So, ever since Blizzard posted those fake “related articles” tabs about upcoming tier previews, I’ve been checking in every now and then to see what else they might give us some hints to.  Today, my friends, that shit has paid off.  With Blizzcon only 3 days away, I decided to step up my website combing, and stumbled upon more information than I ever could have dreamed of.  Blizzard actually had new class information posted, and just sitting there for anyone to see.  No, I didn’t hack anything to get to it…it was just there.

So, I did what anyone would do:  I took a video and screenshotted the fuck out of that place.

Enjoy!

Update:  Between actually filming this and finally getting around to uploading it, it appears that Blizzard got wise and took the pages down.  I’m thinking I probably shouldn’t have left that comment.  But it was too hard to resist…

Screenshots (Click to view full-size):

28 comments

Tags: Brewmaster, Expansion, Leak, Mists of Pandaria, Ogres, Pandarens, Pandaria, World of Warcraft

Welcome, once again, to Chataclysm, where we discuss future additions to the World of Warcraft and let speculation run freely through the flower fields.  Considering today’s topic, there will be potential spoilers for patch 4.3’s content.

Overall impressions:

Endtime is the first of three new heroic 5-mans coming to World of Warcraft in patch 4.3.  In its current incarnation on the PTR, Endtime harkens back to Wrath of the Lich King’s heroics in a few ways.  This first, is that it is a much shorter instance than, say, the Zul heroics we’ve been running for the past few months.  There are 5 bosses in the instance, but you will only fight 3 each time you run the dungeon.  It’s similar to Trial of the Champion in that the last boss is always the same, while the first two will be randomly chosen.

Also, like ToC-5, the trash is kept to a minimum.  You are ported around the map, directly into the various dragonshrines which feature a small amount of themed trash, followed by the bosses themselves.  No long hallways full of mobs, or long runs back after a wipe.  Nothing is more than a quick port away from the entrance.  Unlike ToC, though, this works because despite the small size of the playable part of the map, there is still a very interesting, large world all around you to keep it visually interesting.

The other part that is reminiscent of Wrath, however, is the incredibly easy difficulty.  Currently, there is really no fear of wiping…at all.  I’m going to attribute this to mere undertuning, though.  I’m sure they will increase the difficulty before it goes live, even if it isn’t quite as tough as the Zuls were on release.

The dungeon drops iLevel 378 gear — which is equivalent to Firelands drops — so we can expect a return to Wrath’s run-a-few-heroics-to-gear-up-for-the-current-raid methodology, which is a great thing for people who have taken breaks from the game, or would like to take alts into the Dragon Soul raid.

Bosses:

Echo of Baine – Baine’s trash is comprised of a few simple packs of dragonkin.  The main danger here, are the random fires that roam around inflicting massive damage to anyone unlucky enough to be hit by them.  The boss fight itself is a DPS race.  Baine will occasionally destroy one of the 4 platforms on which the fight takes place.  Clearly, you want him dead before these are all gone.  He also throws totems at players which can be thrown back at him, and he receives a damage buff when exposed to lava (NB:  This works for players, too!).  Very easy right now, but will potentially be more fun if he’s given a bit more health to burn through.   That way players will be forced to balance damage done to themselves by lava in order to get a necessary damage buff.

Echo of Jaina – Her trash is just a bunch of soldiers’ ghosts that must be killed while collecting 16 fragments of Jaina’s staff.  Nothing terribly interesting.  Jaina’s fight, however, is pretty fun.  She’ll occasionally blink away and shoot ice blades that must be dodged.  There is also a fire that one player will want to be damaged by, because otherwise it will hurt the entire raid.

Echo of Sylvanas – Nothing terribly interesting in the trash.  Just a bunch of undead to AoE down.  Her fight, also isn’t particularly interesting — mainly random unavoidable raid damage and a “don’t stand here” mechanic — with one notable exception.  At times, a circle of ghouls will spawn around the party and start moving in.  The entire group must focus fire on one of the ghouls to avoid a wipe.  This mechanic will probably cause a lot of problems for random dungeon groups due to the quick decision making and group coordination required.  Meanwhile, it looks really cool.

