3.3 Achievement Summary

As promised, here is my achievement summary as it pertains to 3.3. Remember, for a summary on kitty kats, check 3.3 Kitty Summary for current and all future updates. Up next on my blogging adventures will be a summary of all of Blizzard’s paid services, there are so many it’s starting to get confusing so I’m going to summarize it all for you (and for my own personal reference).

Glory to the Ulduar Raider

Quote by Blizzard (Source)
The same post we made on this a couple months back still applies to the situation. http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=18704852935&sid=1

“Currently we have no plans to remove them in the foreseeable future. However, we will continue to evaluate the situation and if a decision is made to remove these rewards at any point in the future, we’ll provide a one month warning so players will have time to make some final attempts. ”

Well I guess this is a good news and bad news story as I’m somewhat mixed on this. I’ve a big fan of the proto drake system and rewarding of players who push themselves to complete content in unique ways and not just to get purple items. The rewards may only be aesthetic but you also improve your gameplay by doing encounters in different ways which inevitably help you and your guild in the long run as you encounter new content.

Now, personally I have obtained my Rusted Proto-Drake but I Am still working on the Ironbound Proto-Drake. Why? Well quite frankly there’s no rush, with Blizzard making this sort of announcement we’re more focused on working on Anub in TOGC 25. I’m sure once Blizzard gives the 1 month announcement we will rush back to Ulduar to finish it off but at this time there really is no desire to go do that right now.

My beef with the whole thing is, should these protos have been already removed by now? I understand Blizzard is trying to make content and rewards accessible by all but the problem here is you have folks going back into Ulduar with 3.2 gear to steamroll 3.1 content which is significantly easier than if you were to do this with Ulduar only gear. I would qualify as one of these people going back to do somewhat trivialized content and that kind negates the accomplishments of those who did it with much less gear when it was a lot more challenging.

Glory to the Icecrown Raider

• Glory of the Icecrown Raider (10 player) – Complete the 10-player raid achievements listed below.
• Glory of the Icecrown Raider (25 player) – Complete the 25-player raid achievements listed below.

As you can see (if you click the links) they show the Ulduar achievements as a placeholder, but this confirms that there will once again be new drakes to obtain come 3.3.

New Titles/Achievements

A bunch of new titles and Realm First! feat of strengths, it looks like they’re not finalized completely finalized yet but this is what is available so far.

• Bane of the Fallen King – Defeat the Lich King in Icecrown Citadel in 10-player heroic mode. Title Reward: Bane of the Fallen King
• The Light of Dawn – Defeat the Lich King in Icecrown Citadel in 25-player heroic mode. Title: the Light of Dawn
• The Frozen Throne (25 player) – Defeat the Lich King in Icecrown Citadel in 25-player mode. Title: The Kingslayer
• %s the Frost Ender – Reward of The Frost Ender (10-Man)
• The Ashen Verdict – Earn exalted status with the Ashen Verdict. Title Reward: Of the Ashen Verdict

And of course the best new achievement/feat of strength coming in 3.3

Feat of Strength

It’s Over Nine Thousand! Earn more than 9000 achievement points.

Kalu’ak Fishing Derby

Quote from: Slorkuz (Source)

Coming in patch 3.3.0, the esteemed tuskarr of the Kalu’ak are proud to introduce to Northrend the Kalu’ak Fishing Derby, a test of fishing skill with a healthy dash of luck! Every Wednesday beginning at 8 PM players can try to catch the elusive Blacktip Shark. Elder Clearwater sits in Dalaran for one hour awaiting the return of the quickest, most experienced fisher to bring him the first catch of the night. This champion fisher will be rewarded in-kind for his or her fishing expertise. Those who aren’t able to return with the first catch will still receive just reward for getting the Blacktip Shark to Elder Clearwater before he takes his leave.

It is said that these sharks’ favorite meal are the bite-sized Pygmy Suckerfish. Perhaps a hook in their waters will do the trick. Because of the increased concentration of fish, you have an increased chance to catch a shark from fishing pools. Don’t forget, in patch 3.3.0 you never catch trash from fishing pools, regardless of skill.

