WRUP: Those damnable hats
by Fox Van Allen 
Apr 30th 2011 at 1:00PM
Hats! Fun, frilly hats! What a great week for colorful, whimsical, frilly hats! Not since the show Blossom went off the air have I seen so many hats in so many various shapes and sizes!
If you've been following the news this week, well then ... you know all about fun, frilly hats. You know who was wearing them and when. You have well-formed opinions on whose hat was the frilliest. And, of course, you're all too aware of what a terrible show of disrespect it is to not wear a fun, frilly hat. Hats!
What's that you say? Hats are boring and uninteresting? Well, I guess there was other news this week. Like Patch 4.1, some major content release for that World of Warcraft game. Something about trolls and a re-release of Zul'Aman and a Zul'Gurub as 5-man heroics.
In honor of the occasion, I thought it appropriate to tack on a bonus question to this week's WRUP: "What are your thoughts on the new five-mans, Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman?"
Adam Holisky (@AdamHolisky) DPS queue times are down, way down, so I'm going to take advantage of this and finish up leveling my huntard and get some sweet heroic gear relatively fast. On my druid main, healing the new heroics has been fun and honestly not too much of a challenge. There've been points where it's been a little nuts, but nothing that more general familiarity with the encounters won't solve.
Alex Ziebart (@AlexZiebart) As of writing this (Friday afternoon), we're not sure if we'll be seeing the PTR this weekend. If we do, I'll most likely be dedicating my entire weekend to exploring the new patch 4.2 content. If we don't see it, I'll probably be putting some more work into my Nitpixels side project or the bit of fiction I've been working on. Alternatively, if Mike Sacco stops being lazy, I may try to sucker him into some Portal 2 co-op, but come on. Mike Sacco? Not being lazy? Never gonna happen.
Allison Robert (@AllisonRobert) More work on the low-level TankWatch project for me. Regrettably, I have not yet seen any surge in the number of bear tanks queuing since patch 4.1 hit, but it's been less than a week and I'm still crossing my fingers. I really like the two "new" troll dungeons, but ZA feels a bit overtuned if you're doing it in blues. Then again, I've exclusively pugged the content, and we all know how that usually ends ...
Anne Stickney (@Shadesogrey) I'm going to be constructing ... things. And hopefully not injuring myself in the process. As far as the new dungeons go, I haven't had a chance to run either of them yet, so maybe I'll get a bit of that in this weekend as well -- I'm really looking forward to running Zul'Aman again. That dungeon was tied with Karazhan for my favorite back in The Burning Crusade!
Basil Berntsen (@OutDPS) Brian and I are going to be talking to the one and only BigRedKitty about his return to WoW this Saturday on the Hunting Party: 6:00 p.m. Eastern; be there or be square!
Dan O'Halloran Cub Scout Rocket Camp. Order & Chaos Online. Sleep. In no particular order.
Daniel Whitcomb (@danielwhitcomb) Going to be running a few dungeons to help my guild hit the challenge, I imagine. Also, more Zandalari dungeons. I may even PuG tanks some normal heroics just to see what's in those Call to Arms bags. As far as the new dungeons, I'm not feeling Zul'Gurub as much as I'd like. It's long, convoluted, and a lot of the bosses feel overly gimmicky. Zul'Aman is a lot more fun. The bosses remind me of the old 10-man but are still relatively unique, it feels like a cooler fighting alongside Vol'jin and having the option to still unhex people, and the race against the clock feels sort of fun. Trash is a bit more annoying in some spots, but I can deal. Overall though, this is the first time I have liked new troll content in a long time, so that's good.
Elizabeth Wachowski (@leeatwaterlives) Working, that's all. Maybe work on my Renegade Mass Effect playthrough a little more.
Fox Van Allen (@foxvanallen) Now that I have a kickass new job for a major consulting firm, weekends again have meaning for me! And just in time -- birds are singing, trees are flowering, and the weather is perfect. The world is beautiful right now. As for what I'll be playing ... well, lots of runs of the new ZA and ZG heroics. I haven't been able to try them yet -- my first attempts Tuesday were too bugged. Oh, and I'll be running them on my brand new second monitor. Thanks, new job!
Joe Perez (@Lodurzj) World of Warcraft of course this weekend, with my brand new baby gnome mage Otiluke. Maybe some more Portal 2 Co-op is in my future this weekend. Also my new Warhammer 40kbook was released, so I'll be reading that this weekend. Love ZA, not so much a fan of ZG. While I like the new tier of heroics, ZG is long, and not very PUG-friendly. That said, I love the troll content and it's a beautiful redesign, but I'll take ZA over ZG any day.