Echo of Tyrande – Tyrande’s trash is super awesome.  The entire area is dark to the point of complete blackness.  The party must run from shining moonbeam to shining moonbeam while a huge amount of trash runs in from all sides to be AoE’d down.  It’s very similar to Blizzard’s April Fool’s joke from earlier this year, the Tomb of Immortal Darkness.  It’s an immersive and creepy little section that keeps you guessing as to what it is you’re even killing.  Her fight is almost as confusing.  There’s a lot of spells she’s casting from her little perch, but I’ll be damned if I knew what any of them were doing.  Seems like mostly a healer check.

Murozond – This fight is absolutely fucking amazing.  His actual attacks are fairly simple.  He does a flame breath on the tank and drops bombs which leave fires on the ground.  The real hook here, though, are the party buffs which are designed to make up for Murozond’s health pool (NB: His health pool needs to be massively increased before the patch releases…right now it’s only at 13M, which is not enough, considering the buffs).  The first buff is given to us by Nozdormu, and simply increases our run and attack speeds.  More interesting, is the Hourglass of Time which can be clicked up to 5 times during the fight.  This will cause time to reverse, meaning all party members will go back to full health and mana…and all cooldowns will be reset.  That’s right.  You get to pop all of your offensive cooldowns 5 times during this fight.  The time reversal is also accompanied by a neat little visual effect where everything goes black and white and your character runs backwards for a few moments.  On the PTR, Murozond is dying much too quickly, which is why I think he needs more health, but regardless of difficulty, this is the most fun I’ve ever had in a 5-man fight.

Grade:

A+.  I’m sorry…I meant, “A -mother -fuckin’ -plus.”

1 comment

Tags: A-mother-fuckin'-plus, Endtime, Patch 4.3, Review, Twitter Feed

Welcome to Chataclysm, our column focused on Cataclysm news and speculation.  The expansion has been out for months now, but this punny column title didn’t get enough time in the sun back in the day, so it’s here to stay until I think of a funny panda pun.  Look here for discussion about future patches and events.

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So, I had previously made a post with my predictions on Tier 15 item level.  Since then, Blizzard has gone and made my theories obsolete with the announcement  that The Dragon Soul will be the final tier of Cataclysm.

So, I’ve gone and updated the numbers to factor this in.  Here are my new updated predictions:

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(Note:  Most of this is mathy bullcrap.  Feel free to scroll down if you just want to skip that and go straight to telling me I’m wrong about my conclusion.)

I started out by charting the item levels of all the previous and current tier sets.  I ended up with something like this:

Classic
Tier 1	66
Tier 2	76
Tier 3	86-92
BC
Tier 4	120
Tier 5	133
Tier 6	146-154
Wrath	10 Normal	10H/25N	25 Heroic
Tier 7	200	213	n/a
Tier 8	219	226	239
Tier 9	232	245	258
Tier 10	251	264	277
Cata	Normal	Heroic
Tier 11	359	372
Tier 12	378	391

Tier inflation (not to be confused with tire inflation)

The first thing I had to figure out was what kind of inflation exists within each tier.  Looking at the numbers, I could see that classic tiers went through 10 item levels of inflation, wheras Burning Crusade sets increased by 13 each time.  So far in both Wrath and Cataclysm, we’ve seen increases of 19 from each tier to the next, with the one notable exception being the transition from Ulduar to Trial of the Crusader, which was only 13.

I’m going to guess Cataclysm’s raids will continue to have 19 iLevels between tiers — and quite honestly, wonder if Wrath’s gear inflation may have been a little more balanced at 16-levels per tier — so I will assume that the following expansion will have jumps of 22.

How many patches does it take to get to the center of a Cataclysm pop?

Now we know there are only 3 raiding tiers in Cataclysm.  This, plus my previous guesses and assumptions about tier inflation, allow me to expand my chart to this:

Cata	Normal	Heroic
Tier 11	359	372
Tier 12	378	391
Tier 13	397	410
MoP?	Normal	Heroic
Tier 14	X
Tier 15	X+22

Which leaves only the final piece to figure out…the amount of inflation between the last raid of Cataclysm and the first raid of the following expansion.

