Scepter of Sargeras, you find that the eye motif in the center is actually meant to be the Eye of Azeroth. Sargeras had a vision in which the Titan World Soul of Azeroth looked back at him, and his desire seems to be not to destroy Azeroth, but to recruit her to his side (there might even be a romance angle, but these are planet-sized gods, so I wouldn't get hung up on that.) I don't know what he expects Azeroth to do once birthed, but I doubt he has good intentions.
But let's say that Sargeras is removed from the picture - in fact, I think that at least temporarily (but seriously) defeating him has to happen at the end of this expansion. That leaves Archimonde (assuming his defeat in Tanaan Jungle wasn't a permanent one - Mythic raiders beat him in the Twisting Nether, but he corpse falls in the Jungle, so I'm not counting him out) and Kil'Jaeden (likewise him in Tomb of Sargeras, but we don't have the details on that yet) left in charge of the Legion.
Do these two want total destruction? The Eredar were offered infinite knowledge to join the Legion, and while in a way the promise was "once everything's destroyed, there will be nothing left to know" I would guess that these two are pretty happy with their positions of power and would probably be ok with setting up a universe-spanning empire.
Another thing to bear in mind is that the Nathrezim - who were the ones that led Sargeras to the Old Gods and thus proved the unfathomable evil that existed within the universe that made him snap - were in service to the Void at first. While their leader, Ulthalesh, is gone (like a lot of lore figures, he's stuck in an artifact weapon, in this case the Affliction Warlock one,) who's to say that they would remain loyal to the Legion after the death of Sargeras.
Bear in mind that the main reason the demons serve Sargeras is because he knows how to permanently kill them.
We even start to hear some rumblings from Caria Felsoul in the Demon Hunter class campaign that they're already looking at other potential alliances and alignments as paths to power.
And let's return to the core nature of demons - they are beings of chaos. They tear things down.
And over the last several thousand years, what is the most powerful institution in the universe?
The Burning Legion.
If we take out the Dark Titan, I suspect we're going to see the biggest cosmological upheaval in 25,000 years. The Legion is not going to quietly fade away in the absence of its master. It's going to go supernova.
Let's break it down. First and foremost, we have beings of chaos who are tied to the Twisting Nether. The Nether is a realm of unending disparity, a borderland between the Light and the Void, with limitless potential that tears itself apart. It might be shocking to realize that the source of Fel magic contains both Void (which we all think of as pretty pure evil) and Light (which we think of as pure good) but I think that the nature of Fel magic and demons is not one that is necessarily consciously evil - it's consciously destructive. Allowing things to remain Void would not sate the Fel's desire for rapid, unpredictable change.
Which means that demons, in the Warcraft universe, are more than anything interested in tearing things down, and never being satisfied with what has been built up in its place.
Keep that in mind.
Demons don't really exist within our universe. Even when we fight them, even when they kill our people, it isn't really "them" there. They have bodies, but their demonic souls are at the very most temporarily housed in those bodies, and it's more likely the souls never leave the Twisting Nether at all, their demonic bodies are controlled remotely. This is why you can kill a demon over and over again at they will keep coming.
Demons are mostly, or possibly all, corrupted versions of races that once were humanoids, beasts, or possibly elementals. We've seen Eredar and Night Elves who have become demons (Man'ari Eredar and Satyrs, respectively,) and we've seen other races approach total demonic corruption, such as Orcs and Blood Elves.
In the Paladin class hall campaign, players encounter and wind up recruiting Lothraxion, an officer of the Army of the Light who appears to be a holy Nathrezim (aka Dreadlord.) Lothraxion has the cloven hooves and wings of the Nathrezim, but he does not have horns and he radiates a pure holy light.
We know next to nothing about Lothraxion. Some have speculated that he was once a demon but has now been redeemed. I have a different take: The Army of the Light is said to be formed by the survivors of worlds that the Legion conquered or destroyed, who have banded together to fight back. Given that the Legion appears to recruit from its conquered worlds, I suspect that if we were to encounter the main force of the Army of the Light, we would actually find many familiar races - races that we would normally consider demonic. For all we know, the good guys on Argus are composed of Eredruin, Mo'arg, Shivarra, Anihilans, and other creatures who would appear demonic at first, but turn out to be anything but - much as the Draenei first appeared to those who first encountered them on Azeroth.