Josh Myers (@Elamqt) I will be waiting to send my WRUP in at the last possible minute just to mess with Fox. (Josh is a jerkstore. -- Fox) As for the rest of the weekend, in theory I will be writing. In practice, I will be getting distracted by the internet until 10:00 p.m. Sunday when I realize what time it is and complain about how I didn't have enough time to write anything over the weekend. As for the bonus question, haven't done them yet.
Kelly Aarons (@Cadistra) Going to finish Portal 2 (I play it in small morsels) and most likely either (a.) working on stuff or (b.) biking the Seawall. Depends on how the weather is. As for ZA/ZG -- haven't done them yet, but eager to. No way I'm going to PUG those things. Waiting until I can get a guild group. The quests leading up to ZG were awesome, though. Love those voiceovers!
Lisa Poisso (@emused) Kids are camping, husband at home monitoring a big weekend data run ... You do the math.
Mat'yu of the Brukkari (@gomatgo) This weekend I have to get ahead on the writing and spend some time gearing up the paladin for ZA and ZG runs. Very sad that I cannot jump right into them on my alt. However, the warrior is loving some troll-bashing fun. I love the new dungeons -- challenging, cool rewards, familiar yet not boring. Good times. If my friend finishes his super-awesome school paper, we're going to Portal 2 some. Fox, we decided this a couple days ago, but as part of WRUP, you have to give us all troll names. Sacco made up Maatikas of the Canadari for Matticus and Mat'yu of the Brukkari for me.
Matt Rossi (@MatthewWRossi) Cursing Zul'Gurub with all my heart and soul because it, too, refuses to give me a hat. I'm getting extremely jaded with the loot drops in this tier. No hat from raids, no hat from ZG, where is my hat?
Matt Walsh (@Rhidach) Sneaking in bouts of Minecraft where I can in between vast stretches of spring cleaning. As for ZA/ZG, I haven't had the time to run either yet, but I'm really looking forward to it. ZA was one of the highlights of The Burning Crusade for me.
Robin Torres (@cosmiclaurel) I'll be Hopping to Hard Boiled with It came from the Blog. I'll also continue leveling my prot pally. She can die but I have to be really, really not paying attention to have it happen. And I'll be playing Words with Friends (cosmiclaurel), alternating between looking totally brilliant and completely illiterate. As far as the new 5-mans, I won't be playing them any time soon, but I love the trailer and am now a big Vol'Jin fangirl.
The weekend is the perfect time to kick back, relax and enjoy some game time. Are you an achievement junkie? Can't get enough raiding? Rolling a new alt? Considering taking the leap into roleplaying? Whatever your favorite way to play World of Warcraft, let us know in the comments what you're playing this weekend!
Filed under: WoW Insider Business
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Amaxe Apr 30th 2011 1:30PM
With a female dwarf toon, I know all about the bunny ears.
I wonder if I should get a silver dragon on my nameplate considering how rare I am
Tim Apr 30th 2011 2:29PM
at Amaxe u can get a gold one, just download the addon Leatrix Plus at WowInterface.com. It will give u a gold dragon around your Avatar's headshot. I was wondering where mine came from. It's cool stuff. And if you don't want the dragon around your head, u can disable it when u /lg to change stuff to how u want it. Very nice add on.
Dreyja Apr 30th 2011 6:58PM
Yep, between this holiday and "love is in the air" I feel very loved! ;) I actually had a hordie risk swooping down on me in the middle of SW to put the ears on the other night. I guess it used to be easier back in Dalaran. :)
Amaxe Apr 30th 2011 7:27PM
Well on one occasion, when the Alliance had Tol Barad, there were Horde constantly riding in and targeting me while i did the quests
Comito Apr 30th 2011 1:34PM
This weekend is a surprising start, with my account being Locked due to suspicious activity, which I'm uncertain about whats going on at the moment! And Just waiting for recovery of my account for 6-12 hrs estimations :/
Not tried the new instance, as I'm currently at iLvl 343, and will once I reach iLvl 346 at my own pace :)
Viator Apr 30th 2011 1:35PM
Sheldon's girlfriend ftw!
Tirrimas Apr 30th 2011 2:30PM
I LOVE her as Amy Farrah Fowler. She's a genius with deadpan humor.
John Apr 30th 2011 9:04PM
Amy pointed out that between the two of us, our genetic material has the potential of producing the first in a line of intellectually superior benign overlords to guide humanity to a brighter tomorrow.
Mal Apr 30th 2011 3:33PM
I was expecting a Team Fortress 2 joke.
Drakkenfyre May 1st 2011 1:57PM
I was expecting TF2 as well.
Royal wedding? Eh. You want hats? Play TF2.
Jason Apr 30th 2011 3:55PM
Oh Blossom. How I lamented you when I was a child...