Here’s where I really start pulling things out of my ass…

This is probably a meaningless find — and not the result of any actual rule by Blizzard — but I did find a pattern that I could use to estimate the inflation that will take place from tier 13 to 14.

The best tier gear from the classic game was iLevel 92.  The first tier from BC was 120, a jump of 28 levels.

The best tier gear from BC was iLevel 154.  The first tier from Wrath was 200, a jump of 46 levels.

The best tier gear from Wrath was iLevel 277.  The first tier from Cataclysm was 359, a jump of 82 levels.

28…46…82.  Where am I going with this?  Observe:

• (28*2) – 10 = 46
• (46*2) – 10 = 82
• (82*2) – 10 = 154

If there’s more to the pattern than sheer coincidence — and me seeing what I want to see in a relatively small sample size — then it would put the first tier of the next expansion 154 item levels above Cataclysm’s heroic tier 13.  Since I’m using a tier inflation of 22, I’ll assume the normal to heroic jump in any given tier will be 16.  This leaves me with the following numbers for tier 14 (and 15!):

??	Normal	Heroic
Tier 14	564	580
Tier 15	586	602

So, there you have it.  Tier 14 will have an item level of 564 in normal mode, and 580 in heroic mode. You heard it hear first.  Unless this is completely wrong, in which case, this has been brought to you by Boubouille of MMO-Champion.

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Tags: Baseless Speculation, Mists of Pandaria, Patch 5.0, Random Thoughts, Tier 14, Twitter Feed

Welcome to Chataclysm, our returning column focused on Cataclysm news and speculation.  The expansion has been out for months now, but this punny column title didn’t get enough time in the sun back in the day, so it’s coming out of retirement.  Look here for discussion about future patches and events.

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I accurately predicted the release of patch 3.3, and even more impressively, totally called the Cataclysm release date 3 months early.  I’m pretty good at detecting these things, I guess.  So, why not put my wildly speculative nature to the test?  I’m sure there’s actually a valid answer to that question, but I can’t think of it, so let’s get started!

While trying to answer a question about item level today, I found myself charting out the numbers all the way from Tier 1 to Tier 12.  In the course of this, I noticed enough patterns, that I’ve decided to go on the record here with my guess on the item level of Tier 15 gear.  (Note:  Most of this is mathy bullcrap.  Feel free to scroll down if you just want to skip that and go straight to telling me I’m wrong about my conclusion.)

I started out by charting the item levels of all the previous and current tier sets.  I ended up with something like this:

Classic
Tier 1	66
Tier 2	76
Tier 3	86-92
BC
Tier 4	120
Tier 5	133
Tier 6	146-154
Wrath	10 Normal	10H/25N	25 Heroic
Tier 7	200	213	n/a
Tier 8	219	226	239
Tier 9	232	245	258
Tier 10	251	264	277
Cata	Normal	Heroic
Tier 11	359	372
Tier 12	378	391

Tier inflation (not to be confused with tire inflation)

The first thing I had to figure out was what kind of inflation exists within each tier.  Looking at the numbers, I could see that classic tiers went through 10 item levels of inflation, wheras Burning Crusade sets increased by 13 each time.  So far in Wrath and Cataclysm, we’ve seen increases of 19 from each tier to the next, with the one notable exception being the transition from Ulduar to Trial of the Crusader, which was only 13.

I’m going to guess Cataclysm’s raids will continue to have 19 iLevels between tiers — and quite honestly, wonder if Wrath’s gear may have been a little more balanced at 16-levels per tier — so I will assume that the following expansion will have gaps of 22.

How many patches?

The next step was figuring out how many raid tiers will exist in Cataclysm.  This one’s tough, since they keep suggesting they’d like to continue making smaller content patches more often.  Call me cynical, but I have a feeling that while Firelands is going to be awesome, the populous is going to be begging for more bosses per tier, which will encourage Blizzard to return to multiple small raids, or even one big Ulduar/ICC-sized raid for subsequent patches.

