Loremaster, Proto-Drakes and ICC!

I’d like to apologize to the readers out there for my lack of posts. Its’ been a busy couple of weeks in game prior to and post 3.3. I hope everyone’s been enjoying 3.3 so far (I certainly have!). Part of the reason behind my lack of updates is just being pure tired. We’ve been raiding about the same amount but I’ve been (are you ready for it?) healing a lot lately to assist the guild. I find healing a lot more tiring than playing as a kitty kat so I tend to just head to bed right after instead of blogging. With the hoilday season approaching that means more time off and more time for wow and blogging!

First update, we finally finished off our Ironbound Proto-Drake! I will admit it does feel a little cheesed in that we’re going back and doing 3.1 content in 3.2 gear but at least we finished this off before the release of 3.3 which is one less thing to worry about. I do think that Blizzard should have cut this one off a while ago especially with 3.3 out now.Even if it would mean that we would get screwed out of a proto drake I think it’s important that the gear doesn’t completely trivialize the hard mode achievements. That being said I think that if a cutoff had been announced we would have worked on this earlier but without a definitive date there was really no incentive. Either way, check out the pretty new proto!

Second update, Icecrown Citadel! The long awaited final raid instance of WOTLK has finally arrived and so far it’s been pretty fun. We went in on patch day on Tuesday and cleared the 10 man version with 2 healers and 0 wipes. Wednesday we went in and cleared the 25 man version in 2 hrs with 3 wipes total. Needless to say, the difficulty level wasn’t particularly challenging but again that’s the design that Blizzard is aiming for. While this won’t be as easy to pug like TOC, I would think that most people will at least be able to see the 10 man flavor. Unfortunately (and fortunately) the lockout until the next wing is 28 days away which is pissing off a lot of people. Blizzard has come back with a response:

Quote from: Daelo (Source)

As noted in game, the release of the Plagueworks in Icecrown Citadel occurs 28 days after patch 3.3.0 was released. After the Plagueworks is available, you will then wait less than 28 days for the next wing to become active. The extended length of the initial 28 day delay is simply due to the timing of the Holidays.

Again, good on Blizzard for taking dissuading people from ignoring family and friends during the holiday season! Here are some screenshots from my first week in 3.3

Where's the kitty?

Rocket kitty, nice job Blizzard!

Bear Calvary

Finally, I finished off The Loremaster this week after working on it on and off for the past few months. For those of you who have yet to start or are a little afraid to start, don’t be! 3.3 has been this extremely easy with the quest system which tracks objective points and with a nifty little addon that I found called EveryQuest. It has a new feature (new for 3.3) which actually queries the Blizzard servers and identifies what quests you have completed and which ones you haven’t yet done. So no more running around like a maniac trying to find quest hubs, all you need to do is run this addon and it’ll tell you whats left to do in each zone!

With ICC on “farm” for now, and our protos complete we’ve turned our focus over towards Anub’Arak heroic and Algalon. Hopefully I’ll be sharing some stories for both in the near future.

Hero of Shattrath

In one of my previous posts I mentioned I was working on a new Feat of Strength and it would take about 2 weeks. 10 days later I finished off Hero of Shattrath. This feat requires that you become exalted with The Aldor and The Scryers (but not at the same time naturally). For those achievement whores out there I’d definitely recommend doing this one as it’s a neat one to have with only a little bit of effort, farming and patience. That being said, lets take a look and see how this works.

Getting Exalted

Firstly, naturally you have to get exalted with one of these factions and it doesn’t really matter which one you pick first. Hopefully you played back in TBC and you’re already exalted with one which should cut down on your time significantly.If you haven’t picked a faction yet and are starting from scratch you’ll want to take a look at the faction summaries here from Wowwiki (Scryers, Aldor). To gain rep with either faction you’ll need to obtain reputation items that drop from different areas in the Outlands.

Aldor

• Mark of Kil’jaeden – 25 Rep (Until Honored)
• Mark of Sargeras – 25 Rep
• Fel Armament – 350 Rep

Scryers

• Firewing Signet – 25 Rep (Until Honored)
• Sunfury Signet – 25 Rep
• Arcane Tome – 350 Rep

Note that the first item for each faction only provides rep till Honored. All 3 items provide rep until honored but only the last 2 items provide rep until Exalted. You will need a total of 42,999 reputation to become 999/1000 exalted (3000+6000+12000+21000+999).  There are different ways to combine the items to hit exalted, for example you could use 360 Firewing Signet ( 9000 rep) + 98 Arcane Tome (43,300 rep) or another way could be 1720 Sunfury Signet (43,000 rep). As you can see there are many different ways depending on what you have available to you.

Preparing to Switch

Personally I was exalted with The Aldor so all I had to do was get exalted with The Scryers. For the purpose of this discussion I’m going to be discussing switching to Scryers (although the process is exactly the same to switch to Aldor). The first step is to get out of Hated and back to Neutral, once you are Neutral. To do this there is a quest called Voren’thal’s Visions. This quest requires you to obtain 8 Dampscale Basilisk Eye which will grant you +250 reputation with the Scryers. To go from Hated back to Neutral you will need a total of 1344 Dampscale Basilisk Eye. These are dropped by Basilisk in Terrokar Forest in the Outlands. I was able to farm about ~100 in an hour so for a total of 1344 it took about 14 hours of farming.

The river is where the Basilisk spawn, by the time you clear the whole river it should have respawned.

