Posts with tag dungeon

Kun-Lai Summit is host to the Shado-pan Monastery. In Mists of Pandaria, you'll undoubtedly get a chance to experience and help rid the instance of Sha influence. Megan and I decided to check the place out and see what the deal is. We teamed up before when she carried me kindly tanked for me in the Stormstout Brewery. Like last time, I healed on my holy priest, Megan tanked on her druid, and we were accompanied with two hunters and an enhancement shaman. Your group needs to be at minimum level 87 in order to queue.

The video above is a little under 50 minutes long. We would've been able to move quicker if I hadn't been in combat all the time.

Yeesh. Even the Matticus needs a drink from time to time.

Gu Cloudstrike

Cloudstrike is the first boss your group will challenge. You'll run into Cloudstrike outside on a plateau just as you leave the first chamber. It's a three-phase encounter involving Cloudstrike and a flying serpent.

New loot frames! No more having to stare at your chat frames and scroll up and down to see which player won what item. Loot rolls are now condensed into a loot roll frame that appears in your screen. It lists the results of all the items that went up for grabs in the instance and who won them.

If you look at the screenshot above, you can see the roll numbers next to each player and what roll types were used. The player who won the item is listed at the top. You can expand or collapse the menu to see the list of players who rolled and what roll type they used, such as need or greed.

The only downside to this new feature is that I couldn't find a way to move the frame around. But hey, I'll take these new loot roll frames any day. What about you?

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It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!

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The Stormstout Brewery opened its doors for business last week. Megan and I, both avid brewery enthusiasts, decided to pay a visit. You can find the brewery entrance in the Valley of the Four Winds. As you adventure through the valley, you'll be assisting Chen Stormstout, and your adventures will take you inside the brewery, where you have to assist him in retaking and restoring the brewery to its former glory.

Our brewery testing composition consisted of myself healing (on a priest, naturally), Megan on her druid (the tank), a balance druid, and two mages. Our character levels were all over the place, from freshly transferred 85s to level 87s.

Ook-Ook

Not exactly Donkey Kong, but Ook-Ook is a giant banana-chucking monkey. Ook-Ook has a pretty fun mechanic that enables players to jump on top of barrels and direct where they go. He has a few friends that are busy. If the barrels make contact with you, you'll explode and take some damage (Brew Explosion). Don't worry -- it's not lethal. Ook-Ook Goes Bananas at 90%, 60%, and 30% intervals. He starts throwing some bananas around; they're harmless. His attack speed goes up, and he hits a touch harder. You'll see a wave of barrels coming in, so either dodge them or jump on them.

Blizzard recently released a blog from Dave "Fargo" Kosak that acted as a post-mortem for Cataclysm's quest design. Following on its heels is this entry from Scott "Daelo" Mercer, the lead encounter designer for World of Warcraft. In it, Scott talks successes (Dungeon Journal, Raid Finder) and failures (difficulty level of launch heroics) in the dungeons and raids portion of the game's third expansion and shares what he's looking forward to with the release of Mists of Pandaria. I'm definitely with him in anticipating challenge modes and PvE scenarios.

Read the full interview after the break.

So, crowd control. Contrary to the name, it isn't really a good way of controlling crowds; rather, it's a great way to control the size of the crowd of mobs mercilessly attacking your tank. Crowd control in this post means abilities that can be applied prior to a pull. We'll get to abilites like Psychic Scream, warriors' Intimidating Shout and Shadowfury a bit later, but they're not our primary concern right now. There are some situations, particularly in the Rise of the Zandalari dungeons where pre-pull CC isn't possible (such as the adds on the way to Nalorakk in Zul'Aman) where you'll need to CC on the fly, but this is rarely the case.

Not all classes have crowd control abilities of the type we're talking about here. Warriors and death knights have a few stuns, fears and Hungering Cold, all of which can be put to excellent use but aren't really crowd control in this sense as they can't be cast prior to the pull.

So which classes have these pre-pull crowd control abilities, and what are they?

After the round of interviews about Patch 4.3 last night, Blizzard has released a preview of the first in the upcoming linked, thematic Caverns of Time dungeons that we'll be exploring in our efforts to defeat Deathwing once and for all: End Time. It's a doozy.

Unlike previous CoT instances, this one sends the players into the future after Deathwing wins, to help Nozdormu find the reason he's blocked from accessing the past -- specifically, to the time before the Demon Soul was hidden by Malfurion. Along the way, you're forced to battle various former Horde and Alliance leaders, now reduced to echoes of their former sanity, and then the mysterious, malefic maestro of madness Murozond, an anomaly in the timestream not even Nozdormu can unravel.

Check out all the screenshots and get a preview of the experience at the official site, already. Not even a Volkswagen Beetle van full of heavily armed people could stop me now.

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Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Look at what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!

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Choose the adventures of Robin Torres as Roblinator the goblin shamanator, or join in with It came from the Blog on Zangarmarsh (US-PVE-H) every Wednesday at 1 p.m. EDT.