Assuming this, I’ll just go ahead and say there will be 4 tiers total in Cataclysm.  This, plus the previous guesses about tier inflation, allow me to expand my chart to this:

Cata	Normal	Heroic
Tier 11	359	372
Tier 12	378	391
Tier 13	397	410
Tier 14	416	429
??	Normal	Heroic
Tier 15	X
Tier 16	X+22

Which leaves only the final piece to figure out…the amount of inflation between the last raid of Cataclysm and the first raid of the following expansion.

Here’s where I really start pulling things out of my ass…

This is probably a meaningless find — and not the result of any actual rule by Blizzard — but I did find a pattern that I could use to estimate the inflation that will take place from tier 14 to 15.

The best tier gear from the classic game was iLevel 92.  The first tier from BC was 120, a jump of 28 levels.

The best tier gear from BC was iLevel 154.  The first tier from Wrath was 200, a jump of 46 levels.

The best tier gear from Wrath was iLevel 277.  The first tier from Cataclysm was 359, a jump of 82 levels.

28…46…82.  Where am I going with this?  Observe:

• (28*2) – 10 = 46
• (46*2) – 10 = 82
• (82*2) – 10 = 154

If there’s more to the pattern than sheer coincidence — and me seeing what I want to see — then it would put the first tier of the next expansion 154 item levels above Cataclysm’s heroic tier 14.  Since I’m using a tier inflation of 22, I’ll assume the normal to heroic jump in any given tier will be 16.  This leaves me with the following numbers for tier 15 (and 16!):

??	Normal	Heroic
Tier 15	583	599
Tier 16	605	621

So, there you have it.  Tier 15 will have an item level of 583 in normal mode, and 599 in heroic mode. You heard it hear first.  Unless this is completely wrong, in which case, this has been brought to you by Boubouille of MMO-Champion.

While I’m at it, I’ll provide you with a couple more wild speculations about tier 15:

• Paladins and Hunters will complain about data-mined lackluster set bonuses.
• Shamans and Druids will have the worst looking sets.
• Rogues will complain that their set isn’t “stealthy-looking” enough.
• Shoulder and head pieces will continue to be purchased with tokens to keep them rare, because I think Blizzard likes that model.
• My raid will see those shoulders and heads when we farm for them after tier 16 releases.
• Those shoulders will be fairly small…a nice reprieve from the giant shoulder pieces of Tier 14’s Deathwing raid.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a psychic hotline to answer.  I’ll see you next time with more completely baseless theories.  Peace.

2 comments

Tags: Baseless Speculation, Patch 5.0, Random Thoughts, Twitter Feed

Patch 4.0.1 arrives tomorrow, which means it’s time for an official post here on the guild blog about exactly how it affects you, our valued guildies.  Here it is, in lazy bullet-point format.