In fact, the very founder of the Burning Legion was once a different sort of entity. Sargeras was a Titan - a being of Order. The Titans had spent eons fighting the demons before the Legion was created, and it never seemed to be that much of a challenge for them. It took the corruption of Sargeras in order to bring the demons together enough to vanquish the other Titans, and in fact, Sargeras was so unimpressed even in victory that he sought out the Eredar to serve as officers for his demonic army.
Sargeras' stated purpose for the Legion is to purge the universe of anything that could be corrupted by the Void. While it seems pretty hypocritical to fight void corruption with fel corruption, in his eyes, the goal is not to leave behind a corrupted universe but rather to leave behind no universe at all. He wants everything to burn so that the Void Lords have nothing but ashes to corrupt. It's the kind of grand, uncompromising vision that you'd expect a Titan to have, but there are a couple problems with it:
First is that even Sargeras seems to be straying from this vision. In the lore for the Scepter of Sargeras, you find that the eye motif in the center is actually meant to be the Eye of Azeroth. Sargeras had a vision in which the Titan World Soul of Azeroth looked back at him, and his desire seems to be not to destroy Azeroth, but to recruit her to his side (there might even be a romance angle, but these are planet-sized gods, so I wouldn't get hung up on that.) I don't know what he expects Azeroth to do once birthed, but I doubt he has good intentions.
But let's say that Sargeras is removed from the picture - in fact, I think that at least temporarily (but seriously) defeating him has to happen at the end of this expansion. That leaves Archimonde (assuming his defeat in Tanaan Jungle wasn't a permanent one - Mythic raiders beat him in the Twisting Nether, but he corpse falls in the Jungle, so I'm not counting him out) and Kil'Jaeden (likewise him in Tomb of Sargeras, but we don't have the details on that yet) left in charge of the Legion.
Do these two want total destruction? The Eredar were offered infinite knowledge to join the Legion, and while in a way the promise was "once everything's destroyed, there will be nothing left to know" I would guess that these two are pretty happy with their positions of power and would probably be ok with setting up a universe-spanning empire.
Another thing to bear in mind is that the Nathrezim - who were the ones that led Sargeras to the Old Gods and thus proved the unfathomable evil that existed within the universe that made him snap - were in service to the Void at first. While their leader, Ulthalesh, is gone (like a lot of lore figures, he's stuck in an artifact weapon, in this case the Affliction Warlock one,) who's to say that they would remain loyal to the Legion after the death of Sargeras.
Bear in mind that the main reason the demons serve Sargeras is because he knows how to permanently kill them.
We even start to hear some rumblings from Caria Felsoul in the Demon Hunter class campaign that they're already looking at other potential alliances and alignments as paths to power.
And let's return to the core nature of demons - they are beings of chaos. They tear things down.
And over the last several thousand years, what is the most powerful institution in the universe?
The Burning Legion.
If we take out the Dark Titan, I suspect we're going to see the biggest cosmological upheaval in 25,000 years. The Legion is not going to quietly fade away in the absence of its master. It's going to go supernova.
Saturday, February 4, 2017
Orphan of Kos One-Shot
If you'll forgive a bit of bragging:
The Orphan of Kos is probably the hardest video game boss I've ever fought (though to be fair, it was Dark Souls' Ornstein and Smough who prevented me from progressing further in that game.) The massive health pool, devastating and hard to dodge attacks, and relentless pace of the fight all combine to make this a huge challenge.
On my first character, it took me at least twenty, maybe thirty attempts to take him down.
On my Arcane character (who is technically my third but has overtaken the Skill one by one boss) I took him down on my first attempt.
Now to be fair, I've probably leveled up more on this character, though I don't think my a huge amount (the Strength character was at like 45 strength while the Arcane one was at 50 arcane, though I'll also note that I have some underwhelming fire gems.)
Still, while the fight left me with zero Blood Vials, I managed to vanquish this foe in a single attempt.
This actually makes me question a bit whether my initial assessment of Orphan of Kos as the hardest boss in the game (or potentially gaming) was accurate. On the same character, Laurence, the First Vicar, took me several attempts (like the Orphan, I beat him with zero blood vials left.)
Anyway, difficulty aside, at some point I want to lay out my theories about the Orphan of Kos, Maria, and the reason the Hunter's Nightmare exists. I haven't totally nailed down what I believe, but I suspect that the death of Kos is a kind of "original sin" of the Hunters, and that perhaps the entire Curse of the Beast may be the retribution of those in the Fishing Hamlet.