Yo. I don't got it; you don't want it. Actually, if you've seen how I've been dressing lately, it's more like: I got it and no one wants it. Let's see if I can fix my wardrobe eyesores in today's dungeonating. Join us by watching the stream above and choosing my adventures in the chat after the break.

Update: The stream is now over. Click on the image above to watch the replay of Sunken Temple and UBRS.

Choose the adventures of Robin Torres as Roblinator the goblin shamanator or join in with It came from the Blog on Zangarmarsh (US-PVE-H) every Wednesday at 1 p.m. EDT.

It's time to take our chances on the wheel of dungeons. Will we get a repeat or forge ahead into unRoblinatored territory? Join me and the awesome players who carry me while I chat by watching the stream above and participating in the chat after the break.

Update: The stream is now over. If you would like to watch us take on Sunken Temple and BRD, please click on the image above.

Choose the adventures of Robin Torres as Roblinator the goblin shamanator or join in with It came from the Blog on Zangarmarsh (US-PVE-H) every Wednesday at 1 p.m. EDT.

Today we are dungeonating again! Join Roblinator and probably Keleo Kelius, Darkrozee, and Prottal for some instancing fun. I'm healing this week -- but don't worry, there will still be rockets to the face! Watch the stream above, and participate in the chat after the break.

Update: The stream is now over. You can watch the video replay of Zul'Farrak by clicking on the image above.

Choose the adventures of Robin Torres as Roblinator the goblin shamanator, or join in with It came from the Blog on Zangarmarsh (US-PVE-H) every Monday at 1 p.m. EDT.

This week, Roblinator the shamanator will be dungeonating with her regular dungeonators. We'll random as usual, and it is doubtful we will have to queue. Join us by watching the stream above and participating in the chat after the break. Also, there's another poll, so please vote.

Update: The stream is now over. You can watch the video replay of Dire Maul by clicking the image above.

Choose the adventures of Robin Torres as Roblinator the goblin shamanator or join in with <It came from the Blog> on Zangarmarsh (US-PVE-H) every Monday at 1 p.m. EDT.

With today being a U.S. holiday, we may have fewer people than usual or more than ever -- who knows? I will be healing or DPSing, depending on what we need for a shorter queue -- if we need a queue at all. I'm hoping that it will be another guild run, however. Join us in game or by watching the stream above and participating in the chat after the break.

Update: The stream is now over. You may watch the replay of our trip through Scholomance by clicking on the image above.

Blizzard has just announced a premium cross-realm Dungeon Finder feature, allowing players from the same faction to invite Real ID friends from different servers into 5-man regular and heroic dungeons. The popularity of the Dungeon Finder is well-known at this point, and expounding on the feature has been in the cards according to Blizzard for some time now.

This new feature will be part of a premium package of WoW features requiring an extra fee to use. Blizzard says that only the person doing the invites and creating the cross-server party will need to have access to the premium feature for the system to work. Currently, there is no release date, and the service is being described as a complex one to develop. Blizzard is most likely getting out in front of the news sites and datamining sites now, since pieces of this new system will begin to hit the PTR soon and Blizzard doesn't want too much speculation.

I personally think that this system is really cool for players who have an already-established friends base on other servers but don't want to leave their current home or don't have the money to do so and pay for a premium server transfer. For instance, Sacco and I can finally run some dungeons together. You hear that, Sacco? It's dungeon time.

Premium services always receive some type of backlash in the WoW community, and this one will be no different, so for caution's sake, let's wait until pricing information is officially announced before we explode with indignation. This is, however, a feature that many players have been asking for and will be very popular.

Recognize the little guy in the top left corner? Yup, that's Crabby! He's back to help guide you and your party through the various encounters found in Azeroth. Who would have guessed a simple crustacean had so much to offer?

If you don't want to spoil yourself for any specific lore reasons, you may wish to avoid using the encounter journal until you at least get to the encounter itself. A recent patch 4.2 build had enabled it, and already I can see this being a huge asset to players who wish to dive into dungeons or raids.

The encounter journal effectively tells you three things:

• Loot drops
• Boss abilities
• Notable phases

Some of the journal entries also provide a little lore background into the areas you're invading. If you're a person like me who doesn't read quest text much and just hits "Next" on everything, you might sometimes wonder why you're going into some dark part of the world to take down some villain. At least now we have some idea as to why.

What the journal won't tell you is how to take down bosses. You get a full list of boss abilities and mechanics, but it's entirely up to the raid to determine what tactics should be used to respond to said boss abilities.

Warning: Partial encounter spoiler ahead.

Choose the adventures of Robin Torres as Roblinator the goblin shamanator or join in with It came from the Blog on Zangarmarsh (US-PvE-H).

This week, I'm dungeonating on the Roblinator, goblin shamanator. If you are in your very late 30s or early 40s on Zangarmarsh, please join me. I will heal or DPS according to what is necessary. If we have to queue, I'll be questing in EPL while we wait. Or you could watch the stream above and participate in the chat after the break.

Update: The stream is now over. You may watch the replay of our guild challenging run of Uldaman by clicking on the image above.