• Raid lockouts: This one is super important.  In Cataclysm, you will not be able to run raids in both 10-man and 25-man versions each week.  In order to start beating this into our heads, Blizzard has decided to retroactively institute this new lockout system for Icecrown Citadel.  If you forget about this change and pug an ICC 25-man before next Saturday, you will be unable to come along with your guildies to the planned 10-man run.  And you love your guildies, don’t you?
• Justice Points: This is the second most important change because it requires you to make some decisions right this moment!  Both Emblems of Frost and Emblems of Triumph will be converting to the wave of the future, Justice Points.  The good news is that they are both converting at the exact same rate, so if you currently have a crapload of Emblems of Triumph, then tomorrows change will convert them as if they had been Emblems of Frost.  Folks who still have T10 level gear to purchase may find themselves with enough points to get quite a few pieces if they’ve been diligently saving those seemingly useless badges.  The bad news?  Heirlooms are getting their prices jacked up because Blizzard wants them to reflect the amount of JP we’ll be earning at level 85.  If you were planning on buying any heirlooms any time soon…do it today.
• Guild UI: An awesome change.  We won’t have guild advancement or reputation yet, but we get some nice updates to the guild interface.  One of the greatest new panes is one which allows you to see exactly which level all of our crafters are in their respective professions.  Even better?  You can see their recipe books directly from the Guild UI.  No longer will we have to wonder if we should buy that expensive gem on the auction house or harass all the guildies trying to find someone who can cut it.
• Glyphs: Glyphs are changing.  No longer a one-time use consumable, glyphs are now learned forever.  Also, we’ll have three levels of glyphs…Prime, Major and Minor.  Remember that guild UI I mentioned a minute ago?  Go on.  I’ll give you a moment to reread it.  Done?  Good.  So, be sure to stalk your guildies’ profession books before paying ridiculous markup on the auction house for all those new glyphs you’ll want.  Personally, I have quite a lot of glyphs already on Deathbank, so I’ll be happy to hand them out like candy.
• Class changes: The obvious big change is basically…everything.  Forget what you knew about your class, because tomorrow morning, your character will have done the same.  It’s going to take more relearning for some classes than it will for others, but we’ll all be in the same boat together.  Running dungeons is going to take on a different feel fairly instantly.  It may not sink in completely until we’re getting our asses handed to us in Cataclysm heroics, but even in Wrath dungeons it should become obvious that the developers want threat management to really mean something (for both tanks and DPS).
• Reforging/Mastery: The new Reforging NPCs will be able to take less desirable secondary stats off of your gear in exchange for stats you actually want!  Initially, this may mean putting a hefty amount of mastery onto your gear (depending on how useful your mastery bonus is).  It will also be ideal for balancing just the right amount of hit.
• World Events: Without spoiling anything, patch 4.0.1 will usher in a series of events in the form of a fun little questline and a cool event that culminates in the ability to queue for 4 different bosses that drop level 251 gear.
• Water/Sunshafts: The new water is implemented in patch 4.0.1 and it looks terrific.  I can’t honestly say I liked it when I first saw it, but it grew on me quickly.  Now, I can’t see the old water without pining for those wonderful new effects.  Sunshafts are a slightly less noticeable effect, but they definitely add some ambiance.  Next time you’re flying around, just swing your camera around to place the sun behind you.  You’ll be glad you did.

1 comment

Tags: Patch 4.0.1, Strategy, Upcoming

You know what a blog title with 3 question marks means.  It’s time for rampant speculation on my part.  Just face it…now you’re thinking to yourself, “Gee, I don’t know!  Will they return???”

Well, wonder no more, because I’m going to go ahead and call it now.  Yes, I’m sticking my neck out there and posting about the future as if I have concrete information when I really don’t.  The short answer is:  Yes…in spades.

The long answer is this:

Currently, if you look on Wowhead’s Cataclysm database, you can find a variety of un-categorized spells related to the current championing tabards:

• Argent Champion
• Champion of the Kirin Tor
• Ebon Champion
• Wyrmrest Champion

Recently the database added very similar spells for every one of the announced Cataclysm reputations outside of the Tol Barad factions:

• Champion of the Earthen Ring
• Champion of the Wildhammer Clan (I couldn’t find one for the Horde equivalent Dragonmaw Clan, yet)
• Champion of Therazane
• Guardians of Hyjal Champion
• Ramkahen Champion

The wording and icons for these items makes it pretty clear that these will work very similarly to the current championing tabards.  The only difference seems to be that, in Cataclysm, championing will be restricted to Heroic dungeons only as opposed to simply all level 85 dungeons.  So, sorry folks, but the normal versions of Lost City of Tol’vir, Grim Batol and the Halls of Origination will not provide rep.

Now, I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking, “Hey stupid.  You forgot about the Worgen and Goblin reputations, stupid.  You’re stupid.”  First off, stop being so mean to me.  Secondly, shows what you know, because I was just saving that part for last.

That’s right.  In addition to tabards for the new level 80-85 factions, it appears that there will also be tabards to increase reputations for all the main races, including the new Gilneas and Bilgewater Cartel factions.  Here are all the championing spells currently in there:

• Bilgewater Champion
• Darkspear Champion
• Darnassus Champion
• Exodar Champion
• Gilneas Champion
• Gnomeregan Champion
• Ironforge Champion
• Orgrimmar Champion
• Silvermoon Champion
• Stormwind Champion

I wasn’t able to find spells related to Thunder Bluff or Undercity, but I’m sure they’re coming.  These tabards look like they will work even differently than the other types.  With an item level of 1 and no reputation requirements listed, it appears that even lowbies leveling through the dungeon finder will be able to pick up some extra rep during their grind without having to track down all the right quests to do.  This may be a godsend for Draenei characters who want to ditch their Elekks as soon as possible.  I’m even going to venture a guess that these can be worn in any dungeon in the game, meaning that even max level characters will be able to gain Gilneas rep while doing the new dungeons.