The derby winner will receive a substantial chunk of experience (or money at maximum level) and gain 5000 reputation with the Kalu’ak. In addition, the champion will be given a choice between two unique rewards:

Dread Pirate Ring
Binds on Account
Unique-Equipped
Finger
+34 Stamina
Requires level 1 to 80 (80)
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 53.
Equip: Improves hit rating by 29.
Equip: Experience gained from killing monsters and completing quests increased by 5%.

Boots of the Bay
Binds When Picked Up
Feet
Requires Fishing (200)
Equip: Increased Fishing +15.
Use: Whisks you away to the finest drinking establishment in Booty Bay. (1 Day Cooldown)

To keep it interesting, the Achievement “Master Angler of Stranglethorn” has been changed to “Master Angler of Azeroth.” This can be earned by winning either the Kalu’ak Fishing Derby or the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza.

Please bear in mind this feature will be undergoing testing on our Public Test Realms and is subject to change prior to the release of patch 3.3.0

Ok so what is up with having this at 8pm on Wednesday? A lot of people participate in raiding and 8pm on a Wednesday is clearly a prime time to do so. Why would Blizzard schedule this at a time that makes it impossible for raiders to go after this? Would make a lot more sense if it was set at say.. 6pm on a weekday? or perhaps on Saturday at 2 so that fishing is done during the day during the weekends? Both rewards are fantastic though, the Boots of the Bay will fit nicely with my Argent Cursader’s Tabard, Blessed Medallion of Karabor and Teleport: Moonglade completing my portal set to access Northrend, Outland, Kalimdor AND Eastern Kingdoms

Cross Server LFG Achievements (Updated 11/5/09)

• Looking for More – Use the Dungeon tool to finish random heroic dungeons until you have grouped with 10 random players total.
• Looking for Many – Use the Dungeon tool to finish random heroic dungeons until you have grouped with 50 random players total. Title Reward – the Patient.
• Looking for Multitudes – Use the Dungeon tool to finish random heroic dungeons until you have grouped with 100 random players total.

Not only do you get a title for doing random heroics, you also get a new pet by the name of Perky the Pug. Not sure which achievement the pet will be tied to but considering that the title is tied to 50 random dungeons, I would assume that the pet would be tied to 100 random dungeons. I won’t lie, the thought of having to do random heroics with people I don’t know is scary.

3.3 Kitty Summary – Update #1

A lot of new information has been posted in the past week which warrants a new post to collect and summarize. This specific post will only contain the new kitty  information since my last post but I am compiling all new and old information in my original post 3.3 Kitty Summary. So depending on how you prefer to read information, you can either look out for new posts for a quick update or you can simply check the summary post from time to time for a complete up to date view on what’s coming down the pipe.

In addition, I’ve decided to compile an achievement summary as well. I’m a huge fan of achievements and there are a lot of new things coming up in 3.3 which I think can warrant a completely separate post so stay tuned for that shortly.

Tier 10 Token System

Quote From: Blizzard (Source)
With t10 we’re going to see a hybrid. The tier 10 items (the ones with item levels you’d find in the 10-player raid) will be purchased with Emblems of Frost.

The tier 10.5 items (the ones with item levels you’d find in the 25-player raid) will be obtained by getting a token (one that is specific to 3 or 4 classes, much like the ulduar tokens) and using it to upgrade the tier 10 item that was purchased with emblems of frost.

This is the perfect solution to the current issues with T9 from TOC. Currently there is not upgrade system from ilv 232 -> ilv 245 -> ilv258. To obtain each level of T9 gear you need to start from scratch which quite frankly is a pain in the ass. It also discourages people from obtaining the ilv 232 set if you know that the ilv 245 set is available in time. Factor in that most people did not drop their T8 until they had 2pc or 4pc then you have a lot of badges sitting around waiting for the optimal time to switch. Now in 3.3 by having an upgade system this will encourage people to get 232 quickly and upgrade along the way.

