Posts with tag chogall

The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

Spoilers for every single Cataclysm raid and zone to be found here.

On the whole, Cataclysm has revealed a great deal of lore for the Warcraft universe. We've been to all four of the elemental planes and destabilized two of them by destroying the elemental lords who were effectively the dictatorial forces of their respective elementals. As of this writing, only Therazane remains as undisputed master of her elemental plane. (Indeed, with the destruction of Deathwing, she's actually in a stronger place than she was.) We've seen the Twilight's Hammer cult rise to world-shaking prominence and played a role in setting them back by destroying Cho'gall. We've finally managed to balk them on the eve of their Old God masters' final triumph by destroying Deathwing just as he was about to unleash an even more destructive assault on Azeroth than his first.

The Dragon Aspects lost their immortality just after we discovered that there were actually safeguards in place to appoint new ones. We discovered the secret land of Uldum and its Titanic ruins, and we prevented the activation of the Halls of Origination at Deathwing's behest and discovered the connection between the Qiraji and Uldum. We also saw the war between the Alliance and Horde begin lurching toward a new phase. We discovered the fate of Gilneas and the Gilneans, saw tantalizing hints as to the development of the goblin people and their mysterious kajamite, and even more. It's been an eventful expansion in terms of what it established. For the next couple of weeks, I'm going to talk about where Cataclysm took us and what we discovered.

The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft.

They saved the people of Stormwind, and not only did it cost them their lives, but then their bodies were taken by the invaders and desecrated into Undead, used as unliving weapons possessed by Orc necrolytes. In life, these heroes fought the Orcs to a standstill and even drove them back at times. In death, their debased frames were the first death knights created by Gul'dan the warlock.

They earned heaven and were instead given hell. They were the Brotherhood of the Horse, the finest knights and warriors the Kingdom of Stormwind had to offer. Their greatest leader and last member died on Blackrock Mountain, and since his death, no one has raised their banner. They gave everything to save their world and received only a mockery of death in return.

Before this fate, however, they served their kingdom as its most elite -- the best soldiers it had, the most feared military force humanity could then muster, and they proved it time and again. During the First War, the Orcs learned fear when they heard their horses approach and died battling against their lances and greatswords. It was this prowess that made them the targets of Gul'dan's ire.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Protection specialist Matt Walsh spends most of his time receiving concussions for the benefit of 24 other people, obsessing over his hair (a blood elf racial!), and maintaining the tankadin-focused blog Righteous Defense.

Last we left off, Halfus was laid low and the Twin Dragons were plucked from the sky. Now we come to the exciting conclusion of my "Months Behind Raid Guides" in preparation for the opening of the Firelands in the coming weeks. Before you set foot in that sulfuric realm, you'll likely want to make sure you have the current content cleared to allow you a running start in pursuit of Ragnaros' legions.

To assist you with that, this guide will help you push aside the Ascendant Council and overthrow Cho'gall, the head(s) honcho -- polycephaly joke! -- of the Cult of Twilight. The Council in particular is one of the most chaotic fights of tier 11 and will definitely prove a challenge to your raid the first time you hit it. There's a lot going on here, and the best tool you can arm yourself with is knowledge of everything this pseudo-Captain Planet will be throwing at you. And of course, Cho'gall will be a handful, as he throws varying kinds of damage your way. Steel yourself for the incoming torrent of elemental and corrupted damage.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for discipline and holy priests, while her archenemy Fox Van Allen is busy looking in the mirror instead of playing a proper spec. Dawn also writes for LearnToRaid.com, produces the Circle of Healing Podcast.

In previous weeks, Spiritual Guidance has tackled how to heal the various raid encounters in tier 11. This week, we're going to revisit each boss on heroic difficulty. Once more, I'll be examining which spec is better equipped to handle the fight while also examining the differences in the new encounter and how to deal with them. We have a lot to talk about, so let's get started.

First, I want to point out that a major difference between any heroic and normal mode encounter is that abilities in heroic do an increased amount of damage. In order to avoid being redundant, please keep in mind that when I point out the differences between modes that the need for more healing will be assumed. If the increased damage significantly impacts the strategy of the fight, however, I will explain how.

Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. Catch his weekly podcast on healing, raiding and leading on the Matticast.

4.1's out! I've been busy killing trolls in Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub, grabbing healing loot for my alts. I wasn't able to get a chance to explore the new healing synergies with all the new healer abilities and Rallying Cry. Warriors have that new ability which temporarily grants 20% maximum health to members in your party or raid for 10 seconds before the health fades away.

Like it or not, warriors are now a part of the arsenal that healing leaders have.

Also, a nifty trick includes combining both Rallying Cry and Last Stand that leads to mega-health for your tank. Doing this requires two warriors. From what I can see, Rallying Cry needs to be used first, before Last Stand, to maximize benefits. Get your tanking warrior to use Enraged Regeneration, and that'll just about outheal anything most healers can do.

Get used to adding Rallying Cry to your skills. Warriors, please remind your leaders that you have it available. Now, on what fights would your warriors be doing their whole yelling thing? I've got several in mind.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat , bear , restoration and balance druids. Welcome to our weekly feral cat edition, brought to you by Chase Hasbrouck, aka Alaron of The Fluid Druid blog. Let the face clawing begin!

