Some more widescreen desktop wallpapers to share the WotLK love – half a dozen WotLK wallpapers from Grizzly Hills, Zul’Drak and the Storm Peaks. Coming up next, a few wallpapers from beautiful instances.
Click the link to view the fullsize wallpaper, or right-click and save. All are 1680×1050. Click the wallpaper tag to see other wallpapers available for download.
Or – hooray, Sailan is now level 80! I dinged early this evening – I went to bed last night with 13% to go, and today just seemed to draaaag.
I can’t say I’ve experienced more than a fraction of what WotLK has to offer – I dinged 80 in mid-Zul’Drak, leaving me with Sholazar Basin, Storm Peaks and Icecrown all untouched (but for an exploration jaunt and an instance run) – but so far I’m incredibly impressed. Wrath has really raised the bar for MMOs, I feel; not only is there loads of content, but it’s far more immersive and interactive than TBC or classic WoW. An old friend of mine – Mrigashirsha of Shift-T – has been talking with his usual insight and perceptiveness about what’s new and awesome in Wrath, and I tend to agree with him.
I think that, for me, the two factors that have set Wrath apart are:
phasing, which finally allows you to actually have a lasting impact on the world you see around you, and
variety in questlines; no longer are you just killing X of Y, then Y of Z for someone – the variety of tasks you’re given to complete, and the more numerous ways you can interact with the world, make every questline feel more immersive.
That, and the fact that the world is just gorgeous. (My next post will be another WotLK Wallpapers post.)
There are some negatives to Wrath, of course, but I don’t particularly want to focus on downsides at this early date – not when I’m having so much fun.
Next in the list of instance quest checklists: Azjol-Nerub and Ahn’Kahet, the two five-man wings of the Azjol-Nerub hub near Star’s Rest and Agmar’s Hammer in Dragonblight. I’m putting them all in the one checklist because there are so few of them. Also note that all these quests are available to both Alliance and Horde from the same questgivers.
Azjol-Nerub and Ahn’Kahet are two wings of the Dragonblight instance hub also called Azjol-Nerub. The former is a fast, three-boss run full of gauntlets – the first two bosses have little trash other than several waves of trash mobs which attack as part of the boss encounter (much like Mount Hyjal). The latter is a more traditional dungeon with spectacular scenery and a wide range of enemies. Azjol-Nerub is a 72-74 dungeon and Ahn’Kahet is a 73-75 dungeon, but I successfully cleared both of them when I visited at 71 with a group of 70s and 71s. You can’t get the quests until 72 for AN and 73 or 74 for AK.
The history of this zone is tied up with the history of Northrend as a continent. 16,000 years ago Azeroth was dominated by two nations of silithids; the Qiraji in the south and the Nerubians in the north. When Arthas came to power as the Lich King, the Nerubians opposed him and were eventually destroyed; many were turned to his service in undeath. Azjol-Nerub, the Upper Kingdom, is controlled by the Scourge; Ahn’Kahet, the Old Kingdom, is largely populated by Nerubian rebels and their various servants, although the Scourge does have some presence there.
Azjol-Nerub
Ahn’Kahet: The Old Kingdom
Well, I’ve had Wrath for about four and a half days now, and I’m sitting around level 74 – I’m hoping to get 75 before the servers go down for maintenance tonight. I could have been faster, but I’m duoing with a friend so we lose a little bit of time in synchronising our availability, and I’ve been putting in a bit of work on tradeskills as well – and much of the weekend was spent running Utgarde Keep, The Nexus, Azjol-Nerub and Ahn’Kahet with guildies.
I’m really loving Wrath. I’d tried to avoid doing too much actual content in the beta, so as not to burn myself out, so a lot of this is very new to me. I’m very impressed with Wrath – not only is it far prettier than any WoW that’s come before, but it’s also a much more dynamic, immersive experience. The bulk of the quests aren’t just ‘Kill X of Y’ quests any more, they really make you feel like you’re participating in the story of a zone. It’s extremely well-done.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, level 75 is calling me…
Next in the list of instance quest checklists: The Nexus, which is the first dungeon in Borean Tundra.
The Nexus is the first wing of the instance hub in Borean Tundra also called the Nexus. It’s a level 71-73 instance, although semi-geared level 70s will have no problems with it. It’s in the centre of Coldarra, the island in the NW of the zone which can be accessed by catching a flight from Borean Tundra (for Alliance; I’m not sure where the Horde flights leave from).