Normal vs Hard Mode Triggers

Quote From: Blizzard (Source)
ICC’s hard modes will be triggered, but via in-game UI (much like how you toggle between normal and heroic modes today) rather than triggered by game mechanics (like not killing the three drakes before you attack Sartharion).

We seem to be moving back towards an pre 3.2 style of hard mode which I think is for the best. Having to do 4 raids a week just to get through easy and hard mode while fast (no trash yay) is still time consuming and who wants to see the same 5 bosses 4 times a week? Considering that Icecrown is going to be significantly larger than TOC, this is clearly a necessity to ensure people don’t get bogged down by trying to run Icecrown 4 times a week. Perhaps a sign of difficult content to come?

3.3 Leather DPS Crafted Items (iLv 264)

• Footpads of Impending Death
• Bladeborn Leggings

It’s definitely still too early to say “wow” or “bah” as we don’t know what the tier gear looks like. Once that starts appearing we’ll be able to tell whether it’s worthwhile to obtain these items. I’m assuming the cost to make will be very expensive as usual. Whats interesting though is that 3.2 dps gear in the leggings/feet slots generally had +hit (See Leggings of the Broken Beast, Icewalker Treads), so if we are moving away from having +hit in these slots, where is that stat going to be coming from in 3.3?

Icecrown Weapon Procs

• Item – Icecrown 25 Normal Slow Melee Weapon Proc – Your weapon swings have a chance to grant you Necrotic Touch for 10 sec, causing all your melee weapon attacks to deal an additional 9% damage as shadow damage.
• Item – Icecrown 25 Heroic Slow Melee Weapon Proc – Your weapon swings have a chance to grant you Necrotic Touch for 10 sec, causing all your melee weapon attacks to deal an additional 10% damage as shadow damage.

Not really sure what this is all about, my assumption is that it will be something related to a specific mechanic in a fight.

New Icecrown Trinkets Procs

• Item – Icecrown 10 Heroic Melee Trinket – When you deal damage you have a chance to gain 1250 attack power for 15 sec.
• Item – Icecrown 25 Normal Melee Trinket – Your attacks have a chance to awaken the powers of the races of Northrend, temporarily transforming you and increasing your combat capabilities for 30 sec.
• Item – Icecrown 25 Heroic Melee Trinket – Your attacks have a chance to awaken the powers of the races of Northrend, temporarily transforming you and increasing your combat capabilities for 30 sec.
• Strength of the Frost Giants – Grants the form and strength of the Frost Giants for 30 sec.
• Agility of the Wolvar – Grants the form and agility of the Wolvar for 30 sec.
• Power of the Taunka – Grants the form and attack power of the Taunka for 30 sec.
• Precision of the Iron Dwarves – Grants the form and precision of the Iron Dwarves for 30 sec.
• Aim of the Tuskarr – Grants the form and aim of the Tuskarr for 30 sec.
• Speed of the Gorloc – Grants the form and speed of the Gorloc for 30 sec.

I am going to make the assumption that the transformation mentioned in the IC 25 normal/heroic mode trinkets is one of the 6 transformations mentioned above. I will also assume that depending on what class/spec/role you are, you will proc a different type of transformation. Looks like kitty kats will either be transforming into a Wolvar (Agility) or Taunka (Attack Power)?

 

On a complete side note, we were finally able to complete A Tribute to Insanity (10 Player)!

Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros!

For those who have been following my blog they have probably realized by now I am a pack rat that loves old content, mounts and cool items or as I call it Pimp My Druid!

I have always dreamed of getting a Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros back in the Vanilla WOW days and it’s been something I’ve been working on and off ever since TBC came out. The original purpose of going back to Molten Core was to finish off my Thorium Brotherhood and Hydraxian Waterlord rep to obtain the The Exalted title. At the time you still required a Quintessence which not everyone had which really meant that you’d have to wait around for the cooldown to end (1 hr) and with 8 waters to douse, it kind of sucked. If you had 2-3 waters it could mean waiting several hours just to summon Majordomo Executus. The best thing since sliced bread happened in 3.0.8 where the Quintessence was removed and no longer required to extinquish fire! This turned a several hour chore into a 45 min activity (which is a lot easier to convince ppl to come and help with!)