So this also leaves me at a kind of "clean-up" stage with my Arcane character. I think I'm going to wind up doing the three cords ending again, as I want to see how well the Burial Blade works for Arcane. Still need to get the Rakuyo, a couple of the Hunter's Tools, and I think the Gravewarden set in the Forbidden Woods (which I imagine I'll be able to tear through.)
I really want to like the Kos Parasite weapon, given that I'm on an Arcane character, but perhaps given its lack of appropriate gems (it's a default Arcane weapon, meaning elemental gems of other types can't fit it) I'm finding it sadly weak.
The Orphan of Kos is probably the hardest video game boss I've ever fought (though to be fair, it was Dark Souls' Ornstein and Smough who prevented me from progressing further in that game.) The massive health pool, devastating and hard to dodge attacks, and relentless pace of the fight all combine to make this a huge challenge.
On my first character, it took me at least twenty, maybe thirty attempts to take him down.
On my Arcane character (who is technically my third but has overtaken the Skill one by one boss) I took him down on my first attempt.
Now to be fair, I've probably leveled up more on this character, though I don't think my a huge amount (the Strength character was at like 45 strength while the Arcane one was at 50 arcane, though I'll also note that I have some underwhelming fire gems.)
Still, while the fight left me with zero Blood Vials, I managed to vanquish this foe in a single attempt.
This actually makes me question a bit whether my initial assessment of Orphan of Kos as the hardest boss in the game (or potentially gaming) was accurate. On the same character, Laurence, the First Vicar, took me several attempts (like the Orphan, I beat him with zero blood vials left.)
Anyway, difficulty aside, at some point I want to lay out my theories about the Orphan of Kos, Maria, and the reason the Hunter's Nightmare exists. I haven't totally nailed down what I believe, but I suspect that the death of Kos is a kind of "original sin" of the Hunters, and that perhaps the entire Curse of the Beast may be the retribution of those in the Fishing Hamlet.
So this also leaves me at a kind of "clean-up" stage with my Arcane character. I think I'm going to wind up doing the three cords ending again, as I want to see how well the Burial Blade works for Arcane. Still need to get the Rakuyo, a couple of the Hunter's Tools, and I think the Gravewarden set in the Forbidden Woods (which I imagine I'll be able to tear through.)
I really want to like the Kos Parasite weapon, given that I'm on an Arcane character, but perhaps given its lack of appropriate gems (it's a default Arcane weapon, meaning elemental gems of other types can't fit it) I'm finding it sadly weak.
Sunday, January 29, 2017
The Fate of Illidan Stormrage and the Final Boss of Legion
Well, now that Nighthold is out, I think we start talking about the spoilers for the end. If you didn't see it, a video of the cinematic that runs after beating Gul'dan was actually unearthed well before the release of the raid. Now that it's out, I think we can talk about it with only minimal spoiler warnings.
So spoiler alert.
So spoiler alert.
Saturday, January 28, 2017
Arcane in Bloodborne
Replaying Bloodborne on two new characters, I'm really struck by how great this game is. While not perfect (I hate having to slaughter all of Hemwick whenever I run low on Blood Vials or Quicksilver Bullets. Oh, and I hate that there's no freaking pause button - there's a reason that's a feature in pretty much every game) the game has an amazing sense of tone, ridiculously good level design, and combat that flows in a fantastic way.
I've been playing two characters (the original is chilling out in the Hunter's Dream at the start of his New Game Plus.) The first is a Skill-based character who uses the Blade of Mercy, whose transformed version is a whole lot of fun (and made Micolash way easier than it was my first time around, as I was able to close distance and stun-lock him on the last phase.)
While Skill weapons tend to be much faster and better for multi-attacks, the playstyle is not terribly different from a Strength character.
Arcane, on the other hand, is a very different beast. And one that is equal parts cool and frustrating.
I think every trick weapon has some kind of Arcane scaling, but this doesn't work the way you'd expect it to. Actually, it does on a couple of weapons - those that have inherent magic damage like the Blade of Mercy (which gets a little Arcane damage,) Logarius' Wheel, and Tonitrus, or of course the Flamesprayer or Rosmarinus.
For your standard issue trick weapons like the Saw Cleaver, the scaling only means anything if you have an elemental gem that turns the weapon's damage into magic damage rather than the standard physical/thrust/blunt.
What this means is that, unless you have a gem that adds some physical damage back into the mix, the weapon doesn't really scale with Strength or Skill anymore, and purely goes off Arcane. Which is great if you've got an Arcane character.
The trick is that until you have elemental gems, your main stat isn't going to be doing much.