VioletArrows Apr 30th 2011 4:27PM
Fixing my boyfriend's overzealous building in Minecraft. He wanted a nice house. Fine, I get that. That's cool. He built it so that I couldn't put torches on the roof and somehow thought it would be a good idea to have a hallway leading straight down into the mine, so now crap spawns EVERYWHERE, and drops on my head when I walk out of the house or am trying to do my-
"That'sss a very nicccce garden you have there... SSSSSSSSSS"
"FFFFFFFFFF!!!!" *heart attack*
Don't know nothin' about no Gurub/Amans. The new non-raider content in 4.2 has me listening however. Keep talking, Blizzard...
Dave Apr 30th 2011 4:39PM
Anyone wanna tell Matt that the "upcoming" Mass Effect DLC came out a month ago?
Fox Van Allen Apr 30th 2011 8:40PM
Yeah, sorry about that. Matt didn't provide a WRUP for this week, so an old one got rerun by accident.
snuf42 Apr 30th 2011 6:48PM
I just finished both ZA and ZG over the past couple days as a restoration druid, so I'll offer my impressions.
ZA: The fights are very similar to the 10 man. The trash is as well. Having run the 10 man many, many times in BC I didn't find anything too difficult. If you don't know the trash that can easily lead to wipes, particularly with the stealth cat mobs (DPS don't run ahead of the tank!) and not killing the scouts before they hit the drums.
As for the fights, we didn't have too much trouble. We wiped on Akil'Zon once because we lost people to the electrical storm. The last boss took a couple tries as we weren't sure on the strategy with the forms we got (he transforms into two out of the four forms, random which ones you get I think).
Healing was a notch up from normal heroics but not overly difficult. Keep in mind I am in full 359 raid gear, so I would imagine this would be significantly more challenging in 346 blues.
ZG: Had a bit of a low DPS group for this one (two players under 10k). The trash in this instance can be brutal, particularly if players don't make intelligent use of the cauldrons. Just rushing in on some of these pulls without CC or a proper kill order can easily cause wipes.
The fights were really variable in difficulty. Some were a cake walk and others brutal. The toughest fight to heal for me was the Panther boss. I really don't know if I could have done it in heroic gear. The raid damage is severe at times and the tank damage is pretty brutal. Higher DPS would probably have helped a lot.
The final boss gave us a lot of problems. Executing the strategy proved difficult. We lost players to combination hits of body slam and a shadow crash multiple times. We also had trouble getting the little adds under control resulting in several wipes were I got killed from adds (they love the healer and hit for 17-30k per melee swing on me). Ultimately we had to swap out one lower DPS for that player's better geared main. Once we did that with higher DPS we were able to down it in a couple tries.
Both ZA and ZG have great instance design which IMO is far superior than the boring, hub or linear layouts of recent raids. Of course be prepared for people who don't know the instance to get lost. The new maps help a lot for getting around but we still had one person in ZG who could not figure out where to go and had to be escorted back from wipes. This can add to the time required to do the instances substantially.
They are long instances. ZG took us much longer do to more wipes and less initial understanding of the mechanics. The full clear took us four hours. I would imagine next time that will be more like two hours, but that's still a significant time investment for a heroic. They both felt to me more like mini-raids than heroics both in the higher difficulty and the length (large layouts, lots of trash, lots of places to die if you're not paying attention).
Overall I enjoyed ZA and ZG but would honestly not want to pug them at this time. Having an under-performing player is really going to hurt in here (as we saw in ZG). A few of the fights I would place as harder than the starting raid fights. Such as the end boss in ZG vs stuff like Magmaw, Halfus or Pit Lord Pinata. I can see a lot of pugs just not being able to finish the last bosses in the instances even if the earlier ones were easy to take down.
Overall, not a bad addition and a new challenge for 5 man players. Plus added bonus MAELSTROM FARMING. I do wish they'd done three troll heroics... heroic ZF anyone?
Dreyja Apr 30th 2011 7:01PM
There is much about this whole hub-ub in England that I don't understand or care to watch but I will NEVER - EVER understand the British inclination to pinning feathery abominations to their heads.
Now Blossom however, rocked those hats!
Kook Apr 30th 2011 7:38PM
Feathery head abominations are cool.
That is all.
Dreyja May 1st 2011 12:41PM
lol. ;)
Persephanie Apr 30th 2011 8:23PM
WRUP? This week my focus is souly on minecraft. I'll come back to WoW when i'm bored.
pdperif Apr 30th 2011 9:51PM
Love the Picture. She is so funny as Sheldon's girlfriend. It's great to have her back on TV.
And it's twice as funny since she is a real-life scientist. Dr. Bialik /cheer.