Today after 17 runs (since Achievements started as I’ve done way more than that) Eye of Sulfuras dropped! It seems like a long time (over 4 months worth of farming) but hell the drop rate is 1.9% so I guess I could consider myself fortunate in that sense. As you all know, this alone is not enough to make the legendary mace as a Sulfuron Hammer is required which is a crafted item created from Plans: Sulfuron Hammer. What do you need to make this? Well…

1. Sulfuron Ingot x 9 (8 for the hammer, 1 for the recipe which requires an Exalted Thorium Brotherhood Blacksmith)
2. Dark Iron Bar x 20 (8 Dark Iron x 20 Bars = 160 Dark Iron)
3. Arcanite Bar x 50 (Thorim Bar x 50 & Arcane Crystal x 50)
4. Essence of Fire x 25
5. Blood of the Mountain x 10
6. Lava Core x 10
7. Fiery Core x 10

Needless to say this is not an easy undertaking and takes a lot of time to collect. However luckily all of the materials can be found from within MC and in the time that it takes you to obtain an eye you will probably already have collected enough to make the hammer. For me I made the hammer about 2 months ago as a way to encourage myself to keep trying and going every week.

Tips on how to get started?

• Do it every week, it sucks sometimes but try not to lose any timers if possible
• You only need 5 or so people to do it in 40-45 minutes, you can do it with 2 even but that would take a lot longer
• Skip as much trash as you can! There are tonnes of trash in there and you probably only need to kill 15-20 packs at most
• Hunt on the AH for ALL materials (especially the Sulfuron Ingots as those will take a long time to collect)
• Make sure you mine all the Dark Iron with your own toon or an alt, you can always clear MC and go back 30 mins later after a soft reset when all the trash will despawn

Reasons to do this/how to convince ppl to come?

• Ragnaros will be coming back in Cataclysm and who knows, MC may be removed by then
• An oppourtunity to collect Tier 1, again MC might be removed in Cataclysm
• Get exalted with Thorium Brotherhood or Hydraxian Waterlord
• It’s actually pretty decent money (if you sell the epics that drop) for 40-45 mins of time.

Retro Lv 60 Look!

Current Lv 80 Look!

If anyone else out there is working on this, I encourage you all to keep trying as it will drop sooner or later. Keep at it and you’ll be a happy camper like me If there are any specific questions you’d like answered drop me a comment and I’ll try my best to help!

3.3 Kitty Summary

Hello Sports Fans,

3.3 details started to come out a few weeks ago but I wanted to wait until a bit more information started to surface. While not everything has come out yet, I think it’s about to time to summarize everything that’s available so far. As more information comes out I’ll continue to update this post so refresh often as I’ll update often. Lets get to it! (For full patch notes, check out here)

Kitty Changes

• Area-of-Effect Damage Caps: We’ve redesigned the way area damage is capped when hitting many targets. Instead of a hard cap on total damage done, the game now caps the total damage done at a value equal to the damage the spell would do if it hit 10 targets. In other words, if a spell does 1000 damage to each target, it would hit up to 10 targets for 1000 each, but with more than 10 targets, each target would take 1000 damage divided by the number of targets. 20 targets would be hit for 500 damage each in that example.
• Rebirth: The cooldown on this spell has been lowered from 20 minutes down to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.

Nothing too gamebreak or amazing this time around, but at least there are no nerfs so far (knock on wood). The AOE change is an interesting mechanic change but in reality it’s really not a big deal. There are few and far situations where there are more than 10 adds (Freya, Anub… anything else?) so the game (raidwise) will essentially stay the same. I can see this being a pain in the ass if you’re soloing an instance or you’re trying to grind a bunch of mobds for some reason. Rebirth is a very nice change and with the concept of attempt timers in TOC, this makes a lot of sense. How many of you have waited Brez’s out to try and maximize each and every attempt?