Thankfully, you can start to get Fire gems relatively early, and until then you can rely on your base stats to get enough damage to make it through the first few bosses. Also, items like the Molotov Cocktail scale with Arcane, so if you make use of those you can get something out of your stat.
The current problem I'm running into is that I have all of one Bolt gem, and I don't know where to get more. Theoretically they can drop off the sideways-mouth werewolves in the Nightmare Frontier, but I've only gotten Crescent gems - a slot I filled a while ago. While I have a complement of Fire gems, it would be nice to get some Bolt options to use now that I'm on a pretty Kin-heavy part of the game (I've defeated every main boss you can do before Rom, except those in the DLC.)
Of course, Arcane also gets fun toys. While I used Augur of Ebrietas on my Strength character, he just had barely enough to use it. Given that it automatically has S-Scaling with Arcane, you can do some really nasty damage with it. Of course, the Hunter Tools tend to take bullets, so you don't get to use them all the time, but they do change up the gameplay in fun ways.
(PS: The fun you can have with the Hunter Tools can make some bosses significantly easier. Using the Tiny Tonitrus, which sends a wave of lightning forward, doing strong bolt damage to everything it hits, I was able to utterly trivialize the Celestial Emissary fight (the smaller kin running toward me all got one-shot by the tool while it took about a fifth of the health of the boss with each strike) and going in against Ebrietas with a bolt (and anti-kin)-empowered Ludwig's Holy Blade and Tiny Tonitrus and I was able to one-shot her as well with relative ease. Obviously, you need enemies that have a vulnerability, and I don't think there's a terribly good Fire Hunter Tool available.)
I've been playing two characters (the original is chilling out in the Hunter's Dream at the start of his New Game Plus.) The first is a Skill-based character who uses the Blade of Mercy, whose transformed version is a whole lot of fun (and made Micolash way easier than it was my first time around, as I was able to close distance and stun-lock him on the last phase.)
While Skill weapons tend to be much faster and better for multi-attacks, the playstyle is not terribly different from a Strength character.
Arcane, on the other hand, is a very different beast. And one that is equal parts cool and frustrating.
I think every trick weapon has some kind of Arcane scaling, but this doesn't work the way you'd expect it to. Actually, it does on a couple of weapons - those that have inherent magic damage like the Blade of Mercy (which gets a little Arcane damage,) Logarius' Wheel, and Tonitrus, or of course the Flamesprayer or Rosmarinus.
For your standard issue trick weapons like the Saw Cleaver, the scaling only means anything if you have an elemental gem that turns the weapon's damage into magic damage rather than the standard physical/thrust/blunt.
What this means is that, unless you have a gem that adds some physical damage back into the mix, the weapon doesn't really scale with Strength or Skill anymore, and purely goes off Arcane. Which is great if you've got an Arcane character.
The trick is that until you have elemental gems, your main stat isn't going to be doing much.
Thankfully, you can start to get Fire gems relatively early, and until then you can rely on your base stats to get enough damage to make it through the first few bosses. Also, items like the Molotov Cocktail scale with Arcane, so if you make use of those you can get something out of your stat.
The current problem I'm running into is that I have all of one Bolt gem, and I don't know where to get more. Theoretically they can drop off the sideways-mouth werewolves in the Nightmare Frontier, but I've only gotten Crescent gems - a slot I filled a while ago. While I have a complement of Fire gems, it would be nice to get some Bolt options to use now that I'm on a pretty Kin-heavy part of the game (I've defeated every main boss you can do before Rom, except those in the DLC.)
Of course, Arcane also gets fun toys. While I used Augur of Ebrietas on my Strength character, he just had barely enough to use it. Given that it automatically has S-Scaling with Arcane, you can do some really nasty damage with it. Of course, the Hunter Tools tend to take bullets, so you don't get to use them all the time, but they do change up the gameplay in fun ways.
(PS: The fun you can have with the Hunter Tools can make some bosses significantly easier. Using the Tiny Tonitrus, which sends a wave of lightning forward, doing strong bolt damage to everything it hits, I was able to utterly trivialize the Celestial Emissary fight (the smaller kin running toward me all got one-shot by the tool while it took about a fifth of the health of the boss with each strike) and going in against Ebrietas with a bolt (and anti-kin)-empowered Ludwig's Holy Blade and Tiny Tonitrus and I was able to one-shot her as well with relative ease. Obviously, you need enemies that have a vulnerability, and I don't think there's a terribly good Fire Hunter Tool available.)
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