Lore-wise, it’s focused around the Blue Dragonflight storyline; it’s a haven for Malygos’s allies and the final boss is a red dragon who’s been magically controlled into being Malygos’s latest consort. (Malygos seems to have bad luck with consorts – Sindragosa, his first consort, is the unlucky dragon who features in the WotLK cinematic and on the loading screen, and his second consort Saragosa meets an untimely end in Coldarra.)
These are the quests you should have when entering The Nexus:
With the launch of Wrath of the Lich King (which I am thoroughly enoying, incidentally), there are a whole bunch of unfamiliar instances to play in. Of course, one can dive right in and just go for the sights and the bosses and the loot, but in the drive to hit 80 some quest XP is always nice.
Edit: Galadria has posted a horde-side quest guide on her blog.
Utgarde Keep is the first and easiest dungeon in Wrath of the Lich King. It’s inhabited by half-giant vrykul, and is a quick and easy run (until you get to the last boss, who is disproportionately difficult).
These are the quests you should have when entering Utgarde Keep:
Quick and easy, just like the instance!
I’m getting excited – I hope everyone else is looking forward to it too!
In the meantime, I’m levelling my warlock – she won’t be 70 before Wrath Day, but if I’m lucky she’ll be close enough to go straight into Northrend when I pick her up again in a few months’ time. On the one hand, I really enjoy warlock – it’s an incredibly powerful class for soloing (take that, devilsaurs!) but on the other, it’s not really inspiring me to do much with her at endgame. Still, I’ve really enjoyed levelling her.
My main problem, when it comes to levelling alts, is that i have to have some role in mind for them when they hit 80, or else it feels pointless. My mage, for example, is fine – she’s my ‘main alt’ to play when I want a break from healing, and she’s a herber/miner with an epic birdie, so she’s a great farmer. But my other alts? I’ve got a 70 priest, a 69 rogue, a 62 warlock and a 60 shaman (and a druid who is still stuck at 40, heh)… I find it hard to get motivated to play them beyond the fun of actually levelling them, because I’m so invested in my main.
We’ll see. it’s not like I’m going to delete them, after all – perhaps with Wrath’s ability to do 10-man raids at all levels, I’ll get a chance to take some of them raiding without losing focus on my paladin.
Finally, the WotLK version of the much-loved Jewelcrafting Quick Reference Sheet. The format’s changed slightly and it’s not as pretty, because Blizzard introduced a ton of new gem cuts in WotLK, and there just wasn’t room for them in the old layout.
This table includes all jewelcrafting gem cuts excluding BoP gems that are JC-only. It is current as of 3 November 08, final WotLK beta build.
If you prefer it in PDF form, you can download a copy here: jc30a.pdf.
Last updated 7 November 08.
Edit, later on 7th November: Sharp-eyed reader Canth spotted two duplicate entries; I’ve corrected them, and taken a moment to fix some formatting issues. If you downloaded the PDF already, you might want to grab the new copy.
This time next week, I will be sitting down at my computer with a fresh copy of WotLK in my hot little hands. This time next week, I will be commencing the lovely patch-patch-patch-wait-patch-login-crash-login-disconnect-login-lag-lag-lag process we can all look forward to on our first few days in Northrend.
Seriously though, I can’t believe how excited I am. I’ve been itching for Wrath Day ever since I first got into the beta months ago and saw what awaited us. Next week can’t get here fast enough!
I try and stay positive when I focus on developments in the WoW world, but it’s getting hard to grit one’s teeth through yet another round of nerfs being fired like buckshot into the ranks of the paladins. Even when they’re not aiming at you, it’s almost a given you’ll get some collateral damage – probably right in the face.
Rohan of Blessing of Kings has been doing a good job of keeping up with the changes – the vast majority of which are nerfs – to paladins in the last few weeks, and I’ll point you there if you want to catch up on what’s changed (and changed, and changed again). So, What Went Wrong is a recent example of his interesting and insightful posts.
I’m angry, and bitter, and very very frustrated. I will try not to rant, but I make no promises. The change that’s frustrating me most is the story of Avenging Wrath, which was our shiny new Paladin spell at level 70.
The Backstory
In TBC Avenging Wrath was only a damage buff. It lasted 20 seconds, on a 3 minute cooldown, and triggered the Forbearance debuff – which lasted a minute, was triggered by Avenging Wrath, Blessing (now Hand) of Protection, Divine Shield (aka bubble), and Divine Protection (aka bubble; made you immune but you couldn’t attack at all, and shared the DS cooldown) and locked you out of all those spells while active.