T10 Artwork

Here’s the mmo-champion HD link to alliance/horde and male/female artwork for T10.

T10 Bonuses

• 2 Pieces (Feral): Your Swipe (Bear) and Lacerate abilities deal 20% additional damage and the cost of your Rip ability is reduced by 10 energy.
• 4 Pieces (Feral): Your Enrage ability no longer decreases your armor and instead decreases all damage taken by 12%, and the periodic damage done by your Rake ability can now be a critical strike.

First look is WOW at the 4pc bonus! Finally a 4 pc that is actually provides a pretty big difference! It’ll be interesting to see what % they use for the critical bonus but regardless having a large portion of your DPS suddenly be available to crit should generate a large increase. No tier gear available for testing yet but hopefully it will be and we’ll see how the #’s look.

T10 Idol

• Item – Druid T10 Feral Relic (Rake and Lacerate) – The periodic damage from your Lacerate and Rake abilities grants 44 Agility for 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.

This is not a huge upgrade from the “T9″ relic which is the Idol of Mutilation. Instead of 200 flat Agility, you’ll gain a maximum of 220 Agility from keeping your Lacerate or Rake dots up. I guess it is good in the sense that it will make players more aware of their dots and that there will be a penalty for not keeping them up all the time. 20 Agility is still 20 attack power and 0.43% crit so it’s still better, what I could see happening is players bypassing the idol first for other badge upgrades and coming back to this later since it’s a minor improvement.

Emblem Changes

As like in 3.2 when all Emblems were unified into Emblem of Conquest, 3.3 will see Conquest disappear and all instances will drop Emblem of Triumph. For the new raid instaces, Emblem of Frost will be the new raid badge. As always, you will be able to trade 1 Emblem of Triumph -> 1 Emblem of Conquest ->  1 Emblem of Valor -> 1 Emblem of Heroism. Looks like this will be something that will happen at every new major content patch to ensure that players can remain up to date with current content instead of behind the gear curve.

While it’s great for alts, casuals and for players to keep up to date, it does not promote the development of players from a skill perspective and that is a big problem (esp on low population servers). I can’t even count the # of applicants we’ve had to our guild who are geared adequately but quite frankly have minimal understanding of raid environments or basic mechanics of the game.

Bind on Account Reputation Enchants

• The following reputations have been sped up by roughly 30%:
  • Argent Crusade
  • Alliance Vanguard
  • Horde Expedition
  • Kirin Tor
  • Knights of the Ebon Blade
  • Sons of Hodir
  • Wyrmrest Accord
• Sons of Hodir quests now give more reputation overall.
• Top-level helm and shoulder faction-related enchants are now available as Bind-on-Account items that do not require any faction to use once purchased.
• Reputation commendations can now be purchased for 1 Emblem of Triumph each.

 

***3.3 Kitty Summary – Update #1 – 10/28/09***

Tier 10 Token System

Quote From: Blizzard (Source)
With t10 we’re going to see a hybrid. The tier 10 items (the ones with item levels you’d find in the 10-player raid) will be purchased with Emblems of Frost.

The tier 10.5 items (the ones with item levels you’d find in the 25-player raid) will be obtained by getting a token (one that is specific to 3 or 4 classes, much like the ulduar tokens) and using it to upgrade the tier 10 item that was purchased with emblems of frost.

This is the perfect solution to the current issues with T9 from TOC. Currently there is not upgrade system from ilv 232 -> ilv 245 -> ilv258. To obtain each level of T9 gear you need to start from scratch which quite frankly is a pain in the ass. It also discourages people from obtaining the ilv 232 set if you know that the ilv 245 set is available in time. Factor in that most people did not drop their T8 until they had 2pc or 4pc then you have a lot of badges sitting around waiting for the optimal time to switch. Now in 3.3 by having an upgade system this will encourage people to get 232 quickly and upgrade along the way.

