Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsPlayer reaction to the 5-man Trial
by Mike Schramm 
Aug 6th 2009 at 8:00PM
All right -- patch 3.2 has been out for a few days now, and I would say that most people who are interested have had a chance to go in and run the brand new 5-man instance. Of course it's not the only change in the patch (far from it), but it's the one I was most looking forward to, and unlike the raid instances, it's all in there and doable, ready for our judgment. So what did we think?I tried it yesterday, and my first impression was "underwhelmed." I definitely don't feel that way about 3.2 as a whole, but the instance itself seems less than impressive, a one-room fight with almost as many boring moments as there are exciting ones. The fights themselves are actually pretty commonplace for a Heroic -- the jousting fight is probably the least-liked among the playerbase (seriously, whoever really loves the jousting mechanic over at Blizzard needs to take a good long look in the mirror for some self reflection), while the best is of course the Argent Confessor, who summons a random figure from our "past memories" to fight. I got Illidan and Onyxia the first few times I ran the instance, but of course Hogger and Van Cleef and Heigan the Unclean also have a chance at making an appearance. I did like the fight, but I was kind of bummed the old memories didn't bring any of their abilities with them -- they all have the same three abilities to throw at the group.
As for the lore, I'm torn. On the one hand, I did like that Blizzard mixed it up a bit, and tried to get us a little more involved in what the NPCs are doing than just having us go off on our own and take down a dungeon. On the other hand, that intro will be even longer the 25th time I'm doing it, and I'm still not convinced that messing around with an Argent Tournament is worth our time. One person dies in the whole instance (spoiler: it's the Black Knight, and he dies three times), and so while it was cool seeing our names shouted and being cheered on by the crowd, I can't help but think that it's still all just fun and games. When do we get to put somebody's eye out?
Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Instances, Lore, Bosses, NPCs
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 8)
Gennifurfur Aug 6th 2009 8:22PM
I've had a lot of fun with it. I actually don't mind the jousting, and figure that since I'm good at it, I'm at least a little useful to have along on the run.
The intro thing is neat, but yeah, I've already seen it 3 times now. It will get old. I haven't had any gear drop for me yet though!
Luthielle Aug 6th 2009 8:31PM
I love it, personally ~ jousting of course is "meh," but with 5 people it's not like it's hard or anything, especially if you're used to doing the dailies. And while yes, the intro is on the long side, I think it's kinda cute and fun when all the NPCs are cheering for you; my guildies were getting a kick out of it and comparing who got the best intro in our vent server =)
The best part about this instance is that it's a quick and easy run, yet it has really nice gear... perfect for gearing up new 80s, which my guild has it's fair share of. Sure beats running them thru Naxx over and over again... I think that outweighs all the cons by far.
Kroof Aug 7th 2009 10:21PM
I absolutely love this instance.
Its not TOO easy, its rather fun and the bosses can dish out the damage.
The mounted fight, meh, but its not really that long either. I don't mind it too much, but I also shine brightly at mounted combat.
The best thing? Its short and sweet. You can knock it out in 15 minutes, and thats mostly waiting for the npc's to walk in.
The worst problem I have seen is the first fight once you dismount is often bugged.
My first time through my party was dismounted and laid out on the floor. You could take a few steps at the most before being squashed back onto the ground, interrupting casts and attacks. Oh and the npc's while dismounted, still had the damage and abilities as if they were.
Not fun to literally get trampled to death.
Second time everyone could run around like normal, but again the npc's still had their mount abilities and trampled us all.
Aedilhild Aug 6th 2009 8:45PM
The atmosphere's just right, the battles are enjoyable, and heroic is a challenge to heal — so the rewards are commensurate.
Oddly enough, since this is the first step to the expansion via Icecrown in 3.3, this patch has me practically looking at WotLK in hindsight already. Bittersweet.
StalkerofFlames Aug 7th 2009 12:56AM
Uhm Icecrown is in 3.4
Valt Aug 7th 2009 8:48AM
StalkerofFlames, oh you didnt hear? Theres 3 major content patches this expansion. Blizzard said so. 1 ulduar, 2 Crusade, 3 Icecrown
sprout_daddy Aug 6th 2009 8:46PM
It's certainly not hard, the loot is nice, and you don't have to run all over the place, so I should love it. But it's weak - it took virtually no imagination, has little interactivity, and it feels like a giant story sequence, with the ridiculously long introduction to a joust that then has none of the drama or interest of the introduction. I'm pretty sad about it - the whole argent tourney is a piece of poop - they could have done so much more with this whole thing, and it didn't happen.
zappo Aug 7th 2009 10:19AM
I'd say that now Blizz has unfortunately let me down with this patch because there isn't anything left except for Icecrown now. What am I referring to? You drag all these Scarlet Crusaders up to Icecrown, and then there's only a few dinky quests involving them. They had the chance to do a whole instance with them, but we got this sort of arena thing instead :/ I'd really love to see a lot of these lol-aoe everything, people deal with CC, patrols, and unruly RUNNERS again. Remember runners? Think Blizz sort of missed a great opportunity there.