In the previous installments of our series on raiding strategies for feral cat druids (part 1 and part 2), we've looked at some of the easier bosses in this raid tier. This week, we'll finish up Nefarian's minions in Blackwing Descent and clear out Bastion of Twilight.

First up: Chimaeron in Blackwing Descent.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for discipline and holy priests, while her archenemy Fox Van Allen dabbles in shadow. Dawn also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast.

I've had this idea for a social experiment in my head for the past few weeks, where you lock five priests together in a room with nothing but Highland Spirits and force them to have a round table discussion about Lightwell. While I work on my hypothesis and proposal -- and find a way to bait Fox Van Allen into this possum trap -- you guys can finish reading up on the finer points of healing Cho'gall as a holy or discipline priest. Seeing as this is the last boss of The Bastion of Twilight, this will be the final installment of Spiritual Guidance's priest healing guides for this tier.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome.

As we delve deeper into the Bastion of Twilight, each boss is more powerful than the last. While Halfus Wymbreaker and the dragon twins aren't the easiest raid bosses by far, the Ascendant Council and Cho'gall are on another level of difficulty. They're not only more complicated, but simply more punishing as well. You're going to use your full spectrum of abilities on these fights.

The Ascendant Council encounter emphasizes the importance of good positioning and healing on the move, while Cho'gall will stress both your AoE and single-target healing throughout the fight. Holy paladins have several abilities that are uniquely suited to each encounter, and knowing how to use those spells will be crucial to healing effectively.

Human or orc... An orc would say that it's a human hand -- too slender to be really useful, not enough muscle to hold an ax or bash a skull in properly -- too pale, too weak, and too ugly. You see the parts of me that are orcish. My orcish superiors, and all other orcs, see the parts of me that are human. I am both, and neither, and considered an inferior being by both sides.
-- The Last Guardian

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

I have a horrible confession to make. Until late last week, I've been playing WoW with only 2 GB of RAM in my gaming PC. It didn't run well, but I managed to do everything with it, including the highest levels of raid content in Wrath of the Lich King. Sure, my FPS wasn't great, but I still managed to kick ass. Cataclysm ... no. Never. It was never going to happen. 2 GB is not nearly enough, especially if you run any mods. Let me tell you, fighting the Omnotron Defense System with 2 FPS is not a good time. So I've upgraded to 4 GB. It's much nicer.

As an added bonus, I can now actually keep a browser window open while I raid. I am standing over Magmaw's broken husk as I write this. Feels good, man. Feels good.

Zack asked:

Now that Sinestra is down, what is the "terrible secret" she was guarding? I can't find a link to it anywhere!

EU superguild <Paragon> has scored the world-first Sinestra kill, announced on Thursday. After being beaten to the punch on heroic Cho'gall by <For The Horde>, <Paragon> came back swinging by downing Sinestra after what appears to be a hectic, constantly-changing encounter hotfixed even between their attempts on the dragon. Sinestra is the hardmode-only boss who resides underneath Cho'gall in the Bastion of Twilight. After defeating Cho'gall on heroic mode, the Sinestra fight becomes available.

<Paragon> released a statement on their site about the encounter, describing their first impressions of the fight. Congratulations, <Paragon> -- now tell us what deep, dark secret Sinestra is hiding? I do want to know ...

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.

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Many people have been concerned or complaining about the time between each phase of the Cataclysm pre-events going on right now in Orgrimmar and Stormwind, and Blizzard has responded with some excellent news. Zarhym recently posted that the time between the start of phase 2 and phase 3 was shorter than the previous phases, and players can expect the time between phase 3 and phase 4 to be even shorter. According to my calculations, there is the potential to see phase 4 at the beginning of the week, probably Monday or Tuesday. We live in exciting times.

Re: Phase 3 of the Elemental Invasion

Quote:

I cant wait till the invasion starts, as right now the quests are over so fast that you get bored again in just a few mins : \

The time between the start of stage 2 and stage 3 was shorter. I can tell you the current plan is to make the time between stage 3 and 4 even shorter. ;)

source

There's been a huge splash of Cataclysm information released unto the wild in the last few days. Every since the beta hit the streets, we've seen information about warrior changes, hunters and even racial emotes. I guess I called it a splash. What I really meant is that there's been a flood of information everywhere. It seems like we can virtually see anything we'd possibly want to know about the expansion, right now.

But what we haven't seen yet is much information on raids. Our good friends over at MMO-Champion have some great information about 5-man instances, but their raid information is running a little behind so far. Of course, that's never kept us from drooling over new raid content before now, so let's not start bad habits. Let's take a look at what raid information we do have and spend a little time getting excited about the new expansion.

As part of the large Cataclysm information released tonight, we've gotten quite a bit more information on how raids will be changing. One exciting idea is "downshifting," namely, the ability to split a 25-man raid up into separate 10-mans. There won't be any sort of "upshifting" allowed, however. Simply put, if your 25-man fails to proceed due to numbers, it can break up into separate 10-mans with the same bosses defeated as the 25 was at the time of division, and if you later get those other players back, another 10-man can be created with the same conditions.

In addition, raid lockouts will be more forgiving; as long as you have killed the same bosses as the raid in question, you'll be able to join a raid in progress even if you've been in a different raid to the same instance during the lockout. Basically, you will not be able to kill the same boss twice during a lockout, but you won't be totally cut off from raiding with others simply because you were in a different raid lockout earlier that fell apart, as one example.