Normal vs Hard Mode Triggers

Quote From: Blizzard (Source)
ICC’s hard modes will be triggered, but via in-game UI (much like how you toggle between normal and heroic modes today) rather than triggered by game mechanics (like not killing the three drakes before you attack Sartharion).

We seem to be moving back towards an pre 3.2 style of hard mode which I think is for the best. Having to do 4 raids a week just to get through easy and hard mode while fast (no trash yay) is still time consuming and who wants to see the same 5 bosses 4 times a week? Considering that Icecrown is going to be significantly larger than TOC, this is clearly a necessity to ensure people don’t get bogged down by trying to run Icecrown 4 times a week. Perhaps a sign of difficult content to come?

3.3 Leather DPS Crafted Items (iLv 264)

• Footpads of Impending Death
• Bladeborn Leggings

It’s definitely still too early to say “wow” or “bah” as we don’t know what the tier gear looks like. Once that starts appearing we’ll be able to tell whether it’s worthwhile to obtain these items. I’m assuming the cost to make will be very expensive as usual. Whats interesting though is that 3.2 dps gear in the leggings/feet slots generally had +hit (See Leggings of the Broken Beast, Icewalker Treads), so if we are moving away from having +hit in these slots, where is that stat going to be coming from in 3.3?

Icecrown Weapon Procs

• Item – Icecrown 25 Normal Slow Melee Weapon Proc – Your weapon swings have a chance to grant you Necrotic Touch for 10 sec, causing all your melee weapon attacks to deal an additional 9% damage as shadow damage.
• Item – Icecrown 25 Heroic Slow Melee Weapon Proc – Your weapon swings have a chance to grant you Necrotic Touch for 10 sec, causing all your melee weapon attacks to deal an additional 10% damage as shadow damage.

Not really sure what this is all about, my assumption is that it will be something related to a specific mechanic in a fight.

New Icecrown Trinkets Procs

• Item – Icecrown 10 Heroic Melee Trinket – When you deal damage you have a chance to gain 1250 attack power for 15 sec.
• Item – Icecrown 25 Normal Melee Trinket – Your attacks have a chance to awaken the powers of the races of Northrend, temporarily transforming you and increasing your combat capabilities for 30 sec.
• Item – Icecrown 25 Heroic Melee Trinket – Your attacks have a chance to awaken the powers of the races of Northrend, temporarily transforming you and increasing your combat capabilities for 30 sec.
• Strength of the Frost Giants – Grants the form and strength of the Frost Giants for 30 sec.
• Agility of the Wolvar – Grants the form and agility of the Wolvar for 30 sec.
• Power of the Taunka – Grants the form and attack power of the Taunka for 30 sec.
• Precision of the Iron Dwarves – Grants the form and precision of the Iron Dwarves for 30 sec.
• Aim of the Tuskarr – Grants the form and aim of the Tuskarr for 30 sec.
• Speed of the Gorloc – Grants the form and speed of the Gorloc for 30 sec.

I am going to make the assumption that the transformation mentioned in the IC 25 normal/heroic mode trinkets is one of the 6 transformations mentioned above. I will also assume that depending on what class/spec/role you are, you will proc a different type of transformation. Looks like kitty kats will either be transforming into a Wolvar (Agility) or Taunka (Attack Power)?

Over 9000!

I’ve been waiting for more patch notes to post a kitty summary for Patch 3.3 (yes it is in the works, and will be out when more info is datamined first) but this one was too good to wait!

Feat of Strength

It’s Over Nine Thousand! Earn more than 9000 achievement points.

Ok, so I’m only at 8995 right now but clearly I’ll be over 9000 before 3.3 comes out. Finally some recognition for a crazy achievement whore! Now if Blizzard would only give us a cool title or pet that would make me happy in the pants. Rarren “The Achiever” perhaps?

Ninja Edit: Just hit 9005! Feat of Strength here I come!