The only strange part about these particular tabards is that their reputation effect is included in a “Use:” text instead of an “Equip:” text, meaning they may provide the spells when worn and then used, instead of simply whenever worn.

So, there you have it.  Breaking, exclusive Cataclysm news speculation from the official blog of The Censored Linguists.  Now will you fuckers finally have a reason to read this thing every now and then?

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Edit:  It occurs to me that I didn’t explain how I knew that there was no reputation requirement for purchasing the old-world championing tabards, nor did I explain where I saw the Use:/Equip: differences.  That information comes from items in the MMO-Champion database, which is probably a little more complete than Wowhead right now.  I didn’t use those, though, because I don’t have fancy mouseover scripts installed for MMO-Champion…but here are some links to some of the actual tabards, instead of just spells, so you can see the details:

• Tabard of the Earthen Ring
• Gineas Champion’s Tabard

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Tags: Breaking News, Cataclysm, Exclusive, Reputation, Upcoming

Some of the upcoming guild achievements have finally made their way into Cataclysm’s beta files.  There’s not a whole lot there yet, but it’s certainly enough to let us know what to expect from the system:

• Guild Level 5 – Reach guild level 5.
• It All Adds Up – Spend at least 1,000,000 gold on guildmember repairs.
• Time To Open A Savings Account – Loot 1,000,000 gold from creatures as a guild.
• Guild Vault (wip) – Purchased all 8 guild bank tabs.
• Complete 50,000 quests as a guild.
• We are Legendary – Obtain the following legendary weapons.*
  • Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros
  • Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker
  • Warglaives of Azzinoth
  • Thori’dal, the Stars’ Fury
  • Val’anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings
  • Shadowmourne

• Guild Classic Dungeonmaster – Complete the classic dungeon achievements listed below in a guild group.
• Guild Deadmines – Complete the Deadmines in a guild group.
• Working as a Team – Obtain 525 skill points in all professions and secondary professions.

Some of them are pretty bland.  Reach guild level X, compete X amount of quests, loot X amount of gold…all achievements you’d expect to see, but boring and passively earned, nonetheless.

Others are a little more interesting in that they show the range of our membership as a whole.  Working as a Team will be completed when at least one person has maxed out each profession.  I’m guessing we’ll see similar achievements for having a level 85 of each class or even race.

I’m mostly excited about achievements that ask us to get together as a guild and do things we might not normally do together, though.  Running around the world chaining vanilla dungeons as a guild sounds like an absolute blast.  Farming Black Temple for Warglaives or ICC for Shadowfrost Shards will make for great old-school raid nights.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see a guild For The Alliance! making an appearance soon, too.  In fact, I’d probably be more surprised if it didn’t.

How about you, guild?  Any achievements you’d be interested in seeing in guild form?

*It should be noted that I believe We are Legendary will be a guild Feat of Strength as opposed to a guild Achievement.

2 comments

Tags: Achievements, Cataclysm

Aw, crap…I spilled irony all over my blog title…

Anyway, it’s been reported that once Cataclysm arrives, we’ll be required to physically discover each instance before we can access them via the Dungeon Finder tool.  Honestly, it’s actually a pretty good idea that will eliminate some of the problems caused when people who have never actually seen an instance portal end up wiping.

It’s not like you can blame them.  Hell, even though I’ve been there plenty of times, I still get lost trying to find Maraudon (or spell it).  Maybe we can just convince all those spirits hanging around Auchindoun to build some large arrow-shaped spectral signs near all the instance portals?  That’s right…get a job you lazy bastards!

I’d venture a guess that unlocking all the instances will be a requirement for using the random heroic feature.  I doubt they’ll want people farming Cataclysm’s versions of Champion’s Seals or Blue Proto-Drakes by simply failing to “discover” any instances that don’t contain these types of items.

In the same announcement it was mentioned that attunements for raids and heroic dungeons may be making a comeback.  Assuming they’ve learned from past mistakes, this is another change I can get behind.