Total materials to get to exalted with Scryers

While you could farm all the materials, you can also watch the auction hall for available materials. Auchindoun is a small population server but there were still a lot of available materials that could be purchased at reasonable prices. I took my time waiting for really cheap auctions to go up. I would definitely recommend that you do this to buy the Firewing Signet, Sunfury Signet and Arcane Tome. The Dampscale Basilisk Eye were not readily available on my server so I had to farm all 1344 of them unfortunately. Once you get to exalted (with each faction), remember that there are patterns and recipes available from each faction. Buy them all because regardless of what faction you switch you, you get to keep the recipes. To all those who are going to give it a try, good luck on the auction hall and happy farming!

Before

After

Herald of Titans

Since 3.1 information began leaking out (way back when), one of the most appealing challenges (and title rewards) was the Herald of Titans achievement. It was something specifically for 10 man groups and it was designed only for 10 man groups. Being as I am a huge fan of 10 man vs 25 man, I was drooling all over this. The text on this achievement state:

Defeat Algalon the Observer in 10-player mode without anyone in the raid wearing any equipment with an item level higher than is available in 10-player Ulduar.

Unfortunately is very poor is pretty vague as it leaves a lot of open loopholes and a lot of doubt as to what qualifies. The last thing you want to do is kill Algalon and then realize that a specific peice of gear didn’t qualify and you don’t get the achievement. Bornakk later on did provide some further insight on this and added this additional information:

Quote: Bornakk (Source)

To try and clear up any confusion, the planned item level for the achievement in Ulduar 10 is item level 226. This level gear drops from both hard mode Ulduar 10 and regular boss kills in Ulduar 25. So yes, while players who clear Ulduar 25 will get more 226 gear at a faster pace and possibly get this achievement first, it’s an achievement anybody can do, so when a guild that only runs normal Ulduar 10 progresses through the instance and gets the hard modes done, they will be ready to take on this achievement.

Reward: Herald of the Titans (title)

If you primarily run 25 player instances and want to get this achievement/title, just hang on to your Kel’thuzad weapons and regular Ulduar 25 boss kills and you should be good to go.

Still somewhat vague if you ask me, we did our best to try and interpret the text based on that and on any other information we could find. In the end we managed to get the kill and based on our experience I think I can provide a more clearcut answer as to what qualifies.

1. Any items from Ulduar 10 easy or hard mode are eligible (gear or weapons)
2. Any items from Ulduar 25 easy are eligible (gear or weapons & hard mode items are not eligible)
3. Any post 3.1 content gear (Trial of the Champion, Onyxia, Trial of the Crusader etc) is not eligible
4. Any gear of ilv 226 or weapon of ilv 232 or lower are eligible if they meet criteria 3
5. Any PVP gear that meets criteria 4 are eligible
6. Badge gear that meets criteria 4 is eligible

The neat thing about this achievement is, this is still a challenging fight. Doing this in 3.2 gear does trivialize it but seeing as this fight has yet to be nerfed and you are using gear from 3.1 it is essentially like you are doing it back in 3.1 days. For those who are interested in trying to accomplish this achievement, hopefully you (and your group) have saved a lot of your gear from pre 3.2. If you haven’t there are ways to fill those gaps:

• Run Ulduar 10/25 and pickup gear! (duh)
• If your guild no longer runs Uld, if you have achievement whores try and run an uld 10 achievement run and fill your slots
• Look at crafted gear/badge gear, the huge bonus here is after you are done using it you can return it! (within a 2 hr window)
• Check the AH and look for some blue items (I’m not joking, our priest picked up a blue wand)
• Heirloom items? Unfortunately I didn’t get to test this but I would assume it would work? (Can anyone confirm?)

It was actually a little tough to find 10 suitable people to make a composition that would work for us. However we did manage to get a pretty solid group but I was forced to (get ready for this…) heal as resto for the fight (*cry*). We couldn’t find a 3rd healer and I almost had a full resto set so I brushed off my resto skills and gave it a whirl. I will say this, the fight is much harder as resto than as a kitty kat. A nice change of pace but not something I would want to do on a regular basis

At first we wiped a few times as it took a little bit of time in terms of getting used to the dmg taken by the tanks. The rate of dmg is significantly different in 3.1 gear vs 3.2 gear, as well stars took a bit of timing adjustment as well as the rate at which they went down was slower than they do with 3.2 gear. We ran into situations where they would die to dots slower than expected and a star would blow up just as a cosmic smash went off which resulted in a few bad wipes. In the end it took us about 5 tries and we got our fancy new titles.

As a suggestion to Blizzard (wonder if anyone from Blizzard reads this blog…) going forward, it would be awesome if you could put some sort of check in the achievement. For example if you click on the achievement it gives you a “OK YOU QUALIFY!” type answer or if you don’t qualify it will tell you “GO FIX YOUR SET!”. That way at least you know ahead of time whether your gearset works and you don’t have to suffer through running through the whole fight (or instance if you’re going for dedicated insanity) and realize that 1 peice of gear didn’t qualify. I think that would make it a lot easier for players that are going for these type of achievements.

If anyone has any questions about gear restrictions feel free to drop me a comment and I’ll try and help.

Blog Update: I’m working on a pretty neat feat of strength right now which I will share once I obtain it, hopefully within the next 2 weeks or so. Can anyone guess what it might be? Stay tuned!

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.

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!