Bloomindraal Aug 6th 2009 9:15PM
I was unimpressed to be honest, and that the first time on WoTLK I can say that. I enjoyed Naxx, but got bored quickly, love Ulduar and most of the regular dungeons.
It felt like it should have had at least 1 more boss, and maybe an end boss that didn't involved yet another dps race.
The rewards are great though. I got Champion seals on my mage who had never even discovered the Argent Tournament grounds, which I wasn't expecting. And my druid got a nice stack of Abyss Crystals as well and so off-set upgrades.
Like everyone else I'll keep running it though because of the rewards and lovely DE mats :)
TonyMcS Aug 6th 2009 8:54PM
If you can't joust, then I'm sure it's all a pain. However, if you learn to joust, you can stop complaining about it ;-) I joust without a problem up to 500ms latency with my latency normally at 350 (Australia is a long way from the server). If I can manage Mike, so can you. It's like learning to ride a bike, it always seems impossible until you learn how.
Sarakin Aug 6th 2009 9:59PM
no ones saying jousting is difficult. They just think it's lame.
personally I'm ok with jousting but the intro makes me annoyed.
swapping from jousting to fighting the champions is really tough unless i just haven't seen a trick for it yet.
Also does anyone else think thrall and the rest of them look really big up at the top there? not just tall cuz they're high up but like bloated?
Turall Aug 6th 2009 8:56PM
I happen to enjoy the jousting..
But then again I also have been doing real live medieval armored combat for near a decade...
BiggusGeekus Aug 6th 2009 8:58PM
You know what I hate about it being "easy"?
All the morons that somehow managed to get to a high arena ranking or advance far in raids that assume "easy fight" means the same thing as "you should play bad".
Out aggroing the tank after the horse dismount, no crowd control, not paying attention to the healer, not using AoE taunts, not healing the dps no matter how much health the tank has, looting epics while the fight is still going on, and pulling when everyone is low on mana. I have seen all of this in just a few short days.
And there is absolutely no talking to these morons. If they have better gear or more achievements, then that's all they need for an excuse to act like a spaz. Not that high end epics makes them stupid or anything. There have already been many representaives from the crowd of people that think that if a good player can handle an encounter in blue/green gear, then going up to that encounter in blue/green gear must make them a good player!
Sigh.
Oh well. At least the Confessor chick has a dang sexy voice.
BenMS Aug 6th 2009 10:28PM
The confessor chick does, indeed, have a damnably sexy voice.
Shoryu Aug 6th 2009 11:37PM
run with your guild then. thats what mine does.
Mickthathick Aug 7th 2009 8:51AM
I think this moronism has gone both ways.
Second day after 3.2 dropped, I pugged the heroic, I faced the summoner boss for the first time. Now, like a moron I kept dpsing her not realising that the I was supposed to be dpsing the murloc on the other side of the room :/
We wiped, the healer in his mainly Uldar gear proceeded to abuse me and say nasty things to me. I said steady on, first time on boss etc etc. No one else seemed to care except for this asshole, who btw was needing on everything for his 'offspec' gear.
Some words were said, I called him elitist scum, he laughed at me, and then proceeded to let the tank die on the FIRST phase of the Black Knight. I lulled, the other dps lulled, and as soon as we finished I added him to my ignore list.
Remember kids, pride comes before a fall.
Superthrust Aug 6th 2009 9:04PM
Just like i have been saying. This instance is worthless patchwise...maybe as an EXTRA instance included with ICC...but not a whole "major" patch on its own...Not many are finding this too fun. Bliz...why?
RuzGofDI Aug 6th 2009 9:05PM
I would love to have seen Illidan or Ony. I've run it daily so far, both heroic and non-heroic. So far, the Confessor has only shown up once. And she summoned Eck to fight us.
soatari Aug 7th 2009 11:49AM
I've run this about 8 times so far. 6 on regular.
So far I've seen her summon:
Onyxia, Illidan, Archimonde, Ingvar, Cyanigosa, and Gruul.
Dza Aug 6th 2009 9:08PM
while the heroic isn't hard from a strategy standpoint, it does require quick healing. i've ended up at about 3k heals per second over-all, double what the average heroic takes with equally geared people.