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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsSpeculation: The War of the Ancients' connection to Patch 4.1's legendary staff
by Mathew McCurley 
Feb 28th 2011 at 3:00PM
The War of the Ancients was the time when the Dragon Soul, and subsequently the Demon Soul, was forged by Neltharion (now Deathwing) and used as an ultimate weapon against the Burning Legion, the night elves, and the dragonflights all at once. The Dragon Soul held the power of the four flights and, potentially, the ability to hurt Deathwing himself. At the time of the War of the Ancients, Malygos, Ysera, and Nozdormu were all incredibly powerful aspects.
Three of the staff's stages mention two specific states -- the Arcane Orb and the Branch. Also, coincidentally, an item called the Timeless Eye has emerged from the datamined information. Each of these pieces relates in some way to Malygos, Ysera, and Nozdormu, respectively. The Arcane Orb is obviously tied to Malygos in some way (and, potentially, the new event at Coldarra featuring a new blue dragon), because he is the aspect of the arcane. The Branch, reminiscent of the world trees, could be linked to Ysera. The Timeless Eye is linked to Nozdormu, not only because of the time aspect, but his eyes are quite literally gemstones. In addition, the markings on the staff's base on the fabric are draconic runes, which could very easily be linked to the War of the Ancients and the greatest time of the dragons. These runes are also all over the Nexus.
All of these pieces lead to the potential conclusion that the new legendary staff is a combination of three of the four aspects' power that was also part of the Dragon/Demon Soul. Alexstrasza's influence could come from using the fire of the Red Dragonflight to forge the staff or potentially in some new piece that was stolen by Ragnaros or whatnot. Suffice to say, a lot of this speculation leads us to believe that War of the Ancients will be sooner than later, especially with this new information and speculation.
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Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
tikiman Feb 28th 2011 4:42PM
so basically what you're all saying is; all legendary weapons are crafted, except for the ones that aren't...
thanks?
(cutaia) Feb 28th 2011 5:07PM
"so basically what you're all saying is; all legendary weapons are crafted, except for the ones that aren't...
thanks?"
What they're saying is that crafted legendary weapons are the rule, while dropped legendaries are the exception.
You're welcome?
Herman Feb 28th 2011 5:38PM
except for Smourne, the melee legendaries (Tfury and Hand of Rag) have required lots of standard and semi standard crafting materials to be collected and used in their making. even Smourne required primordial saronite. for hand of rag all you needed to collect besides the stuff you could buy was an eye of sulfuras, and for T fury you needed the bindings.
atiesh required 40 random drops from bosses, and the head and the base from 2 end bosses, all of which are random and which you are unable to collect outside of a raid. the healy mace was the same thing, except you didn't need a head or base.
burntpizza Feb 28th 2011 3:26PM
Woot woot
Schwag Feb 28th 2011 3:29PM
Hey all!! First post! HUZZAH! I had a bit of a lore question regarding the connection between The War of the Ancients and The Battle for Mount Hyjal. Are the two one and the same? I've read the WotA trilogy and played quite a bit of Warcraft but for some reason my memory escapes me.
I recall Malfurion and Illidan using the Demon Soul to close the portal to the Twisting Nether, but I dont remember what happened to Archimonde. Was he just....sucked back into the portal? If so, what brought him back for Hyjal?
So many questions, so little time....Thanks guys!
Shoggoth Feb 28th 2011 3:33PM
Not the same thing.
The War of the Ancients happened thousands of years before the Battle for Mount Hyjal.
Task Feb 28th 2011 3:37PM
If this your first time posting here, grats.
If you are implying the other definition of first, you aren't first.
Good day.
Revynn Feb 28th 2011 3:41PM
Hyjal was the 3rd War, thousands of years after the War of the Ancients, and involved Horde/Alliance working together to stop Archimonde.
The War of the Ancients was Night Elves, Ancients and Dragons working together to stop Azshara and resulted in the destruction of Kalimdor.
Lugo Feb 28th 2011 3:45PM
They're two completely different, yet reminescent, events. War of the Ancients was the first invasion of the Burning Legion on Azeroth, 10 000 years ago.
The battle of mount Hyjal was the final battle of the Third War (Warcraft III), only 20 years or so agi, where the Burning Legion attempted to return to Azeroth yet again and destroy the World Tree.
pecan3.14 Feb 28th 2011 4:33PM
Nice fail, bro.
Nawaf Feb 28th 2011 4:33PM
Since Archimonde is a pretty big demon, he can't get to Azeroth just by falling from the sky. He has to be summoned.
Kel'Thuzad summoned Archimonde.
loop_not_defined Feb 28th 2011 3:42PM
So I was trying to think of a scenario in which Rhonin and Broxigar could be mind-controlled against each other, and realized it could only occur if War of the Ancients also had an open zone aspect to it for both Horde and Alliance. Then I thought, that would be silly, Humans fighting against other Humans.
Then it occurred to me that we'll all probably be Night Elves in War of the Ancients. Still. Too silly.
Pyromelter Feb 28th 2011 3:51PM
I'm just praying that there isn't another shard system. While I believe that there should be some group effort, there should be more of a focus on individual effort like in the Benediction quests. Shard systems are patently unfair - and while yes, i think legendaries should be legendary, I like the thunderfury model (with guaranteed drops on heroic modes) more than collecting insane amounts of shards over many months.
We all know people that have dozens of shards for shadowmourne or val'anyr who never completed it, who left the game and then the next person in line in your guild had to start from zero. I think the shard system puts too much of an onus on the guild or group, and not enough on the individual.
Require specific heroic bosses or victory conditions, similar to the plague, blood, and frost infusion quests of shadowmourne. Now that is good design - individual effort with group mechanics that you need to succeed in once, and doesn't require you to farm the same raid a billion times for that one person.
Deathknighty Feb 28th 2011 6:09PM
For a start, guild bound shards would probably help a lot.
Pyromelter Feb 28th 2011 8:16PM
I like the idea of guild bound materials.
I still don't like the idea of farming tons of shards. Shards frankly don't make any sense.
My idea is that there is a starter quest that any caster can do, and to complete that quest you need to kill a certain boss (on normal or heroic). Only one quest item will drop, however, similar to rotface/festergust bloods. That way, if you have 8 caster dps, you can prioritize your best caster, but it won't take 6 months for your 8th caster to get that starter quest item.
After that, the individual should have to grind for a primordial-saronite type material to make it uber expensive, possibly along with other crafting mats. Make that the beginning part of the staff, then require the player to obtain either power infusions or items to buff the staff, that would drop off of certain bosses. At this point, you can start making the drops 50% on normal and 100% on heroic.
The idea is that you need simply one item from each boss, as opposed to getting shards from the same boss over and over.
shadcroly Feb 28th 2011 4:26PM
Where are people seeing images of the new Legendary?
loop_not_defined Feb 28th 2011 5:34PM
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/859025-Datamining-the-legendary-staff
Sunaseni Feb 28th 2011 9:57PM
Obviously, we in the present go back in time and steal the legendary staff from ourselves from the future who came back in time to fix the timeline from being damaged by us in the past, who had received the legendary from us in the present when we previously went back to five minutes before we initially went back to the past in order to make the War of the Ancients raid easier.
It turns out to be pretty heavy for all versions of us involved.