Now, previous attunements involving overly long rep grinds (Burning Crusade dungeons originally required revered reputation before the heroic keys could be purchased) must be done away with.  I’m alright with the concept of a reputation based attunement, but I don’t think they should expect anything past friendly.

A Magisters’ Terrace type of attunement might be the best approach, though.  A short quest chain culminating in an item drop from the non-heroic last boss allows them to infuse some additional lore into each dungeon while ensuring that professional rep grinders like myself do the normal dungeon instead of unlocking the heroic difficulty by turning in Arakkoa Feathers or some other such item.

Quest chains for unlocking raids are a different story.  By nature, they should be somewhat long and epic to allow our first forays into each raid to feel like an awesome earned experience.  However, they should be largely soloable (or puggable) and entertaining.  The original UBRS attunement comes to mind as an example of a horridly un-fun quest.

Any more difficult attunements should only need to be done by one person in the raid.  A great example of this is the Eye of Eternity key, where simply getting past the penultimate boss in Naxx granted your guild access to the next half-tier of raiding.  Requiring guilds to run previous raids over and over again just to get each and every new raider attuned, on the other hand, is a perfect example of what not to do.

Overall, these sound like they will be nice changes that will positively affect and showcase both lore and exploration…as long as Blizzard doesn’t fuck it up somehow.  Blizzard’s real skill, however, is knowing how to enhance the best parts of something, while minimizing the crappy parts, so I have faith they’ll pull it off.

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Tags: Attunements, Cataclysm, LFG Tool, Raiding

Welcome to Chataclysm, our new column focused on Cataclysm news and speculation.  How will things change for the guild in the post-apocalyptic era of the coming expansion?  Let’s figure it out together.  Now, everybody get in the circle.  I’ve got the speaking stick this time, so keep it down, kids.

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The big news this week comes in the form of proposed changes to raiding that Blizzard recently announced.  To sum up the two big controversy starters:

• The 25-man versions of raids will no longer drop higher quality loot than their respective 10-man versions.  The 25-man raids will likely drop a larger quantity of loot per person, though.
• All versions of a raid will share the same lockout.  This means that doing the 10-man version of Blackwing Descent will lock you out of the 25-man version until the reset.

My verdict on these changes?  Loot tables:  Exciting.  Lockouts:  Dubious.

Giving 10 and 25-man raids the same loot tables is a wonderful change for small, growing guilds like ours.  It will allow us to choose our raid size based on what we enjoy the most and what our roster will allow, instead of feeling compelled to simply run the version that gives a gear advantage.  It’s exciting to know that we won’t be left out on fully upgraded tier pieces if we end up focusing on 10-man raiding.

It also alleviates that trend of guilds using 25-man gear to plow through 10-man content, which in turn will help legitimize the achievements of 10-man raiding teams everywhere.

I’m far less enthused about the proposed combination of lockouts for 10 and 25-man raids*.  While I think it makes perfect sense for heroic modes to be toggled on a “per boss” basis (4 separate lockouts really was a bit much), I’m saddened at the prospect of having to skip a 25-man pug in order to save my raid ID for a planned 10-man guild run or vice versa.

Taking away these kinds of raiding options also limits our ability to meet more players in pug raids.  Another unfortunate side effect of this plan, therefore, is that it will make recruiting even harder than it already is in these days of wordless cross-server random heroics.

If I had to bet on the likelihood that this plan will make it through beta intact, I’d wager that the loot tables will be seen as a good idea while the one-size-fits-all lockout will be scrapped rather quickly.  Hopefully that’s not just wishful thinking on my part.

What say you, guild?

*To me — and this is rampant conspiracy theorizing on my part — the lockout plan sounds a lot like the removal of super-sizing from the McDonald’s menu.  It almost seems like Blizzard is caving in to “game addiction researchers” and accepting the philosophy that companies should remove elements of choice in order to protect the consumers from themselves.  As a firm believer in personal responsibility, this completely unfounded allegation outrages me!

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Tags: /cheer, /cry, Cataclysm, LFG Tool, Raiding, Recruitment, Upcoming