Nice boost, right? In practice, it was rarely used.
From The Sublime…
So, in the WotLK beta, Blizzard detached Avenging Wrath from Forbearance, and gave it a buff to healing done as well (finally making it useful for Holy paladins). This was, as far as I know, to encourage people to actually use it, and it worked. Finally, people were using their Level 70 spell – and loving it. To compensate, Forbearance was increased to a 3-minute duration. Fair enough.
…To The Ridiculous
Except, of course, that ret paladins were bubbling, blowing AW, and owning people up in BGs while completely immune – and strangely, other people didn’t like that very much. Blizzard clearly felt that this was an absolutely urgent issue, and hotfixed in a nerf (without even testing it first on the beta realms or the 3.0.3 PTR). Avenging Wrath now causes Forbearance again (which has been reduced to 2 minutes rather than 3).
The forums exploded as soon as this was announced, of course. Ten pages of respondents said “for god’s sake, don’t put it on Forbearance, just make AW and DS unable to be triggered at the same time, like trinkets”. This was apparently ignored, as were the nearly-as-numerous suggestions to have AW cancel DS and vice versa, or have AW just not give a damage boost while bubbled… et cetera.
Where Avenging Wrath Stands
So, let’s take a look at the net change between TBC and now, shall we?
Forbearance: Was 1 minute. Now 2 minutes.
PvE: Holy paladins will no longer use AW unless they really need the throughput buff and can be certain they won’t need to bubble for survival. Ret paladins may use AW, except on fights where they know they’ll need to bubble for survival. Prot paladins absolutely will not use AW (losing the TPS boost it provided), as it would lock them out of Divine Protection (which is now a Shield Wall ability rather than just being ‘bubble-lite’).
PvP: No-one (with any sense) will use AW. It’s still vulnerable to purge/steal and will still lock you out of your most vital survival ability; a paladin who’s blown their bubble is a vulnerable, probably-soon-to-be-dead paladin. And it’ll lock you out of your bubble for longer than it used to. Good times.
So, in other words, we are now worse off than we were in TBC. Thanks for fixing us, Blizz! Much appreciated!
“Paladin” Doesn’t Just Mean Retribution
This post was announced on the forums as an “upcoming Ret paladin PvP nerf”. However, it is in fact a nerf to all specs in PvE as well as PvP.
This follows on the heels of the last nerf, just four days earlier, also hotfixed in, reducing mana return from Judgements o the Wise and damage from Seal/Judgement of Command. Those really were Ret nerfs, not applicable to other specs, but in that post Ghostcrawler says “we still intend to lower the damage of other Seals and Judgements” (except Seal/Judgement of Blood and of the Martyr) – which basically means that Seal of Righteousness (the main seal for Holy DPS) and Seal of Vengeance (the main seal for tankadins) are getting it in the neck. Explain again how those are Retribution nerfs, given that Ret uses primarily Seal of Blood/Martyr and Seal of Command?
It’s really starting to feel like Blizzard has forgotten us Holy and Prot paladins are even here.
Testing Times
However, what also concerns me in the second nerf thread is Ghostcrawler saying (emphasis mine):
We are going to hotfix the nerfs to Judgement of the Wise (from 33% to 15%) and Seal and Judgement of Command (down 20% damage) to live. We need to start getting more testing on these changes right away to see what they do to Retribution in PvE and PvP.
What, in God’s name, do they have a Beta test and a PTR for, if not testing changes? Why the hell are they hotfixing nerfs to the Live environment before they’ve tested them?!
And then we have the issue that they’re hotfixing untested nerfs in left, right and centre, but when it comes to fixing damage done by these nerfs, the response is “we’re exploring this … we’ll let you know” and “as soon as we’re comfortable that we haven’t over-nerfed Ret, and a couple of other things, we’re going to look at healer dps again to make sure you can solo” and “we do realize this hurts Holy and Protection as well, and that is something for which we are prepared to offer compensation”.
So, the cheesy Bubble+Wings IWIN combo made people unhappy enough that it had to be hotfixed (despite the fact that it was a once-every-5-minutes combo for 12 seconds), but repairing the ongoing effects of these hamhanded, scattershot nerfs is something that has to be carefully considered, orchestrated, and implemented? Does anyone really wonder why paladins are feeling angry, bitter and victimised at this point?
Frankly, I think Blizzard has really dropped the ball on Paladin development. I will still be playing Sailan when the dust settles (unless something really really dire happens), but I can’t blame other paladins for rerolling or quitting entirely.